Looking good by doing good: The antecedents and consequences of stakeholder attention to corporate disaster relief

Stakeholder theory suggests a relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate financial performance (CFP) because certain stakeholders reward certain types of CSR. This argument assumes that stakeholders attend to firms' CSR activities—an assumption that has yet to be examined. We fill this gap by extending stakeholder theory to the context of stakeholder attention to firm CSR and exploring the antecedents and consequences of stakeholder attention to corporate disaster relief CSR. We test the resulting hypotheses on a sample of public companies that engaged in natural disaster relief efforts, finding that stakeholder attention partially mediated the relationship between disaster relief and CFP and that stakeholder attention to corporate disaster relief was driven by the legitimacy, urgency, and enactment of disaster relief CSR initiatives. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Trade policy under firm-level heterogeneity in a small economy

We explore the effect of trade policy on productivity and welfare in the now standard model of firm-level heterogeneity and product differentiation with monopolistic competition. To obtain sharp results, we restrict attention to an economy that takes as given the price of imports and the demand schedules for its exports (a “small economy”). We first establish that welfare can be decomposed into four terms: productivity, terms of trade, variety and curvature, where the last is a term that captures heterogeneity across varieties. We then show how a consumption subsidy, an export tax, or an import tariff allows our small economy to deal with two distortions that we identify and thereby reach its first-best allocation. We also show that an export subsidy generates an increase in productivity, but given the negative joint effect on the other three terms (terms of trade, variety, and curvature), welfare falls. In contrast, an import tariff improves welfare in spite of the fact that productivity falls.     

The inside scoop: Acceptance and rejection at the journal of international economics

There is little work on the inner workings of journals. What factors seem to affect the ability to publish in a journal? Could simple rules (which are already used by some journals) like the desk rejection of a significant minority of papers, help to streamline the process? At what cost? How well do journals seem to do in choosing papers? What can we say about the extent of type 1 and type 2 errors? Do editors seem to have uniform standards or are some harsher than others? We use data on submissions to the Journal of International Economics to help answer these questions.     

Exemptions to the Children’s Sleepwear Flammability Standards: A Description of Policy Considerations and an Evaluation of the Effects on Burn Injuries to Children

In 1996, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) amended the children’s sleepwear flammability standards to exempt sleepwear sized for infants aged 9 months or younger and tight-fitting sleepwear for older children. These amendments were adopted after CPSC concluded that they would provide consumers a wider selection of children’s sleepwear without diminishing the protection provided by the standards. They were also issued in response to an apparent preference for untreated cotton garments by many parents and difficulties in enforcing the pre-amendment standards. Nevertheless, the amendments were controversial. Some interested parties opposed them because they believed the exemptions would substantially reduce the level of safety for children. The amendments were also subjected to congressional scrutiny; in 1999, after they had gone into effect, Congress required that the Commission consider revoking them. To address these concerns, in cooperation with the American Burn Association and Shriners Hospitals for Children, the CPSC initiated a national study of child clothing-related burn injuries treated in burn center hospitals. From 2003 through 2005, the CPSC collected information on 475 such injuries. This study evaluates the burn center data to help determine the safety effects of the amendments to the sleepwear standards. The results provide no evidence of increased risk of burn injury associated with the exemptions from the sleepwear standards.

A hedonic approach to estimating the supply of variety attributes of a subsistence crop

The article extends the household hedonic model by estimating a supply function for variety attributes of a subsistence crop in a developing economy. The model is applied to bananas in Uganda, making use of disaggregated data on variety‐specific farm‐gate banana bunch prices and attributes, while accounting for the semisubsistence nature of banana‐producing households. The article is motivated by the need to understand the attribute trade‐offs made by farmers at the farm gate in light of targeted variety improvement efforts and their impact on banana markets. Whether variety improvement will pay off at the market level requires a more detailed examination of the relative worth of banana attributes within the structure of consumer preferences and production technologies related to bananas in Uganda. The results confirm the importance of consumption and production attributes in selling behavior. Quality and bunch size are found to be complements at the farm gate. Banana bunches that capture a premium at the market will be those that provide bundles of desirable consumption and production attributes simultaneously. By revealing important price–attribute relationships, the findings provide guidance for crop improvement efforts and diversification choices, while taking into account implicit market signals for output attributes.     

Cultural and macroeconomic determinants of cash holdings management

This study examines patterns in cash management, particularly cash holdings speed of adjustment (CH‐SOA), across 48 countries. I find that managerial cultural characteristics and country‐level macroeconomic factors influence the persistence of cash reserve levels, deviation from target, and the speed with which firms in different countries adjust their cash holdings. The findings support the idea that agency costs as well as market frictions influence CH‐SOA and other aspects of cash management. The findings are robust to the inclusion of a wide range of firm‐level characteristics, country‐level corporate‐governance variables, and an alternative cultural index.     

Post‐financial crisis changes in financial system structure: An examination of the J.P. Morgan & Co. Syndicates after the 1907 Panic

In the post‐2008 crisis period, policy makers debate the implications of banking system concentration. To shed light on this debate, we study a postcrisis period in which less banking regulation existed than in the present period, reasoning that an examination of a less regulated market might reveal useful insights about present day market agents' postcrisis actions. The years immediately following the Panic of 1907 merit study because the period shares important features with the post‐2008 crisis financial system: increasing interconnectedness, the growing complexity accompanying the rise of new industries, the rapid deployment of new communications technologies, and substantial innovation in financial instruments. Because the 1907 crisis preceded the Clayton Anti‐Trust Act of 1914, it also provides a window into studying market agents' behavior before legislation was enacted to discourage banking system concentration. We find evidence that the market share of corporate bond underwritings at J.P. Morgan & Co. increased in the post‐1907 crisis period. We suggest a mechanism by which market share increased: a more concentrated configuration of corporate bond underwriting syndicates. We also indicate that Morgan's increased share may have been a proxy for increased certification value of underwriter reputation because of systemic knowledge Morgan gained during the resolution of the Panic of 1907 rather than for increasing bargaining power. We do not find evidence that Morgan used market power to extract rents from issuers despite increased market share and more concentrated syndicate organization. While our results must be interpreted cautiously due to data limitations, possible lessons for present‐day policy makers are that consolidations in the financial system after a financial crisis are complex. Some consolidations may come about from information and reputational gains produced during the crisis. Others may be moves by some firms to concentrate market power and still others from efforts to improve efficiencies in intermediation.     

Retraction Note: Prediction of economic growth by extreme learning approach based on science and technology transfer

Quality & Quantity - The Editor-in-Chief has retracted this article (Karaniki? et al. 2016) because validity of the content of this article cannot be verified. This article showed evidence...     

One Vs. Many: who wins? An empirical investigation of online product display

ABSTRACT

This study questions the unharmonious ways of product displays in online grocery retailing and aims to find if visual complexity of the product display has any impact on behavioral outcomes of online grocery shoppers. Our main finding was that visually complex images, i.e. images with a high number of elements have a negative effect on affective and cognitive states resulting in decreased behavioral intentions. However, when the number of elements in the product display was decreased, i.e. the visual complexity of the product display was reduced, shoppers’ cognitive and affective responses and intentions were similar to when they were exposed to noncomplex images. We also found that arousal and pleasure (parallel mediators) absorption, telepresence, utilitarian and hedonic values and perceived ease of use (serial mediators) mediate the effect that the product display has on behavioral intentions.     

Is there an environmental benefit to being an exporter? Evidence from firm-level data

One concern over globalisation is its impact on the environment. We analyse the consequences of becoming an exporter on a firm??s energy consumption. We show theoretically and empirically with firm-level data that the increase in energy use when exporting is negatively correlated with energy intensity. This is because, although energy use rises with exporting due to greater production and transportation, it can be offset by adopting more energy-efficient technology. This second effect is strongest for high energy intensity firms. As such, analysis of average effects, as in other studies, conceals important connections between the trade and the environment.