Technology-based environmental health risks in developing nations

This paper addresses two questions: 1) To what extent are developing nations vulnerable to technology- related environmental health risks? 2) To what extent does the export of hazardous technologies and products contribute to overall levels of environmental health risk in developing nations? The paper focuses on three major types of environmental health risks: the failure of large-scale technological systems; the use or misuse of consumer goods, mechanical devices, and chemicals; and industrial emissions of toxic substances. In addition, three categories of hazardous exports are examined: hazardous products (e.g., pesticides), hazardous production processes (e.g., asbestos processing), and hazardous wastes (e.g., chemical and radioactive waste). The paper concludes that technology-based environmental health risks pose a significant public health problem in most developing nations, even when compared to much larger public health problems such as tropical and gastrointestinal diseases. Technology-based risks are growing in number and frequency. If developing and developed nations continue their current policies, these risks will grow at a significantly greater rate.     

Learning and fatigue during choice experiments: a comparison of online and mail survey modes

This study investigates the effect of survey mode on respondent learning and fatigue during repeated choice experiments. Stated preference data are obtained from an experiment concerning high‐speed Internet service conducted on samples of mail respondents and online respondents. We identify and estimate aspects of the error components for different subsets of the choice questions, for both mail and online respondents. Results show mail respondents answer questions consistently throughout a series of choice experiments, but the quality of the online respondents' answers declines. Therefore, while the online survey provides lower survey administration costs and reduced time between implementation and data analysis, such benefits come at the cost of less precise responses. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Negative earnings,positive earnings and stock return predictability: An empirical examination of market timing

We examine the predictive ability of earnings-price ratios or yields for the S&P 500 index. We decompose the aggregate earnings-price ratio into its positive and negative components (“winners” vs “losers”) and find that the negative component has the most predictive ability. We also find that the earnings-price measures forecast both future returns and earnings growth. Our models display substantial variation in explanatory power over time with forecast power resurfacing in the latter 1990s. We conclude that to the extent that earnings-price yields predict future S&P 500 returns, the negative earnings component is the driving factor.     

Rejoinder to Tomislav V. Kovandzic's Comment on Our Article "The Effectiveness of Gun Control Laws: Multivariate Statistical Analysis"

A bstract . In Professor Tomislav V. Kovandzic's "Comment on the Recent Work of Kwon, Scott, Safranski, and Bae: No, Your Evidence Doesn't Prove What You Think it Does!," he makes several blanket and ill-informed statements about our article appearing in the January 1997 issue of The American Journal of Economics and Sociology (pp. 41–50). We conclude that his comments have failed to generate any new revelations about our research and we stand by the published results.     

Targeted poverty investments and economic growth in China

In the mid-1980s, the Chinese government launched its ambitious poor area development policy, which was centered around a series of grant, credit, and Food-for-Work programs. Ironically, for the remainder of the 1980s rural poverty remained at about 90 to 100 million, or approximately 10% of the rural population. The lack of progress cannot necessarily be blamed on ineffective poor area policies, since much of the agricultural economy was mired in a deep recession between the mid-1980s and the early 1990s. By the mid-1990s substantial additional poverty reduction had been achieved. Even in the late-1980s, farmers in many poor counties did better than the national average in terms of income growth. After accounting for the effects of macroeconomic elements, what factors can help explain the differences in performance among poor regions and between poor areas and rich ones? Can part of these differences be accounted for by poor area policies, in general, or by the way local and regional officials allocate their poor area investment funds, in particular?The overall objective of this paper is to analyze the effectiveness of Chinese poor area policy. Specifically, the paper seeks to meet three objectives. First, we want to understand the evolution of poor area policy since the mid-1980s, trying to deduce the true goals of central and regional poor area officials, as well as how these policies have been implemented in the provinces. Next, we want to understand the magnitude and scope of investment into poor areas, and examine if changes in these policies have affected the uses of the investment funds. Finally, we want to determine the effectiveness of the investment of poor area funds, analyzing which types of investments have generated growth, and which ones have not.     

Endogenous screening, credit crunches, and competition in laxity

A simple model of lending with endogenous screening predicts that risk-neutral banks tend to adopt tighter lending standards under several conditions commonly seen in recessions: lower interest rates (or spreads), higher default rates, or a smaller fraction of good borrowers. Historical data support these predictions. In addition, better information about borrower types encourages tighter lending standards, and competition in laxity can arise with multiple banks. Within the class of symmetric screening decisions, endogenizing the interest rates disrupts the existence of equilibrium in pure strategies, just as when screening decisions are assumed to be exogenous.     

Defining the Relationship among Founding Resources,Strategies, and Performance in Technology-Intensive New Ventures: Evidence from the Semiconductor Silicon Industry*

The degree to which a firm's performance is dependent on its resources and strategies is widely debated in the literature. We examine this issue by analyzing historical data on the entire population of new independent firms started worldwide in the semiconductor silicon industry for the first 50 years of its existence. We measure resources (managerial capabilities and technological competencies) and strategies (emphasis on demand pull or technology push) at the time of founding and test their relationship with each other as well as with multiple measures of performance (lifespan and best year's sales). We find that firms founded on managerial capabilities emphasize demand-pull strategies at founding, whereas firms founded upon technological competencies emphasize technology-push strategies at founding. We also find that firms emphasizing technology-push strategies perform better than firms emphasizing demand-pull strategies. Lastly, we find that though managerial capabilities are related to a firm's best year's sales, this relationship is mediated by the firm's founding strategy.