Network effects,homogeneous goods and international currency choice: New evidence on oil markets from an older era

Conventional wisdom has it that network effects are strong in markets for homogenous goods, leading to the dominance of one settlement currency in such markets. The dominance of the US dollar in global oil markets is said to epitomize this phenomenon. We question this presumption with evidence for earlier periods showing that several national currencies have simultaneously played substantial roles in global oil markets. European oil import payments before and after World War II were split between the dollar and non‐dollar currencies, mainly sterling. Differences in use of the dollar across countries were associated with trade linkages with the United States and the size of the importing country. That several national currencies could simultaneously play a role in international oil settlements suggests that a shift from the current dollar‐based system toward a multipolar system in the period ahead is not impossible.     

Evaluating Workplace Mandates with Flows Versus Stocks: An Application to California Paid Family Leave

Employer mandates typically have small effects on wages and employment. Such effects should be most evident using data on employment transitions and wages among new hires. Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI) provides county by quarter by demographic group data on the number and earnings of new hires, separations, and recalls (extended leaves). The QWI is used to examine the effects of California's 2004 paid family leave (CPFL) program, comparing outcomes for young women in California to those for other workers within and outside of California. CPFL had little effect on earnings for young women, but increased separations, hiring, and worker mobility.     

Corporate derivatives use policy and information environment

We provide evidence consistent with the notion that prudent use of financial derivatives improves firms’ information environment. We show that firms with sophisticated and comprehensive derivatives use policies display lower levels of uncertainty about future cash flows, volatility of future income and sales growth, and equity mispricing than those that do not use derivatives. However, we also show that policies that consist of large positions in a single type of derivative contract are not likely to produce similar benefits. These results remain intact even after accounting for the endogenous nature of derivatives use policy and information risk and mispricing.     

Planning and implementing effective service guarantee programs

This article highlights different types of service guarantees, explains the benefits of service guarantees to consumers and service providers, examines why service guarantees are so rarely used, and describes the characteristics of effective service guarantee programs. We seek to motivate additional service providers into offering service guarantees (when appropriate), to improve the effectiveness of service guarantee programs, and to spur additional research that can reduce the gap between academic research and industry practices relating to service guarantees. Properly planned, implemented, and controlled service guarantees can benefit service providers by serving as a signal of quality to customers, focusing on consumer expectations, developing specific performance standards, providing reliable data on service failures, determining weak points in the service-delivery process, and regaining customers who would otherwise be lost. Despite these benefits, service guarantees are not commonly used by service providers for a variety of reasons. We study and evaluate these impediments as well as describe characteristics of effective service guarantee programs from both the consumer's and service provider's perspectives.     

Understanding what your sales manager is up against

Every year, the research firm CSO Insights publishes the results of its Sales Performance Optimization survey, an online questionnaire given to more than 1,000 sales executives worldwide that seeks to examine the effectiveness of key sales practices and metrics. In this article, two partners from CSO provide the 2005 and 2006 survey highlights, which describe the challenges today's sales organizations face and how they're responding. An overall theme is the degree to which the buy cycle has gotten out of sync with the sell cycle. Buyers have always had a buy cycle, starting at the point they perceive a need. Sellers have always had a sales cycle, starting at the point they spot a prospect. Traditionally, the two have dovetailed--either because the seller created the buyer's perception of need or because the buyer pursued a need by contacting a salesperson (often for product information). Now the buy cycle is often well under way before the seller is even aware there is a cycle--in part because of the information asymmetry created by the Internet. The implications for managing a sales organization are profound in that sales training must now address how reps handle an environment in which buyers have more knowledge than they do. The authors offer evidence that sales executives are taking--and should take--aggressive action to train and retain sales talent, manage the sales process, and use sales support technologies to meet the challenges of this new environment.     

An economic modeling approach to contingency theory and management control

A prominent theme in recent accounting papers on management control has been the contingency theory approach to management control system design. A recent review of this contingency theory literature noted the need for a more explicit theoretical structure as well as a more all-inclusive model of the organization's control system. This paper argues that while a more explicit theory is needed, the development of relatively simple models is an important step in the construction of an all-inclusive model of management control. Two such simple models of a firm's control system design problem are presented and compared. The two models demonstrate that relatively simple models can capture multiple features of a control system and illustrate how the effect of contingency variables depends critically on the specific context in which the firm operates. Because the logic underlying these models is made explicit, the reader can better assess their reasonableness. Simple models can provide useful building blocks for more complex management control models and can be used to evaluate the analytical validity hypotheses that might be induced from observations in complex settings.     

Risk effects of GM corn: Evidence from crop insurance outcomes and high-dimensional methods

This study evaluates whether genetically modified (GM) corn hybrids with rootworm resistant traits (GM-RW) have lower yield risk. A crop insurance actuarial performance measure, the loss cost ratio (LCR), is used to represent yield risk. High-dimensional methods are utilized in this study to maintain parsimony in the empirical specification, and facilitate estimation. Specifically, we employ the Cluster-Lasso (cluster-least absolute shrinkage and selection operator) procedure. This method produces uniformly valid inference on the main variable of interest (i.e., the GM-RW variable) in a high-dimensional panel data setting even in the presence of heteroskedastic, non-Gaussian, and clustered error structures. After controlling for a large set of potential weather confounders using Cluster-Lasso, we find consistent evidence that GM corn hybrids with rootworm resistant traits have lower yield risk.     

Computer room risk assessment

Large computer systems have become pervasive in today's “Information Society.” In airlines, banking, telecommunications and many other businesses, the computer system provides the competitive edge. The risk of damage to either equipment or data or both has become a vital concern.     

Fostering creative minds: what predicts and boosts design competence in the classroom?

International Journal of Technology and Design Education - Can originality in real-world creative design thinking be improved through instruction and practice? Do such frequently-used...