Heuristic learning and the discovery of specialization and exchange

I develop and calibrate an agent-based model of boundedly rational, adaptive agents in a two-good production and exchange economy to replicate human-subject outcomes in the same eight-person experimental economy. To test agents’ ability to capture human behavior, I extend the model and use its output to make predictions about a second experimental environment in which the group of eight agents is slowly constructed by merging smaller groups. This environment improves human-subject performance in the specialization and exchange task, and commensurate improvement emerges for some parameterizations of the agent-based model. This iterative process yields incremental improvement of decision-level theories about economic discovery.     

Non-technical skills for managing risk and performance in financial trading

Recent large-scale failures in financial institutions have been found to be caused, in-part, by human factors-related issues in financial trading. In other environments where risk management and performance are intertwined, a human factors approach is often adopted to understand how the ‘non-technical skills (NTS)’ (leadership (LD), decision-making (DM), situation awareness (SA), teamwork) of organisational actors influence outcomes. Yet, to date, there has been minimal application of human factors research in financial trading. This study (i) identifies ‘real-world’ (i.e. non-laboratory) research studies investigating the NTS important for performance in financial trading, (ii) examines and synthesises data on the NTS found to underpin good or poor performance and (iii) considers the quality and coverage of research investigating NTS in financial trading, and identifies potential areas for future research. Nineteen studies were identified through a systematic literature search and then content-analysed for associations between NTS and performance in financial trading. The review found a range of decision-making (e.g. heuristics and biases, intuitive DM, emotional regulation) and LD skills (e.g. setting standards, monitoring behaviour, encouraging speaking-up) to have been identified as important for managing risk and performance in financial trading environments. Furthermore, SA (e.g. information search and assessment strategies, vigilance, identifying ‘noise’ data) and teamwork (e.g. avoiding ‘role’ conflict, communication between traders) were found to be important, yet remain less explored within the literature, and should be the focus of future research. NTS appear essential for effective risk management within the financial sector, yet further field research is required to examine the context-relevant behaviours that underpin safe activity. This will facilitate the development of evidence-based systems for assessing and training NTS competencies.     

Beyond Dutch disease

How does the deterioration of rule of law in Russia in recent years affect its ability to move away from an export pattern dominated by natural resources? We investigate this question using three datasets for Russia's bilateral trade relations for goods, services and investment at disaggregated level with its partner countries over the world. Our empirical analysis shows that the deterioration of the rule of law in Russia since 2003 has affected the long‐run trade performance of Russia in sophisticated and technology‐intensive manufactured goods, as well as its inward investments with advanced economies. It is precisely this type of trade that Russia should nurture to diversify away from hydrocarbons export dependence. Our statistical analysis also shows that Russia remains to a large extent an outlier within the multilateral trading system. It exports disproportionately less to partner countries which are or had become members of the WTO over our period of analysis. Russia's trade appears to have been negatively affected by the accession of these countries to the WTO. Russia itself finally acceded to the WTO in July 2012 amidst signs of a modest improvement of its rule‐of‐law indicators.     

China Adopts EVA: An Essential Step in the Great Leap Forward*

At the start of 2010, the Central SASAC initiated a three‐year “Performance Assessment Policy” that has the potential to transform Chinese business practices. Since 2010, return on capital has been a major criterion in the performance evaluation and compensation of the senior managements of the 100 largest Chinese state‐owned enterprises. Although sales growth will still count for 60% of executive assessment, 40% will be determined by a simplified version of EVA, or Economic Value Added. The guiding principle behind the new policy is simple and straightforward: Executives of state‐owned enterprises are now being asked to manage capital more efficiently than they have in the past—and in much the same way that private enterprises are now expected to do. Observers might be inclined to downplay this change. The assessed cost for capital, at 5.5%, is well below the market's required rate of return. And SASAC may not allow the firms to close plants, make positions redundant, and lay off employees. Veteran managers may try to outlive the interest in EVA, expecting SASAC's new standards to be unenforced. But SASAC's leaders expect a few pioneering companies to take the framework farther than the guidelines demand. To the extent they succeed in creating value for their shareholders, these companies could help bring about important change at many other Chinese companies.     

Your Governance or Mine?

In response to criticism directed at the resource sector's corporate governance, this paper examines the corporate governance and underlying firm characteristics of resource development stage entities (DSEs) relative to a size‐matched sample of non‐resource firms. We find that resource DSEs have different governance characteristics in the measures of board independence, chair/CEO duality and CEO cash bonuses. Furthermore, there are differences in the information environment measures of analyst following, debt levels, stock market return and stock turnover. Considering we document substantial differences in underlying firm characteristics, corporate governance differences are likely appropriate to the mining industry and should not be uniformly labelled as ‘bad’. Our results suggest that media rankings based on corporate governance scores may not accurately portray the resource sector. Overall, our results are of interest to Australian investors and regulators and contribute to a broader understanding of contextually contingent corporate governance.