The costs of moving money across borders and the volume of capital flight: the case of Russia and other CIS countries

We estimate capital flight from seven countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States for the period 1995–2005. In some countries capital flight is large and growing, but other countries, despite similar macroeconomic and political circumstances, have little capital flight. We develop a model of capital flight that incorporates costs of moving money to offshore locations and show that such costs are an important determinant of capital flight. Liberalizing the trade and financial sectors accelerates capital flight by making it easier to move capital abroad. In the short run, greater regulation rather than external sector liberalization appears to have more potential to combat capital flight.     

Ethical Structures and Processes of Corporations Operating in Australia,Canada, and Sweden: A Longitudinal and Cross-Cultural Study

Based on the ‘Partnership Model of Corporate Ethics’ (Wood, 2002), this study examines the ethical structures and processes that are put in place by organizations to enhance the ethical business behavior of staff. The study examines the use of these structures and processes amongst the top companies in the three countries of Australia, Canada, and Sweden over two time periods (2001–2002 and 2005–2006). Subsequently, a combined comparative and longitudinal approach is applied in the study, which we contend is a unique approach in the area of business ethics. The findings of the study indicate that corporations operating in Sweden have utilized ethical structures and processes differently than their Canadian and/or Australian counterparts, and that in each culture the way that companies fashion their approach to business ethics appears congruent with their national cultural values. There does, however, appear to be a convergence of views within the organizations of each culture, as the Swedish companies appear to have been more influenced in 2005–2006 by an Anglo-Saxon business paradigm than they have been in the past.     

ON THE AMERICAN OPTION PROBLEM

We show how the change-of-variable formula with local time on curves derived recently in Peskir (2002) can be used to prove that the optimal stopping boundary for the American put option can be characterized as the unique solution of a nonlinear integral equation arising from the early exercise premium representation. This settles the question raised in Myneni (1992) and dating back to McKean (1965) .     

A unit-load warehouse with multiple pickup and deposit points and non-traditional aisles

We show how to configure a cross aisle in a unit-load warehouse to facilitate travel between storage locations and multiple pickup and deposit points on one side. We use our models to investigate designs having two types of cross aisles—those that form a “Flying-V” and those that form an “Inverted-V.” Our numerical results suggest that there is a benefit to using a Flying-V aisle design, but the benefit is more modest than in the case of a single P&D point. Thus, to the extent practicable, pickup and deposit points should be concentrated toward the middle of the warehouse.     

A mathematical approach to study and forecast racial groups interactions: deterministic modeling and scenario method

Globalization and migratory fluxes are increasing the ethnic and racial diversity within many countries. Therefore, describing social dynamics requires models that are apt to capture multi-groups interactions. Building on the assumption of a relationship between multi-racial dynamics and socioeconomic status (SES), we introduce an aggregate, contextual, and continuous index of SES accounting for measures of income, employment, expected life, and group numerosity. After, taking into account that groups’ SES assumes the form of a logit model, we propose a Lotka–Volterra system to study and forecast the interaction among racial groups. Last, we apply our methodology to describe the racial dynamics in the US society. In particular, we study the kind and the intensity of Asians–Blacks–Natives–Whites interactions in the US between 2002 and 2013. Moreover, we forecast the evolution of groups’ SES and how interracial relations will unfold between 2013 and 2018 and in three alternative stylized scenarios.

     

Identifying and ranking novel indicators of MSMEs innovation potential

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to present the research on the identification and ranking of innovation potential indicators of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). The main innovation management challenge is to recognise and measure factors that enable innovations. In that sense, the key 6 criteria and 41 indicators that describe innovation potential of MSMEs have been identified, based on expert judgment and the selected literature review in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship. Next, the rank of every indicator based on an expert’s assessment was determined by using Fuzzy AHP approach. A case study was conducted for Serbian MSMEs. The holistic approach, applied in this research for the identification of the innovation potential criteria and indicators, represents novelty and contribution to the literature. The presented procedure of the innovation potential indicators selection and ranking could be used as a bench-marking tool, to help managers to improve innovation capacity of the company.