Ag econ angst crisis revisited

The present paper was inspired by and is a response to the Rola-Rubzen, Hardaker and Dillon paper 'Agricultural economists and world poverty: progress and prospects' (Rola-Rubzen et al. 2001). It is agreed that the position of agricultural economists in foreign aid and poverty programs has declined over recent decades. Such a feeling of guilt and remorse expressed by the above authors does indeed create considerable 'angst'. A major reason for this state of affairs lies in 'the flavour of the month' approach of the development agencies. These include women in development, gender-based farming systems research, household nutrition and food security, people participation, and targeting the poorest of the poor. These fads have driven disciplinary considerations to the wall and the more widely-defined objectives have reduced the drive for economic efficiency. We argue there is still a place for better designed and delivered assistance programs within the wider framework of assistance that has become fashionable. Greater application of institutional principles in both the political processes associated with assistance and the implementation agencies would improve the outcomes of many projects. Particular attention would need to be given to the interface between the development agencies and recipient governments. The present paper picks up on the market failure aspects of agriculture's rather poor contribution to development, and develops a wider perspective in terms of the new institutional economics and a continuing role for the agricultural economist.     

Possibilities for remote participation in trade unions: mobilising women activists

This paper argues that trade union activism within the new era of information and communication technologies (ICTs) offers the potential for unions to become more inclusive of under‐represented groups. Traditional conceptions of activism, participation and democracy within trade unions require physical presence at meetings at times and in spaces incompatible with caring responsibilities and atypical hours of work. This restricts the participation of women and other ‘atypical’ workers in trade unions. The paper explores the complexities of electronic forms of union activism in practice, indicating that while some positive features are experienced, there are also a range of obstacles, barriers and possible negative consequences.     

Network Resources for Internationalization: The Case of Taiwan's Electronics Firms*

ABSTRACT This paper illustrates foreign direct investment (FDI) as the management of important network relations, using Taiwan's electronics firms as an example. Through FDI, seemingly small and weak firms propel the process of internationalization by making maximum use of external resources to which they have access. FDI often starts at a location close to the home base where support from the domestic networks can be drawn, subsequently moving on to more distant locations after investors have accumulated new network resources. The location chosen is usually an area rich in network resources or in close proximity to such rich networks. FDI enables the investors to construct a regional, or even global, sub‐network under their control to supply a set of wide‐ranging, differentiated and low‐cost products in a flexible fashion, and sometimes within close proximity to the markets. With this capacity for versatility, investors become valuable partners for multinational firms that offer global services.     

Private borrowing during the financial revolution: Hoare's Bank and its customers, 1702–241

The financial revolution improved the British government's ability to borrow, and thus its ability to wage war. North and Weingast argued that it also permitted private parties to borrow more cheaply and widely. We test these inferences with evidence from a London bank. We confirm that private bank credit was cheap in the early eighteenth century, but we argue that it was not available widely. Importantly, the government reduced the usury rate in 1714, sharply reducing the circle of private clients that could be served profitably.     

Hedging,Financing and Investment Decisions: A Simultaneous Equations Framework

We empirically investigate the interactions among hedging, financing, and investment decisions. We argue that the way in which hedging affects a firm's financing and investing decisions differs for firms with different growth opportunities. We find that high growth firms increase their investment, but not leverage, by hedging. However, we also find that firms with few investment opportunities use derivatives to increase their leverage.     

The best way of bilateral special economic zone to Sino-Vietnam economic cooperation

The Bilateral Special Economic Zones is a new idea about economic co-operation ways. It is going to be set by both countries with a common boundary for promoting the economic co-operation between two sides. It can be firstly set along the boundary between China and Vietnam. It will promote the economic co-operation between them, but China and ASEAN. It can be set along the Chinese boundary with the neighboring countries and will promote the economic co-operation between the both sides for setting up a better environment around China.     

The Wealth Effect of Domestic Joint Ventures: Evidence from Taiwan

This study presents important international evidence by examining the wealth effect of domestic joint ventures by Taiwanese firms. In opposite to United States evidence, we find that announcements of domestic joint ventures by Taiwanese firms are, on average, associated with significantly negative abnormal stock returns. We also find that the stock market response to announced domestic joint ventures is significantly positively related to the announcing firms' investment opportunities, size of investment and debt ratio, and is significantly negatively related to the business relatedness variable. In contrast, free cash flow, firm size, relative firm size and managerial ownership are found to have no significant power in explaining the market response. Our results support the investment opportunities, synergy and complementarity hypotheses as well as a broad interpretation of the free cash flow hypothesis, but reject the absolute size, relative size and alignment-of-interests hypotheses. This study makes valuable contributions to the literature by providing the first direct evidence on the role of investment opportunities, synergy and alignment-of-interests in explaining the wealth effect of domestic joint ventures     

Through Trial and Error to Collusion*

In this article we study a very simple trial and error learning process in the context of a Cournot oligopoly. Without any knowledge of the payoff functions players increase, respectively decrease, their quantity as long as this leads to higher profits. We show that despite the absence of any coordination or punishing device this process converges to the joint‐profit‐maximizing outcome.     

The FRC AND Accounting Standard‐Setting: Should I Still Call Australia Home?

This paper analyses the decision of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) to replace Australian accounting standards with international accounting standards on 1 January, 2005. Two main topics are considered: the appropriateness of the FRC's directive, and the case against the proposed adoption date. We argue that the FRC has not conducted sufficient consultation with affected parties and that the hasty implementation will impose costs that could have been avoided with the exercise of more caution.