The development of activity-based costing journal literature, 1987-2000

This paper contains an analysis of the activity-based costing (ABC) literature which has been accumulated in the UK and USA accounting journals over the fourteen-year period since the first articles on ABC emerged. This evidence is used both longitudinally and cross-sectionally to gain insights into how ABC started, how it has been communicated, how it has been researched, how it is constituted, how it has generated attention and how it has developed and changed. From the analysis conclusions are drawn on these issues and on the role of academic research when confronted by a new practical innovation of this type.     

Spillovers and international competition for investments

Two jurisdictions compete to attract shares of the investment budget of a large multinational enterprise, whose investments confer positive spillovers on national firms. The firm has private information about its efficiency and about spillovers. It is shown that the firm may be harmed by tax competition. Relative to a cooperative tax agreement, tax competition may induce excessive investments in the country where the positive spillover effects are lowest. Also, with sufficiently asymmetric spillovers, investments under competition will be excessively spread out, not properly concentrated to the country where spillovers would be largest.     

International Management of North-Sea Herring

North-Sea herring is a transboundary resource,shared by the EU and Norway. The purpose ofthis paper is to investigate how the harvestsor total allowable catch quotas (TACs) for thisspecies should be divided between these twojurisdictions so that both parties aresatisfied. We apply a discrete-timegame-theoretic model in which we show that theEU should be allocated more than half of theTAC even if the EU has higher harvesting costs.This result is due to the distribution patternof the herring, with a larger share of herringlocated in the EU zone. However, we find thataccording to the Nash bargaining solution, thecurrent sharing allocates too large a share tothe EU.     

The effect of public ownership and deregulation in the Scandinavian airline industry

We analyse why deregulation resulted in a temporary strong reduction in prices in Sweden, whereas in Norway the prices did not change significantly. SAS and Linjeflyg merged when the Swedish market was deregulated, whereas attempts to merge SAS and Braathens SAFE did not succeed. Upon deregulation in Sweden some of the carriers operating charter markets or regional secondary routes decided to enter the main routes. This put pressure on prices. Similar entries did not take place in the Norwegian market. We analyse whether the duopoly between SAS and Braathens SAFE is characterised by tacit collusion.     

Open access harvesting of the Northeast Atlantic minke whale

The purpose of this paper is to analyze open access exploitation of the Northeast Atlantic minke whale. In particular the question whether open access could lead to stock extinction is addressed. A bioeconomic model of the open access fishery is developed and estimated for data from Norwegian whaling. Numerical analysis shows that open access was not likely to have lead to stock extinction for the minke whale.     

Associations between risk judgments and demand for transport risk mitigation

The present study tested a hypothesized model regarding associations between risk sensitivity, risk perception, transport priorities, worry, and demand for risk mitigation in transport. An additional aim was to investigate differences in risk perception, worry, risk sensitivity, transport priorities, and demand for risk mitigation in age-groups, gender, and educational levels. A mail survey was conducted in a representative sample of the Norwegian public over 18?years (n?=?1947) in 2008. The response rate was 31%. The results showed that transport priorities were the strongest predictor of demand for risk mitigation. Risk perception seems to be mediated by worry. Risk sensitivity was directly associated with transport risk perception and, not as predicted, also directly with demand for risk mitigation. The two youngest age-groups (18–30 and 31–50?years) perceived the probabilities of transport accidents in private transportation as significantly larger and also judged other nontransport risks to be larger than those over 50?years of age. The youngest age-group was more worried about injuries from private transportation, but reported lower demands for risk mitigation. The findings merit further research into the relationship between risk perception and demand for risk mitigation. The results indicated that younger individuals were more worried about injuries and assessed the probability of accidents to be larger, while they report a lower demand for risk mitigation compared to older age-groups.     

A trust game in loss domain

In standard trust games, no trust is the default, and trust generates a potential gain. We investigate a reframed trust game in which full trust is default and where no trust generates a loss. We find significantly lower levels of trust and trustworthiness in the loss domain when full trust is default than in the gain domain when no trust is default. As a consequence, trust is on average profitable in the gain domain, but not in the loss domain. We also find that subjects respond more positively to higher trust in the loss domain than in the gain domain.     

Market integration between wild and farmed seabream and seabass in Spain

Gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata) and European seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax) production from aquaculture has been increasing since the 1990s. Nowadays, about 95% of their production comes from aquaculture. In this study, we analyse if the rapid growth in the aquaculture production of both species has affected the capture fisheries prices of both species. In other words, we investigate if there is market integration between wild and farmed gilthead seabream and European seabass. In order to do this analysis, we use data from the main gilthead seabream and European seabass markets in Spain. The results show that there is no market integration between wild and farmed gilthead seabream and European seabass. This implies that capture fisheries are not affected by increases in the aquaculture production of both species. But gilthead seabream and European seabass aquaculture producers face a smaller demand that explains the difficulties this aquaculture segment is facing.     

Tournaments with Prize‐setting Agents*

In some tournaments, it is the contestants themselves who determine reward allocation. Union members bargain over wage distribution, and some firms allow self‐managed teams to freely determine internal resource allocation, incentive structure, and division of labor. We analyze, and test experimentally, a tournament where heterogeneous agents determine the spread between winner prize and loser prize. We investigate the relationship between prize spread, uncertainty, heterogeneity, and effort. We find that a large prize spread is associated with a low degree of uncertainty and a high degree of heterogeneity, and that heterogeneity triggers effort. By and large, our real‐effort experiment supports the theoretical predictions.     

The Effect of Founding Family Influence on Firm Value and Corporate Governance

We examined a sample of 120 Norwegian, founding family controlled and non‐founding family controlled firms, to address two important research questions: (1) is founding family control associated with higher firm value; and (2) are there unique corporate governance conditions under which a founding family controlled firm can be more valuable? We find a positive association between founding family control and firm value for four alternative definitions of founding family control. We find that the association between founding family CEOs and firm value is stronger among younger firms, firms with smaller boards, and firms with a single class of shares. However, the impact of founding family directors on firm value is not affected by corporate governance conditions such as firm age, board independence, and number of share classes. We also find that the relation between founding family ownership and firm value is greater among older firms, firms with larger boards, and particularly when these firms have multiple classes of shares. Our results imply that founding family controlled firms are more valuable and governed differently than firms without such influence. Furthermore, our results also suggest that founding family CEOs can enhance firm performance when family influence does not create shareholder entrenchment or when their cash flow rights are more aligned with their control rights.