Incentive Complementarity in China’s Rural Enterprises

Complementarity between incentive instruments is a central theme of theoretical research in industrial organization. However, despite its importance, empirical evidence on the existence of complementarities is limited. We identify complementarities between incentive mechanisms using a dataset on rural firms in China. Using a panel regression framework, we confirm that significant complementarities exist in terms of the impact of incentive instruments on the performance of firms. In order to evaluate the robustness of our results we account for unobserved differences in firm quality using fixed effects and instrumental variables regressions. Support for the complementarity hypothesis is found after controlling for unobserved heterogeneity.     

Bibliometric monitoring of research performance in ICT-based disaster management literature

Quality & Quantity - The increasing diffusion of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) in the domain of disaster management depicts the catalyzed efforts and interests of nations for...     

Towards a model of dynamic capabilities in innovation-based competitive strategy: Insights from project-oriented service firms

With the growing significance of services in most developed economies, there is an increased interest in the role of service innovation in service firm competitive strategy. Despite growing literature on service innovation, it remains fragmented reflecting the need for a model that captures key antecedents driving the service innovation-based competitive advantage process. Building on extant literature and using thirteen in-depth interviews with CEOs of project-oriented service firms, this paper presents a model of innovation-based competitive advantage. The emergent model suggests that entrepreneurial service firms pursuing innovation carefully select and use dynamic capabilities that enable them to achieve greater innovation and sustained competitive advantage. Our findings indicate that firms purposefully use create, extend and modify processes to build and nurture key dynamic capabilities. The paper presents a set of theoretical propositions to guide future research. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. Finally, directions for future research are outlined.     

Common Ground Between Free‐Traders and Environmentalists

We use a North–South model with property right differences and resource dynamics to study the effects of trade on resource use and welfare. Autarky is likely to Pareto‐dominate free trade in the long run when the environment is quite fragile, and the result is reversed when the environment is quite resilient. Trade may cause an environmentally poor country to “drag down” its richer trading partner, when they degrade their stocks which would be preserved under autarky. It may enable the environmentally richer country to “pull up” its partner, when they preserve their stocks which would be degraded under autarky.     

The Emergence and Persistence of the Anglo-Saxon and German Financial Systems

We use a moral hazard model to compare monitored (nontraded)bank loans and traded (nonmonitored) bonds as sources of externalfunds for industry. We contrast the theoretical conditions thatfavor each system with the historical conditions prevailingwhen these financial systems evolved during the British andGerman industrial revolutions. To study persistence, we consideran entry model where financiers take the industrial structureas given when they lend and firms take the financial systemas given when they borrow. We show multiple equilibria can exist,compare equilibria in welfare terms, and discuss their robustnessto coordination between lenders and borrowers.     

The Washington State combined fund drive: a case study

The Washington combined fund drive is a large employee workplace giving programme in the state of Washington, USA. This programme provides individuals with a large choice of charities and payment options. Promotion for the programme is conducted entirely through a volunteer organisation. It has grown steadily, but contributions are now levelling off, so the director of the programme is trying to identify the most effective way to improve it. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications     

What if the UK had Joined the Euro in 1999?

The issue of whether the UK should join the European single currency has been fiercely debated for the past two decades. However little research has been devoted to forecasting hypothetical projections for important UK economic variables, assuming that the UK had in fact joined the euro at its inception in 1999. This paper focuses on estimating counterfactual series for two key macroeconomic variables: unemployment and output. We do this by estimating Phillips curves for the UK, which we then use to compute counterfactual series for what unemployment and output may have looked like for the UK had they adopted the single currency in 1999. Based on the comparison of our forecasts with observed data, we find that the UK was correct in not joining the euro; had they adopted the European single currency in 1999, unemployment would have been higher and output would have been lower.     

Making choices under conflict: The impact of decision frames

How do people make choices when they see two equally positive versus two equally negative decision alternatives? The cancel-and-focus hypothesis argues that when people see options in a sequence, they tend to overweight the unique attributes of the first alternative. This leads to the prediction that when both options are positive (approach–approach conflict), the first option is preferred more but that if they are both negative (avoidance-avoidance conflict), the first option is preferred less. Based on recent research, we argue that this finding may be contingent on an unrecognized compatibility confound with the decision frame of choosing versus rejecting. In this research, we argue that the choice biases predicted by the cancel-and-focus hypothesis will be more pronounced when the decision frame (choose/reject) is incompatible with the valence of the alternatives (reject–positive and choose–negative) because such incompatibility increases processing motivation. We report two studies with varying operationalizations of decision conflict which find that cancel-and-focus effects are more pronounced under incompatibility. Taken together, these findings suggest that conflict effects are better understood by accounting for the decision frame as well.     

Loan Loss Provisions by Banks in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore

This paper studies loan loss disclosures by banks in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore for the period 1993 through 2000. We find that unexpected loan loss provisions are positively related to bank stock returns and future cash flows. This indicates that Asian bank managers increase loan loss provisions to signal favorable cash flow prospects, and bank investors bid bank stock prices up when unexpected provisions are positive. These results are consistent with those obtained by Wahlen (1994) for US banks. We also examine the impact of the Asian financial crisis of 1997 on the loan loss variables. The results indicate that the association between the unexpected loan loss provisions and bank stock returns and future cash flows was significantly lower in the crisis years, relative to the non‐crisis period. Evidently, discretionary loan loss provisions had no signaling value during the crisis. This suggests that macroeconomic uncertainty influenced the strategic behavior of Asian bank managers and investors.