Improving International Comparisons of Prices at Basic Heading Level: An Application to the Asia‐Pacific Region

The International Comparisons Program (ICP) run by the World Bank compares prices and real incomes across countries, and plays a pivotal role in the Penn World Table. Using a unique dataset consisting of over 600,000 price quotes from nine countries in the Asia‐Pacific region, we consider ways of improving the basic heading price indexes that form the building blocks of ICP. Current ICP methodology computes these price indexes using the country–product–dummy (CPD) method applied to the country average prices. We contrast this approach with: (i) a weighted version of CPD; (ii) CPD applied directly to the individual price quotes; and (iii) extended versions of CPD that include adjustments for unrepresentative products, urban–rural price differences, and different outlet‐types. Also considered are new CPD‐based methods for measuring urban–rural price differences, and the implications of our findings for the downward revision in China's GDP in ICP 2005.     

EU's competition policy and the GE‐Honeywell merger fiasco: Transatlantic divergence and consumer and regulatory issues

This article discusses and analyzes the European Union's (EU's) competition policy and the 2001 General Electric‐Honeywell merger fiasco within the areas of global business and transatlantic issues. Based on a brief literature review of marketing, competition policy/antitrust law, vertical/horizontal integration, and global business, the article tries to explain those conditions that led to this failed merger. It is expected that in the coming years, the EU's competition policy and the United States' antitrust law will continue to differ and may create problems for those multinationals seeking large‐scale mergers and acquisitions in North America and Europe. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The ethics of ‘going green’: the corporate social responsibility debate

A significant proportion of authors of green business texts proposes that managers should be the instigators and guardians of a societal change towards sustainable development. There is the notion of managerial duty towards the environment. This paper attempts to unravel the implications of this call for managerial eco‐heroism. The reason that this unravelling is important is that there is a growing body of evidence suggesting that win–win situations – the ‘low hanging fruit’ – are progressively becoming less apparent for many firms. This implies a conflict between profitability and environmental performance. This translates into a (perhaps familiar) scenario for business: one greener option is more expensive, and the financial gains associated with it are insufficient to justify it on the grounds of profitability – ‘going green’ then means losing potential profits. A neoclassical and a socio‐economic perspective are provided as foundations for managerial reasoning. Even though the corporate social responsibility debate is not resolved, it is nonetheless of importance, not least because environmentally proactive managers might intend to increase social well‐being but actually reduce it through their green decision‐making. Thus the real‐world applicability of the positions adopted by the opposing philosophical schools is analysed. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

The Emerging Importance of Knowledge for Development: Implications for Technology Policy and Innovation

What new roles for science and technology policy emerge in the knowledge-based economy we live in? This broad question was largely the motivation for the 1st International Conference on Technology Policy and Innovation (ICTPI), held in Macau in July 1997. Some of the important contributions to this conference are gathered in this special issue. The aim of this introductory article is to describe the background of current research in the area of science and technology policy, to summarize the contributions to this special issue, and to issue calls for new policy research. While the contributions to this special issue are diverse in terms of methodological approaches, units of analysis, and disciplinary fields, we try to integrate some important conclusions of the background analysis, suggesting further avenues for policy research, namely: (1) balancing innovation and diffusion; (2) beyond the excludability of software; (3) deepen the conceptual framework established through the interactive models of innovation; (4) promoting wetware and software interaction; and (5) the need for an inclusive development.     

Knowledge of three regeneration programs and application behavior among Mississippi nonindustrial private forest landowners: A two-step sample selection approach

Various public financial assistance programs are available to nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) landowners in the United States. Many landowners have limited knowledge of these programs and have not utilized them. This study employed a two-step sample selection model to examine the determinants of NIPF landowner knowledge of three regeneration programs, and conditional on their knowledge, the determinants of the application frequency to these programs since 1996. Data were collected using a phone survey of NIPF landowners in Mississippi. The survey revealed that among these qualified landowners who had clearcut in the past 10 years, about 50% knew of one or more of the programs. Their application frequencies to individual programs ranged from 0 to 5. Landowner knowledge of the programs was positively related to land size, regeneration experience, gender, and membership in forestry associations. For landowners who knew of these programs, application frequencies were higher for those that had less acreage, had lower education or income, were fully employed, were female, or had no membership in forestry organizations.     

Investment appraisal practices: A comparative study of conventional and Islamic financial institutions

This paper compares the use of capital budgeting techniques of conventional and Islamic financial institutions, using data obtained from a survey of 105 conventional and Islamic financial institutions. Our main aim is to analyze the use of capital budgeting and risk techniques by the two types of financial institutions from a comparative perspective to see whether prohibition of riba makes a difference. Standard difference-of-means tests of the mean scores methods were used to test the hypotheses of the study. The results reveal a number of important conclusions. First, discounted cash flow techniques are found to be more widely used by financial institutions, and among those techniques internal rate of return is the most common. Second, Islamic financial institutions are found to adopt traditional methods that do not comply with the principles of Islamic Sharia'a. Third, a huge gap is found between the theory base of Islamic institutions and some of the practices of those institutions. Fourth, firms' characteristics, such as size, listing status, sources of revenue and government ownership, have some impact on their decisions to adopt capital budgeting criteria, methods of estimating costs of capital and risk. Finally, the decisions to select particular capital budgeting techniques, cost of capital estimation methods, and risk assessments are partly related to the characteristics of the chief financial officers.     

Officers’ fiduciary duties and acquisition outcomes

Using a Delaware case law that recognized officers’ distinct fiduciary duties for the first time in 2009, I examine the effect of officers' fiduciary duties (OFDs) on corporate acquisitions. I find that firms with entrenched officers prior to 2009 experienced increased announcement-period abnormal stock returns, mainly because their acquisitions created more synergies and reduced officers’ incentives to preserve control. These firms increased liability insurance premium expenditures, but reduced value-decreasing acquisition frequencies. Furthermore, the effect of OFDs is more pronounced in firms where officers are not directors, have wealth risk, face less product market competition, are insulated from the market for corporate control, or are able to avoid board monitoring. Overall, OFDs are a critical corporate governance mechanism that works in tandem with other disciplinary mechanisms.     

It's not me,it's you: Testing a moderated mediation model of subordinate deviance and abusive supervision through the self‐regulatory perspective

Synthesizing self‐regulatory theories, we provide new insights into the antecedents of abusive supervision. We, from the perspective of supervisor's self‐regulatory resources depletion or impairment, introduce supervisor hindrance stress as an underlying mechanism of the subordinate deviance–abusive supervision relationship: this mediated relationship will be intensified at the level of high subordinate job performance. In addition, we develop a complex contingency model and propose a three‐way interaction (i.e., subordinate deviance, job performance, supervisor outcome dependence) to obtain the complete understanding of the subordinate deviance–abusive supervision relationship facilitated through the supervisors’ hindrance stress. To test our moderated moderated mediation model, we gathered time‐lagged and multisource data from a large food service company located in southern China. We collected data at two different points (i.e., Time 1 and Time 2) from supervisors and their direct reports (N = 298 responses from 68 supervisors and 298 direct reports), and findings provide support for the hypothesized moderated moderated mediation model of our study. We highlight the implications of our study for theory, research, and practice.     

Global slack hypothesis: evidence from China,India and Pakistan

It is widely believed that globalization has changed inflation process. The global resource capacity reduces responsiveness of inflation to domestic activity and increases responsiveness of inflation to global resource capacity. This global slack hypothesis is tested using different theoretical specifications, which also relate domestic output elasticity and foreign output elasticity to the degree of trade openness of an individual economy. The results reject this hypothesis. The global resource capacity does not drive domestic inflation. The impact of globalization has not increased in the inflation process, and the results yield important policy implications for monetary policy formulation. The global resource capacity does not affect ability of the central banks to stabilize inflation, real economic activity and also respond to the volatility of output growth.