Small Firm Growth: Intentions, Implementation and Impediments

Recent evidence suggests that many small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK experience difficulty growing from the start-up phase into larger well established firms. This research uses survey data from UK instruments, printing and software SMEs to explore the attitudes of SME managers towards growth, to identify the strategies they pursue to achieve growth, and to establish the main factors they perceive to be limiting their growth. We find that although most managers profess to value growth and follow expansionary strategies, the main limits on the growth of SMEs are the intensity of competition stemming from the recession, and the inability or unwillingness of management to deal with the increased administrative burden arising from expansion.     

Two Dimensions of Convergence: National and International Wage Adjustment Effects of Cross-border Outsourcing in Europe

The paper proposes a distinction between the two dimensions of convergence—within and between countries—when analyzing the impact of cross‐border outsourcing on real wage rates in the EU‐15 and the CEEC. In the CEEC, international outsourcing has not affected the adjustment of average real wage rates at the manufacturing industry level, but it has led to a closure of the gap within a typical EU economy. Between‐country convergence is likewise fostered by cross‐border outsourcing, supporting the hypothesis that outsourcing facilitates international factor price equalization.     

Uncertainty Associated with Future Environmental Costs and the Market's Differential Response to Earnings Information

This study examines whether the uncertainty arising from a firm's exposure to future environmental costs (environmental uncertainty) affects the market's price sensitivity to reported earnings. Specifically, when environmental uncertainty is significantly high, are investors more responsive to reported earnings released by 'high-polluting' firms than reported earnings announced by 'low-polluting' firms within the same industry? The initial impact of Title IV (the acid rain provisions) of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments (1990 CAAA) on the US electric utility industry provides the research setting required to isolate the effects of environmental uncertainty while addressing this question. Consistent with theoretical predictions, we find that the earnings response coefficients (ERCs) of high-polluting electric utilities are significantly greater than those of their low-polluting counterparts during a predicted period of elevated environmental uncertainty. In adjoining sample years associated with lower environmental uncertainty, we observe no statistical difference in the magnitude of the ERCs between these two groups. In addition, the study's findings suggest that the magnitude of the ERC is increasing in the firm's exposure to future environmental costs, after controlling for other factors that potentially affect ERCs.     

LIQUIDITY AND ASSET PRICING UNDER THE THREE‐MOMENT CAPM PARADIGM

We examine whether the use of the three‐moment capital asset pricing model can account for liquidity risk. We also make a comparative analysis of a four‐factor model based on Fama–French and Pástor–Stambaugh factors versus a model based solely on stock characteristics. Our findings suggest that neither of the models captures the liquidity premium nor do stock characteristics serve as proxies for liquidity. We also find that sensitivities of stock return to fluctuations in market liquidity do not subsume the effect of characteristic liquidity. Furthermore, our empirical findings are robust to differences in market microstructure or trading protocols between NYSE/AMEX and NASDAQ.     

Past Returns and Investment Trust Discounts

Abstract:   The relationship between past net asset value returns and the current discount on investment trusts is investigated. The relationship is weaker for the component that is common to all trusts in the same sector, and is significantly stronger for more liquid trusts. The time lag before returns have their full impact on discounts is consistent with the requirements of distinguishing 'skill' from noise. Although discounts vary widely even within the same sector, the range of variation appears to be consistent with an arbitrage equilibrium, in which the profits of exploiting apparent pricing anomalies are just insufficient to invite arbitrage trades.     

Family and sex-specific U.S. immigration from Europe, 1870–1910: A panel data study of rates and composition

This paper develops and estimates models of family and sex-specific emigration, as well as the sex composition of this emigration, from 12 European source countries to the U.S. for the period 1870–1910. The models are based on the distinction between economic migrants (males, single females, and some married females) and tied or trailing migrants (females) and are estimated with panel data, including data that relate to the occupational/industrial structure of male and female economic activity in source countries. Hausman-Taylor instrumental variable estimates suggest that although both males and females responded to labor-market signals, males were more responsive than females to per capita GDP differences. Moreover, compared to the rest of Europe, Ireland, and Scandinavia were the sources of many young, single male, and female migrants, who responded strongly to gaps in economic opportunities. In fact, much of the European response to such gaps appears to be due to migrants from Ireland and Scandinavia. Females tended to originate in English-speaking countries and countries that were agriculturally oriented. Service and manufacturing jobs in source countries discouraged the migration of females relative to males. Males tended to follow recent migrants more than females, but females responded more to long-term influences as measured by stocks of migrants from their source countries who had previously settled in the U.S. Countries with high birth rates had relatively fewer female emigrants, whereas those with high rates of natural increase 20 years earlier experienced relatively more male emigration. Intact families, other family members (including family-strategy male migrants and trailing female migrants), and single males and females responded strongly to economic incentives, but the singles were most responsive followed by family-strategy males.     

中国海外并购屡遭挫折

[英国路透社3月20日]中信证券与贝尔斯登的合作计划已经搁浅，这可能是中国海外并购活动的最新一次失败案例。     

The economic performance of the Russian economy in 2006 and a forecast for 2008–2010

This article examines the economic outcome of 2006 and builds a forecast for 2007–2010. The medium-term development risks of the Russian economy are analyzed.     

RESISTANCE TO CHANGE: A PSYCHOANALYTIC CRITIQUE OF ARGYRIS AND SCHON'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO ORGANIZATION THEORY AND INTERVENTION

The purpose of this essay is to examine psychoanalytically Argyris and Schon's contributions to organization theory and intervention. The author focuses his attention on the problem of individual and organizational resistance to change in the light of Argyris and Schon's cognitive psychological assumptions about learning, reasoning, and effectiveness.