Capital flows to Asia and Latin America: Does institutional quality matter?

Using a sample of 28 emerging market economies from Asia and Latin America spanning 1990–2013, we show that the marginal effect of capital flows on growth is positive and contingent on the threshold level of institutional quality (IQ). The conditional effect of capital flows holds for both the income per capita growth and total factor productivity (TFP) growth. We also determine the different threshold levels of IQ at which the marginal effect of capital flows is positive. The overall level of IQ in the Asian countries is superior to the Latin American countries and requires a lower threshold level to exert any positive effect. While the same conditional effect of IQ holds in Latin America for TFP growth, this effect is reversed in Asia. For very high levels of IQ (91st percentile), the marginal effect of capital flows on TFP growth in Asia is almost negligible. The marginal effects also vary based on the composition of capital flows in each region.     

The future of food: countering globalisation and recolonisation of Indian agriculture

India, with a billion plus population, has put agriculture at the heart of its economy and food security at the centre of its agriculture policy. However, all the decisions and policies of a free and independent India which replaced colonial policies of land alienation, and concentration on ownership of land, super exploitation of the peasantry, the creation of famines are being undone through globalisation. These policies are bringing back “zamindari” and land monopolies of colonial times. The public distribution system (PDS) is being dismantled. Farmers are committing suicides, reports of starvation deaths have become common, foreboding a return of famines last experienced under British rule. Biodiversity is being rapidly eroded, and food, the very source of health and nutrition has become a major source of health hazards caused by toxic chemicals in factory farming and new genetically engineered foods and crops. This paper examines these developments in detail and proposes an agenda for creating an alternative future of food and highlights the current practices that are working towards this alternative.     

An End to China's Imbalances?

As early as 2005,analysts and academics became concerned about the prospects for,and sustainability of,growing current account imbalances in the world's largest economies.In the United States,low savings rates and growing household consumption,fueled in part by what later turned out to be a bubble in the property market,sucked in imports from abroad,causing the trade and current account deficit to balloon.Of course,this deficit had a counterpart among the United States' principal trading partners.     

Structural homophily or social asymmetry? The formation of alliances by poorly embedded firms

Recent research shows that preexisting network structure constrains the formation of new interorganizational alliances. Firms that are poorly embedded in a network structure are less likely than richly embedded firms to form alliances, because they lack informational and reputational benefits. This study examines the types of ties that poorly embedded firms can form to overcome the constraints that their structural positions impose, in turn helping to explain how firms' actions can transform existing network structures. We argue that poorly embedded firms are more likely to participate in ties characterized by social asymmetry than in ties characterized by structural homophily. We analyze the terms of trade that socially asymmetric partners negotiate for alliance governance and discuss how such alliances influence network dynamics. To test our arguments, we use longitudinal data on the alliance activities of 97 global chemical firms from 1979 to 1991. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Why do off‐shored Indian call centre workers want to leave their jobs?

Employee turnover is a major problem in off‐shored Indian call centres. Agents who service Western customers often face hostility and racial abuse because of who they are and where they are located. A substantial part of job‐related training focuses on teaching employees to manage their identity and modify their accent. Based on a sample (n = 211) of Indian call centre workers servicing international customers, we explore these issues and investigate how they affect employee turnover intentions. The study utilises Taylor and Bain's (2005) distinction between factors particular to the Indian context and those more generic to the call centre labour process to better understand the drivers of turnover. We found that a number of distinctive factors including accent modification difficulty, stigma consciousness, racial abuse and perceived favouritism were associated with turnover intentions. The study also revealed that certain job‐related factors related to intentions to leave, including routinisation and poor promotional opportunities.     

ASPECTS OF COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION WITHIN LOW-INCOME HOUSING

This paper deals with the meaning and scope of community participation, the potential benefits for actors involved, practical obstacles, the shared responsibilities and related questions. It tries to explore the nature of participation in many contexts and attempts to analyze the concepts of "influence" and "power" in community participation. Various appropriate questions are asked, and a number of answers offered.     

DOES IT PAY TO BE GREEN? AN EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EMISSION REDUCTION AND FIRM PERFORMANCE

Evidence can be marshalled to support either the view that pollution abatement is a cost burden on firms and is detrimental to competitiveness, or that reducing emissions increases efficiency and saves money, giving firms a cost advantage. In an effort to resolve this seeming paradox, the relationship between emissions reduction and firm performance is examined empirically for a sample of S&P 500 firms using data drawn from the Investor Responsibility Research Center's Corporate Environmental Profile and Compustat. The results indicate that efforts to prevent pollution and reduce emissions drop to the ‘bottom line’ within one to two years of initiation and that those firms with the highest emission levels stand the most to gain.     

Switch or persevere? The effects of experience and metacognition on persistence decisions

This paper extends the scholarly understanding of entrepreneurial persistence decisions by identifying individual-level constructs that moderate which decision criteria have the most influence on entrepreneurs’ persistence decisions. Prior research demonstrates that contextual factors, such as feedback through adversity and the attractiveness of opportunities in an entrepreneur’s environment, determine whether or not an entrepreneur will persist with their current venture. We contribute to this literature by theoretically proposing and empirically testing how individual differences in entrepreneurial experience, metacognitive experience, and metacognitive knowledge moderate which aspects of environmental information entrepreneurs pay the most attention to when deciding whether or not to persist. We test our proposed model using a conjoint experiment that allows for monitoring actual persistence decisions of 124 entrepreneurs. Results suggest that metacognitive knowledge influences persistence decisions primarily through altering the impact that probability of expected outcomes associated with potential alternatives has on entrepreneurs’ persistence decisions. Furthermore, the results provide evidence that more experienced entrepreneurs weigh financial returns and switching costs more heavily when making persistence decisions.