US external debt sustainability revisited: Bayesian analysis of extended Markov switching unit root test

The sustainability of US external debt, which has been an issue of global concern, is analyzed using a Markov switching (MS) unit root test applied to the flow of debt, i.e., the current account. The first to apply the MS unit root test to the issue of US external debt in order to examine local stationarity and global stationarity were Raybaudi et al. (2004). This paper introduces an extended MS unit root test where the transition probability is time-varying rather than fixed, as is usually the case, and the change of probability is explained by the real exchange rate, which theory suggests has a close relationship with the external balance. The extended MS unit root test calculated by the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method provides us with new insights on the issue of US external debt in recent years, suggesting that even though the debt/current account–GDP ratio remains relatively high, the probability of stationarity (sustainability) is unexpectedly high when recent US dollar depreciation is taken into account.     

Antecedents and consequences of the perceived adjustment of Japanese expatriates in the USA

The present study was designed to better understand the antecedents and consequences of expatriate adjustment in an international assignment. The researchers surveyed Japanese expatriates assigned to the United States. Structural equation modeling was utilized to test our hypotheses and model. The results indicated that previous knowledge of the host country, language proficiency, willingness to communicate and perception of the novelty of the host culture were differentially related to expatriates' adjustment to the host country. General and work adjustments were negatively related to expatriates' intent to return early. In addition, interrelationships among the adjustment dimensions were examined and the results indicated that general adjustment leads to work adjustment, which, in turn, influences interactional adjustment. Implications for future research are presented.     

Multidimensionality and Renegotiation: Evidence from Transport-Sector Public-Private-Partnership Transactions in Latin America

Multidimensional auctions are a natural, practical solution when governments pursue more than one objective in their public-private-partnership transactions. However, multi-criteria auctions seem difficult to implement and vulnerable to corruption and opportunistic behavior of both parties involved. Using data from road and railway concessions in Latin America, the paper examines the probability of renegotiation in connection with the selected award criteria. It shows that auctioneers tend to adopt the multidimensional format when the need for social considerations, such as alleviation of unemployment, is high. But more renegotiations would likely happen when the multidimensional format is used. Good governance, particularly regulatory quality and anti-corruption policies, can mitigate the renegotiation problem.     

On the selection of forecasting models

It is standard in applied work to select forecasting models by ranking candidate models by their prediction mean squared error (PMSE) in simulated out-of-sample (SOOS) forecasts. Alternatively, forecast models may be selected using information criteria (IC). We compare the asymptotic and finite-sample properties of these methods in terms of their ability to mimimize the true out-of-sample PMSE, allowing for possible misspecification of the forecast models under consideration. We show that under suitable conditions the IC method will be consistent for the best approximating model among the candidate models. In contrast, under standard assumptions the SOOS method, whether based on recursive or rolling regressions, will select overparameterized models with positive probability, resulting in excessive finite-sample PMSEs.     

Option Approach to Search for Threshold Rice Price Toward Sustainable Paddy Field Management

This paper applies an option approach to search for the threshold rice price toward the sustainable paddy field management under rice price stochasticity. Rice price is assumed to follow geometric Brownian motion. The management model for paddy fields is a discrete stochastic dynamic programming model with binomial approximation for geometric Brownian motion, where a control variable is a decision to sustain or terminate paddy yield management. Our computational experiments indicate that an increase in rice price volatility could lower the threshold rice price for farmers to continue rice production. It is also shown that depending on the degree of rice price volatility, even under a lower price level than production costs, maintaining the management could become beneficial. Considering an option to terminate production could make the higher expected value of rice production than without it. Using 12 sets of time series data on voluntarily marketed rice produced in Hokkaido, Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, Akita, Yamagata, Fukui, Ibaragi, Chiba, Niigata, Toyama and Nagano, the minimum threshold rice price of 6,700 Yen/60 kg was found in Chiba with the largest volatility, and the maximum of 7,250 Yen/60 kg in Ibaragi with the smallest volatility. If the market price becomes lower than the threshold rice price, some policy measures would be necessary toward sustainable paddy field management by covering the difference between them.     

Transboundary pollution,tax competition and the efficiency of uncoordinated environmental regulation

Under capital tax competition, surprisingly, Ogawa and Wildasin (2009) find that uncoordinated policymaking leads to a first‐best outcome even in the presence of transboundary pollution. However, I show that if the level of environmental regulation is endogenized, the regulation level becomes too loose compared with the optimum (“race to the bottom”). Thus, despite the efficiency result of Ogawa and Wildasin (2009), efforts to achieve international environmental policy coordination are needed. I then examine the dependence of this result on the level of decisive voter's capital endowment. The regulation is inefficiently loose in many cases, but it can be too strict if the decisive voter's capital endowment is above the average. Thus, the possibility of “race to the top” cannot be eliminated. The inefficiency result does not generally depend on the timing of policymaking, although the efficiency may be restored in the limit case where the decisive voter has no capital at all.     

A review and comparison of medical expenditures models: two neural networks versus two‐part models

This paper compares the two‐part model (TPM) that distinguishes between users and non‐users of health care, with two neural networks (TNN) that distinguish users by frequency. In the model comparisons using data from the National Health Research Institute (NHRI) in Taiwan, we find strong evidence in favor of the neural networks approach. This paper shows that the individuals in the self‐organizing map (SOM) network clusters can be described as several different forms of frequency distributions. The integration model of SOM and back propagation network (BPN) proposed by this paper not only permits policymakers to easily include more risk adjusters besides the demographics in the traditional capitation formula through the adaptation and calculation power of neural networks, but also reduces the incentives for cream skimming by decreasing estimation biases.     

Theoretical and experimental investigations of the performance of keyword auction mechanisms

Two keyword auction mechanisms, the Generalized Second‐Price auction (GSP) and the Vickrey‐Clarke‐Groves mechanism (VCG), were compared theoretically and experimentally. The former is widely used in practice; the latter is not, but it has a dominant strategy equilibrium where all participants bid their true values. In the theoretical investigation, by applying the “locally envy‐free Nash equilibrium” to the VCG, we found that the allocations are efficient and that upper and lower bounds of the auctioneer's revenue coincide in the two mechanisms. A laboratory experiment, in which the revenues and efficiencies were similar in both mechanisms, supported this result.     

Where do We Go From Here? New Perspectives on the Black Box in Strategic Human Resource Management Research

The main objective of the present research is to briefly review the strategic human resource management (HRM) literature from multilevel theoretical perspectives to summarize what we know about mediating mechanisms in the HR–performance relationship. By doing so, we highlight future research needs to advance theoretical understanding of the ‘black box’ in strategic HRM research. Furthermore, by offering additional theoretical perspectives that can be used to understand the mediating mechanisms at different levels, we suggest future research directions that capture the complexities associated with strategic HRM through a multilevel theoretical lens. Implications of the model are discussed.