The role of endowments,technology and size in international trade: new evidence from product-level data

Using product-level trade data, we empirically investigate the export patterns of more than 150 countries in their exports to the USA, Brazil, India, and Japan. We document strong evidence that exporters specialize according to their relative factor endowments, technology, and economic size. More developed, capital abundant countries are found to export products of higher unit values and a wider range of products to developed, emerging and developing markets. More developed, economically larger, and technologically advanced countries are also the major exporters of new products, spanning a wide range of product categories with high unit values. Our findings provide important insights into the macro phenomenon that a large proportion of the global trade takes place among developed economies, and that the latter are also major exporters to developing markets.     

Survival of Japanese subsidiaries in the Middle East and North Africa

This paper considers factors affecting survival of foreign subsidiaries in the context of Japanese foreign equity ventures in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Three new institutional variables, economic distance, economic freedom distance and subsidiary density, are examined as determinants of survival while controlling for other determinants previously established in the literature. The findings support our hypotheses. We found that economic distance and economic freedom distance exhibit significant positive and negative relationships respectively with the survival of Japanese FDI in the MENA region, and moderate positive relationship between subsidiary density and subsidiary survival.     

Sovereign Wealth Funds: The Norwegian Experience

Sovereign wealth funds have rapidly become significant international institutions. The performance of funds varies substantially across countries, but comprehensive and systematic analyses of funds have been hampered by the lack of transparency of most funds. The relative transparency of the Norway Fund allows us to do an econometric analysis of the Fund’s performance. The record resembles that of a mutual fund that has taken on greater risk over time. There is no evidence that the Fund has disrupted foreign financial markets more than mutual funds do. There remains a question as to whether the Fund and its Finance Ministry have been effective agents for the Norwegian citizens whose assets they are managing.     

The resurrection of earlier imprints post mortem: Explaining the Turkish agricultural cooperative movement with an imprinting theory lens, 1888–1937

This study aims to extend the cooperative lifecycle theory, which builds on consecutive degeneration and regeneration of ideal cooperative values such as democracy, self-help, and solidarity by offering a new regenerative mechanism. In this respect, the study imports multilevel imprinting theory from the organizational ecology domain to explicate the punctuated evolutionary pattern of Turkish agricultural credit cooperatives, which displayed significantly different characteristics from Raiffeisen cooperatives that cooperative discourse in Türkiye used for a long as a benchmark. The archival research undertaken in the study asserts that the imprints of Ottoman Memleket Sandiks (OMS) have stamped agricultural credit cooperatives of the Republican era long after their erosion. The resurrection of imprints was enabled by Ziraat Bank, which acted as an intermediary organization and took over the remnants of OMSs. Our analyses also suggest that the State's polity and policy transformations culminate in selective activation of past imprints within the Ziraat Bank, which, in turn, shaped the Turkish agricultural cooperative field.     

The effect of job resourcefulness on role stress,emotional exhaustion and overall performance: A study of frontline bank employees

This article develops and tests a conceptual model that examines the effects of co-worker support and job resourcefulness on role stress, emotional exhaustion and job performance. The data obtained from frontline bank employees with a time lag of two weeks in Northern Cyprus were used to test these relationships. The results of structural equation modelling suggest that the partially mediated model seems to have a better fit than the fully mediated model. The results further suggest that job resourcefulness partially mediates the effect of co-worker support on role ambiguity and emotional exhaustion. However, there is no empirical support for job resourcefulness as a mediator of the impact of co-worker support on role conflict and job performance. The implications of the results are discussed and their future research directions are offered.     

Achieving Customer Satisfaction through Integrated Products and Services: An Exploratory Study

Complex products such as manufacturing equipment have always needed maintenance and repair services. Increasingly, leading manufacturers are integrating products and services to generate increased revenues and achieve customer satisfaction. Designing integrated products and services requires a different approach to new product development and a clear understanding of how customers perceive the value they obtain from actual usage of products and services—so‐called value‐in‐use. However, there is a lack of research on integrated products and services and how they impact customer satisfaction. An exploratory study was undertaken to understand customers' views on integrated products and services and the value‐in‐use derived from such offerings. As value‐in‐use and its impacts are complicated concepts, a technique from psychology—Repertory Grid Technique—was used to gather data in 33 interviews. The interviews allowed a deep understanding of customer views on integrated products and services to be obtained, and a systematic analysis identified the key attributes of value‐in‐use. In order to probe further, the data were then analyzed using Honey's procedure, which identified the impact of the attributes of value‐in‐use on customer satisfaction. Two key attributes—relational dynamic and access—were found to have the most influence on customer satisfaction. This paper contributes to the innovation field by identifying customer needs for integrated products and services and how these impact customer satisfaction. These are key points and need to be fully considered by managers during new product and service development. Similarly, the paper identifies a number of important areas for further research.     

The degree of financial liberalization and aggregated stock-return volatility in emerging markets

In this study, we address whether the degree of financial liberalization affects the aggregated total volatility of stock returns by considering the time-varying nature of financial liberalization. We also explore channels through which the degree of financial liberalization impacts aggregated total volatility. We document a negative relation to the degree of financial liberalization after controlling for size, liquidity, country, and crisis effects, especially for small and medium-sized markets. Moreover, the degree of financial liberalization transmits its negative impact on aggregated total volatility through aggregated idiosyncratic and local volatilities. Overall, our results provide evidence in favor of the view that the broadening of the investor base due to the increasing degree of financial liberalization causes a reduction in the total volatility of stock returns.     

Impact of macroeconomic factors and country risk ratings on GCC stock markets: evidence from a dynamic panel threshold model with regime switching

This study examines the non-linear relationship between stock markets in GCC countries and their country risk ratings as well as with major macroeconomic factors. Based on a dynamic panel threshold model with two and four regimes, the results provide evidence of short-term asymmetry between first-lagged GCC stock returns and the performance of GCC stock markets. In addition, only the financial risk (FR) rating has a significant positive effect on the performance of GCC stock markets according to the prevailing regimes for the GCC lagged returns and the Brent oil market. Among the macroeconomic factors, improvements in the global stock markets, the MSCI Global Islamic Index, and the oil price increased the performance of GCC stock markets, whereas increases in the gold price, the 3-month U.S. Treasury bill rate, and the U.S. Treasury bond rate reduced the performance of the GCC stock markets. These results have important implications for investors, policymakers, and portfolio managers.     

“Modeling the impact of wars and terrorism on tourism demand in Kurdistan region of Iraq”

Portuguese Economic Journal - Recent political instabilities in the Middle East have led to strong negative impacts on the tourism sector. The aim of this study is to investigate the extent and the...     

Firm leverage and investment decisions in an emerging market

In this study, the effect of leverage on investment is analyzed by employing panel data methods for the Turkish non-financial firms that are quoted on İstanbul Stock Exchange. For one-way error component models, it is shown that there is a negative impact of leverage on investment for only firms with low Tobin’s Q. These results are in conformity with the previous literature and agency theories of corporate finance stating that leverage has a disciplining role for firms with low growth opportunities. However, when the model is extended to include the time effects in a two-way error component model, the relation between leverage and investment disappears.