Divisional Performance Measurement with Divisions as Lessees of Head Office Assets

The paper examines some of the methods suggested in the literature for the evaluation of divisional performance, and proposes an alternative approach to the problem whereby divisions are treated as lessees of fixed assets owned by head office. It is suggested that this method is compatible with the NPV decision rule, yet does not require the company to adopt asset valuation practices which depart from those normally used for financial reporting; furthermore, the method actively considers both the ‘abandonment’ decision and whether or not ‘life expired’ assets should be disposed of. It is also claimed that the method is less open to manipulation than some other proposed performance measures.     

Multi-attribute Auction and Negotiation for e-Procurement of Logistics

The paper addresses the topic of e-procurement of logistics services and examines how the system that companies adopt to support this task affects the process performance. The system is evaluated in terms of substantive outcomes (e.g., logistics providers’ profits) and other performances related to perceptions and behavioral issues. Specifically, the considered system is characterized by the exchange mechanism that rules the transaction (multi-attribute auction vs. negotiation) and the level of problem complexity. The analysis, conducted via a laboratory experiment, shows that both the exchange mechanism and the problem complexity affect performance. Practical implications, which could help companies design effective e-procurement systems, are discussed.     

What Plato Knew About Enron

This paper applies Plato’s cave allegory to Enron’s success and downfall. Plato’s famous tale of cave dwellers illustrates the different levels of truth and understanding. These levels include images, the sources of images, and the ultimate reality behind both. The paper first describes these levels of perception as they apply to Plato’s cave dwellers and then provides a brief history of the rise of Enron. Then we apply Plato’s levels of understanding to Enron, showing how the company created its image and presented information to support that image, and how the public eventually emerged from the cave to realize the truth about Enron’s actual accounting practices and financial state, which led to the corporation’s downfall. We find Plato’s allegory both useful in analyzing the relationship between Enron and the public and instructive about the power and moral responsibility of Enron’s executives.     

Wage and employment effects of a wage norm

Most transition countries used tax‐supported wage norms in the early 1990s, as a part of their market liberalization programmes. This article analyses how a firm‐level tax (or subsidy) on deviations from a pre‐set wage norm may promote employment by rotating the labour demand curve perceived by the workers’ union around the value of the norm. We derive the conditions under which it yields a positive employment effect. We test the effect of the norm on the wages on a sample of Polish firms in 1990 and 1991. The data support the role of the wage norm on the position of the perceived labour demand curve and the role of the tax rate on its slope.     

Correction: Social Accountability,Ethics, and the Occupy Wall Street Protests

Journal of Business Ethics -     

Finance and growth in Africa: The broken link

While bank liabilities in Sub-Saharan Africa are found to follow (but not lead) economic growth, the link between bank credit and growth is altogether absent.     

Economics at the Antitrust Division: 2017–2018

This article describes some of the work of Antitrust Division economists over the past year, with a focus on modeling. It begins by illustrating the mapping from evidence to prediction using tools for assessing the effects of mergers using Bertrand, Cournot, and auction models. It then turns to two hot topics in competition policy: the implications of claims of increasing margins for merger enforcement and the validity of claims of increasing concentration. Finally, it considers how mergers affect prices in bargaining models.     

Managerial style and the strategic choice of executive incentives

This paper analyzes a two-stage duopoly model where owners provide incentives to managers who then select output levels. Unlike the previous Cournot models on the strategic use of incentives (e.g. Fershtman and Judd, 1987; Sklivas, 1987), managers hold different beliefs about their rivals. Managers and executives are classified by ‘management style’ based on the aggressiveness of their beliefs. It is shown that many of the standard results of the strategic managerial incentive literature no longer hold when executives have differing managerial styles. For example, owners may ‘penalize’ their managers for sales, or they may optimally instruct their managers to maximize profits, in contrast to the standard Cournot findings. Indeed, the model yields a necessary and sufficient condition for compensation contracts to specify pure profit-maximizing behavior when managers have differing managerial styles. Thus, the analysis suggests that when ownership and control are separated, owners must carefully assess the belief structure (management style) of their executives before designing the compensation package.