BANKING LICENCES, BAILOUTS AND REGULATOR ABILITY

I analyse a model in which it is socially optimal for banks to manage depositor funds but in which concerns about fraud discourage depositing and justify regulation. The regulator screens bankers and decides the level of charter value which they will receive as incentive to prevent fraud. She can also encourage deposits by insuring them. The optimal policy depends upon the regulator's screening ability: high ability regulators rely upon charter value and low ability regulators rely upon deposit insurance. I relate these findings to the regulation of transition economy banks, to operational risk management, and to banking competition policy.     

Higher Intensity,Higher Profit? Empirical Evidence from Dairy Farming in New Zealand

Over the last two decades there have been significant and well‐documented changes in the nature and structure of New Zealand dairy production. One particular feature has been a marked shift in the ‘input intensity’ of dairy farming systems through increased use of supplementary feed. These changes have generated debate about the impact of dairy farm intensity on the performance of farm businesses and the competitiveness of the New Zealand dairy sector. Using a novel econometric approach, we assess statistically the impact of three types of dairy farming systems on milk production and financial performance, using farm business data provided by DairyBase^®. Our empirical results show that higher input systems perform significantly better physically than lower input systems, but not financially. The disaggregated analysis suggests that the average treatment effects differ by region and performance quantiles.     

Understanding the leadership perceptions of staff in China's hotel industry: Integrating the macro- and micro-aspects of leadership contexts

The objective of this paper is to understand the leadership perceptions of staff in China's hotel industry. This study integrates the macro- and micro-aspects of leadership contexts by identifying the contextual variables that affect leadership perceptions. In leadership research, industry setting, the hierarchical levels of an organization, and national culture are recognized as the contextual constraints that affect leadership perceptions, and these constraints were used in this empirical study. Four factors emerged from the factor analysis of a survey study: professionalism; integrity; masculinity or yang; and femininity or yin. A key finding indicates that both the industry setting and the hierarchical levels of an organization affect professionalism. Implications for the training and development of future international hospitality leaders and local staff are considered.     

The Production of Institutional Behaviour: A Constructive Comment on the Use of Institutionalization Theory in Organizational Analysis

I argue that the development of institutional theories of the formal structure of organizations have assumed that the implementation of institutional behaviours is a routine activity. This has resulted in a neglect of the problems facing organizations attempting to meet institutional demands. Data from a study of the adoption of professional institutions by accounting associations is used to identify four sources of problems in implementing institutional behaviours: (1) pragmatic difficulties; (2) conflicts with organizational “identities”; (3) inter-organizational conflicts; and, (4) intra-organizational conflicts. Résumé Cette étude soutient que les théories institutionnelles concernant les structures organisationnelles ont présumé que l'adoption de comportements institutionnels s'effectue de routine. Ceci a donc donnée lieu à un oubli des problèmes auxques doivent faire face les entreprises qui tentent de respecter les exigences institutionnelles. Les données d'une étude relative à l'adoption d'institutions professionnelles au sein d'associations comptables est utilisée pour identifier quatre sources de problèmes dans l'adoption de comportements institutionnels: (1) difficultés d'ordre pratique (2) conflits avec les diverses identités institutionnelles (3) conflits intra-organisationnels (4) conflits inter-organisationnels.     

Market Conditions and Housing Choices: A Comparison of Homeownership Across Three Decades

This article uses information on out‐of‐pocket housing cost and house price appreciation along with the geo‐coded version of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to consider the differences in the impact of these and other variables on the tenure choices of sample households across three time periods, the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s. Specifically, an extended continuous time probability model is used to examine households' transitions from renting to owning and subsequent possible transitions either back to rental tenure or to another owned home during our three observation periods. Coefficient estimates show that financial variables such as house price appreciation and out‐of‐pocket housing cost play an important role in determining all the transitions. In addition, the analysis demonstrates the interesting result that the cumulative likelihoods of homeownership derived from the model are consistently lower than the probabilities of an initial transition to homeownership from rental tenure during the observation period. Finally, the magnitude and timing of the impact on homeownership of a policy experiment that eliminates the mortgage interest deduction are shown to differ substantially across the three decades.