Intertemporal consumer behaviour in developing countries

This paper explores aggregate consumption behaviour in four developing countries under the assumption that consumers' planning horizons do not extend over their expected lifetime. Under certain conditions, the resulting ‘moving planning horizon model’ suggests that changes in current income would exert considerably more influence over current consumer spending than is predicted by forward-looking theories of consumption which typically assume that consumers' planning horizons coincide with expected lifetime. Estimation of the model for the group of developing countries provides empirical support for the role of changes in current income in influencing the consumption process. The results also reveal that consumers are relatively short-sighted sinced the length of the planning period of consumers ranges from just over ten months. An important implication of these findings is that policy measures can be effective not only if they influence consumers' permanent incomes but also if they affect changes in current income.     

Changing Patterns of Precipitation at the Sooke Reservoir in British Columbia

The paper is a parametric and nonparametric analysis of past precipitation data. We analyze 90 years of daily precipitation data at the Sooke Reservoir in British Columbia, Canada, for evidence of climate change. We fit probability density functions (PDFs) to the data and find evidence of a structural break in the data generating process by using the Andrews-Ploberger test. To confirm this finding, we analyze higher moments of the distribution of precipitation and show that the PDFs have become more leptokurtic. The results show how the pattern of precipitation has changed.     

The Dutch disease: The Canadian evidence

Zusammenfassung Die ⋯holl?ndische Krankheit”: Der kanadische Befund. — Der Autor betrachtet detailliert das Ausma\ der sektoralen Verschiebungen und untersucht die strukturellen Anpassungsprozesse in der kanadischen Volkswirtschaft. Er zeigt, da\ das Wachstumsmuster nicht nur zwischen den Sektoren asymmetrisch ist, sondern auch zwischen zwei Phasen des Konjunkturzyklus. Dementsprechend scheint der Strukturwandel einem zyklischen Pfad gefolgt zu sein. Diese Hypothese wird empirisch getestet unter Verwendung von Vierteljahresdaten aus der Zeit zwischen 1962 und 1983. Eine disaggregierte Analyse der Lohnentwicklung zeigt eine ?hnliche Asymmetrie. Dies wird zum gro\en Teil auf die Rohstofflastigkeit der kanadischen Wirtschaft zurückgeführt. In einem verallgemeinerten Rahmen für die ⋯holl?ndische Krankheit” l?\t sich daraus entnehmen, da\ die Rohstofflastigkeit zum strukturellen Wandel beigetragen und auch die zyklischen Charakteristika bestimmt hat.

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Résumé La maladie néerlandaise: l’évidence canadienne. — Cette étude jette un coup d’oeuil sur la dimension des déplacements sectoriels et examine le processus d’ajustement structurel dans l’économie canadienne. Il est constaté que la croissance se développe d’une manière asymétrique en ce qui concerne les secteurs et les deux phases consécutives du cycle conjoncturel. Pour cette raison le changement structurel semble avoir suivi une voie cyclique. Cette hypothèse est examinée par un test empirique en utilisant des dates trimestrielles pendant la période 1962–83. Une analyse désagrégée du développement des salaires démontre une asymétrie similaire. Ce fait est largement attribué au caractère de l’économie canadienne basée sur des ressources naturelles. Dans un cadre généralisé de la maladie néerlandaise cela peut être expliqué d’avoir contribué au changement structurel et aussi d’avoir déterminé le caractère cyclique.

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Resumen La enfermedad holandesa: evidencia para el Canadá. — En este trabajo se analiza detalladamente la magnitud de cambios sectoriales y se examina la naturaleza del proceso de ajuste estructural de la economía canadiense. Se encuentra que además de ser asimétrica entre los sectores, la pauta de crecimiento también es asimétrica entre dos fases del ciclo económico. Por ello, el cambio estructural parece haber seguido una trayectoria c?clica. Esto se estudia emp?ricamente utilizando datos trimestrales correspondientes al período 1962-1983. El análisis desagregado del comportamiento salarial muestra una asimetría similar. Esto es atribuído en gran parte a la importancia de los recursos naturales para la economia canadiense. En el marco generalizado de la enfermedad holandesa esto puede haber contribuído al cambio estructural y a determinar sus características cíclicas.

     

Inefficiency and heterogeneity in Turkish banking: 1990–2000

Recent studies have stressed the importance of privatization and openness to foreign competition for bank efficiency and economic growth. We study bank efficiency in Turkey, an emerging economy with great heterogeneity in bank types and ownership structures. Earlier studies of Turkish banking had three limitations: (i) excessive reliance on cost‐function frontier analyses, wherein volume of loans is a measure of banking output; (ii) pooling all banks or imposing ad hoc heterogeneity assumptions; and (iii) lack of a comprehensive panel data set for proper analysis of productivity and heterogeneity. We use an estimation–classification procedure to find likelihood‐driven classification of bank technologies in an 11‐year panel. In addition, we augment traditional cost‐frontier analysis with a labour‐efficiency analysis. We conclude that state banks are not particularly inefficient overall, but that they do utilize labour inefficiently. This partially supports recent calls for privatization. We also conclude that special finance houses (or Islamic banks) utilize the same technology as conventional domestic banks, and do so relatively efficiently. This suggests that they do not cause harm to the financial system. Finally, we conclude that foreign banks utilize a different technology from domestic ones. This suggests that one should not overstate their value to the financial sector. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Book reviews

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Consumer ethics: An empirical investigation of the ethical beliefs of Austrian consumers

Business and Marketing ethics have come to the forefront in recent years. While consumers have been surveyed regarding their perceptions of ethical business and marketing practices, research has been minimal with regard to their ethical beliefs and ideologies. In addition, no study has examined the ethical beliefs of Austrian consumers even though Austria maintains a unique status of political neutrality, nonalignment, stability, economic prosperity and geographical proximity to the East- and West-European countries. This research investigates the relationship between Machiavellianism, ethical ideology and ethical beliefs of Austrian consumers. The results indicate that Austrian consumers are mostly situationists who, while rejecting moral rules, judge the ethics of a behavior by the consequences and outcomes of the situation. Mohammed Y.A. Rawwas is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Northern Iowa. His research has appeared in the Journal of Business Ethics, Marketing Educational Review, Advances in International Marketing, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Hospital Marketing, Health Marketing Quarterly, Medical Marketing and Media,among other journals and proceedings.     

Cross‐Country Evidence on the Importance of Auditor Choice to Corporate Debt Maturity

We examine the importance of Big Four audits in reducing agency costs evident in corporate debt maturity worldwide. Analyzing a large sample of public firms from 42 countries reveals that the fraction of long‐term debt in firms' capital structures rises with the presence of a Big Four auditor, suggesting that higher‐quality audits substitute for short‐term debt for monitoring purposes. In additional analyses, we find that the role that auditor choice plays in debt maturity is concentrated in firms from countries with strong legal institutions governing property rights and creditor rights. Collectively, our research implies that Big Four audits matter to corporate debt maturity, although the impact is isolated in firms operating in countries with more protective legal regimes.     

Managerial Behavior and the Link between Stock Mispricing and Corporate Investments: Evidence from Market‐to‐Book Ratio Decomposition

We examine the impact of mispricing on corporate investments and its components: capital expenditures, research and development, acquisitions, and asset sales. By decomposing the market‐to‐book ratio into mispricing and growth components, we show that corporate investments are linked to mispricing through market‐timing and catering, after controlling for growth and financial slack. This investment‐mispricing link is more pronounced in financially constrained firms and in firms with short‐horizon shareholders. Overall, our study indicates that the sensitivity of investments to mispricing is a function of the nature of mispricing, the type of investment, and the firm's characteristics.     

Share transfer behaviour of newly introduced Tunisian companies and its determinants: An empirical analysis

This study seeks to determine the reasons behind original shareholder sales of particular numbers of shares at the IPO date. It also examines whether share transfer behaviour reveals specific characteristics of blockholders and if a non-linear relationship emerges between the variable representing the shares held by controlling shareholders immediately prior to the transaction and the share transfer variable. The sample consists of 46 Tunisian companies listed on the Tunis Stock Exchange during the period 1992–2012. Results show that the original shareholders sale decision depends significantly on company growth opportunities. Assignee shareholders benefit from favourable stock market conditions when they sell their shares at the IPO time. Share transfer behaviour depends on whether company ownership consists of a family or not, and on whether the shareholders are blockholders or not. Besides, controlling shareholders benefit from IPO to enhance their ownership.