Measuring the Transaction sector in the Australian economy, 1911–1991

Following Wallis and North's pioneering attempt to estimate the size of transaction costs in the United States over the period 1870 to 1970, we seek to augment this seminal study by applying their methodology to the Australian economy for the period 1911 to 1991. Broadly speaking, our results support the Wallis and North finding with comparable magnitudes and growth rates in both the private and public transaction sectors.     

The price effects of cross‐market mergers: theory and evidence from the hospital industry

We consider the effect of mergers between firms whose products are not viewed as direct substitutes for the same good or service, but are bundled by a common intermediary. Focusing on hospital mergers across distinct geographic markets, we show that such combinations can reduce competition among merging hospitals for inclusion in insurers' networks, leading to higher prices (or lower‐quality care). Using data on hospital mergers from 1996–2012, we find support that this mechanism operates within state boundaries: cross‐market, within‐state hospital mergers yield price increases of 7%–9 % for acquiring hospitals, whereas out‐of‐state acquisitions do not yield significant increases.     

Some Economics of Audit Market Reform

The purpose of audit market reforms since 2001 is to restore public confidence in the institution of auditing based on two considerations: (1) ensuring audit quality; and (2) controlling the ‘adverse effect of competition’ in audit supply. Market reforms for audit quality are delivered through a package of prescribed actions motivated by an analytical relationship between audit quality and its possible determinants: (1) limiting audit tenure through a combination of mandatory firm rotation, partner rotation and re‐tendering; (2) limiting provision of non‐audit services (NAS) by the incumbent auditor; and (3) joint auditing and empowering the audit committee to enhance audit quality. This paper examines the competing independence hypothesis and expertise hypothesis that produce ambiguous theoretical relationships for audit quality–audit tenure and the independence‐provision of NAS. We then review whether the empirical literature resolves these conundrums. We also review the usefulness of joint auditing and empowering the audit committee to improve audit quality in the context of audit market reform.     

Technological Gap and Uneven Accumulation in a Classical Production Model

Two regions are distinguished by their technological capabilities. In autarky, the advanced region accumulates more rapidly. Trade augments both regions' growth rates, but can initially worsen the uneven accumulation. The advanced region's faster growth turns the terms of trade against itself. The growth gap narrows. Yet, trade can never close that gap completely. Further decline in the advanced region's growth rate is arrested by its investment in, and technology transfer to, the backward region to augment the latter's export. Whether uneven accumulation persists depends on how successfully the backward region's indigenous capitalists adopt the more efficient `foreign' technology.     

Strategies for Improving Codes of Ethics Implementation in Construction Organizations

It is necessary to reconsider the assumptions upon which the process of implementing compliance with ethical programs rests, in both theoretical and practical terms. These assumptions should hinge on organizational enablers that allow embeddedness of codes of ethics in the web of an organization's processes. This article sets out to describe an approach that will facilitate implementation of codes of ethics in construction organizations and a comprehensive literature survey approach is adopted to achieve this. The paper equally employs the application of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model as a tool to stimulate ethical behavior in an organization, with the focus on the enabler criterion of the model. The authors discuss organizational enablers in relation to the implementation of ethical codes. The study demonstrates how ethics can be managed in an organization by proposing a framework to enhance codes of ethics embeddedness in the web of an organization. The paper indicates current research gaps and future opportunities for both academics and practitioners.     

Creation of models for calculation of coefficients of terrain passability

Quality & Quantity - The content of this article is a paper about a complex mathematical model of terrain passability which respects geographical and meteorological conditions in terrain and...     

Evaluating Industrial Relations Systems of OECD Countries from 1993 to 2005: A Two‐Dimensional Approach

This article uses both cross‐sectional and longitudinal methods to evaluate the national industrial relations systems of 30 Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) countries from 1993 to 2005. We adopt a pluralistic view of industrial relations that gives equal weight to efficiency and equity, along with a general systems model consisting of input, process and output. We rank each country in terms of a combined score of efficiency and equity. We find that the 30 OECD countries can be separated into three distinct groups (high on both equity and efficiency; high on efficiency but low on equity; moderate on equity and low on efficiency), and that these groups exhibit considerable stability over time.     

The origins of cultural divergence: evidence from Vietnam

Journal of Economic Growth - Cultural norms diverge substantially across societies, often within the same country. We propose and investigate a self-domestication/selective migration hypothesis,...     

Revisiting the valuation of deposit insurance

This study proposes a framework for pricing deposit insurance that evaluates the effect of depositor preference laws and the issuance of contingent capital bonds. Four main findings emerge from this study. First, traditional option pricing models of deposit insurance overestimate insurance premiums. Second, only large issuances of contingent capital bonds decrease deposit insurance premiums under depositor preference. Third, the issuance of contingent capital bonds can partially offset banks' excessive risk-taking caused by regulatory forbearance. Finally, although large banks have implied too-big-to-fail risks, the deposit insurer's costs from large banks are not nearly as high as reported in previous studies.