Australian expatriates in Thailand: some insights for expatriate management policies

Expatriates are critical to the navigation of an increasingly complex international business world and, as such, the demand for their skills, knowledge and experience, as well as their supply, needs to be better understood. Furthermore, the role of human resource policies is of key concern in ensuring the right people are chosen to represent companies in overseas locations, as is the provision of pertinent support policies, such as preparation for overseas assignments and cross-cultural training. The purpose of this research is to examine these issues with the focus on Australian expatriates in Thailand. A questionnaire survey was conducted of members of the Australian-Thai Business Council in Thailand, an association representing Australian expatriates, in 1999. The findings provide some insights for expatriate management policy, including the notable conclusions that the market for expatriates is changing and becoming more demanding and that the imperatives of the emerging global market for human capital require a much more structured approach to expatriate management development.     

An Economic Model of Faculty Grading Practices

The statistical evidence examined by the author indicates that faculty members with relatively few students tend to assign higher grades than would be expected otherwise. In evaluating student achievement and faculty performance, therefore, one must not only be aware of this association, but also be able to assess its significance.     

Financial Inflexibility and the Value Premium

This paper tests whether and to what extent the value premium is induced by financial inflexibility. In this context, financial flexibility refers to the ability of a firm to alter investment expenditure to mitigate exogenous shocks, so as to generate a smooth dividend stream. Consistent with a literature that identifies three related sources of inflexibility, we create a composite inflexibility index, based on the proportion of fixed assets and measures of total leverage and financial constraints. A positive relation is documented between inflexibility and the book‐to‐market ratio, and between the returns of inflexible firms and value firms. However, the value premium retains explanatory power independent of inflexibility, suggesting that it is not a proxy for inflexibility alone.     

Exact solutions for ruin probability in the presence of an absorbing upper barrier

Abstract

An explicit solution for the probability of ruin in the presence of an absorbing upper barrier was developed by Segerdahl (1970) for the particular case in which both the interoccurrence times between successive claims and the single claim amounts follow an exponential distribution with unit mean. In this paper we show that his method of solution may be extended to produce explicit solutions for two more general types of single claim amount distribution. These are the gamma distribution, denoted γ(a), where a is an integer, and the mixed exponential distribution. Comparisons are drawn between this approach when the upper barrier tends to infinity, and the classical solution for ruin probability in these particular cases given in Cramér (1955).     

Information Efficiency in Betting Markets: a Survey

The concept of information efficiency is central to many studies of financial markets, and these studies have been well surveyed to date. A betting market is an example of a simple financial market, but one which offers researchers the added advantage that it is characterized by a well-defined termination point at which each asset (or bet) possesses a definite value. In consequence, it is much more convenient to use this particular context to formulate tests of information efficiency, and from these tests to draw useful conclusions. This paper surveys the rapidly growing literature which has to date addressed this issue of information efficiency in betting markets.     

Non-competitive imports and gains from trade

The paper argues for the explicit inclusion in international trade models of goods which cannot be produced in the importing country. Non-competitive goods require a product-requisite factor which is not universally available. International trade in these goods generates much greater per-unit gains from trade than trade in ordinary goods which can be produced in both (all) countries. Omission of these goods from models of international trade leads to the possibility of a gross underestimation of the difference between autarkic and with-trade income levels. The omission of these goods also neglects some dimensions of policy which are important in the real world, such as sanctions.     

Book Reviews

Caves, Richard E., and Associates, Industrial Efficiency in Six Nations, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992, xii + 492 pages.

National Research Council, Panel on Foreign Trade Statistics, Behind the Numbers: U.S. Trade in the World Economy, Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1992, xi + 297 pages.

Fischer, Klaus, and George J. Papaioannou (eds.), Business Finance in Less Developed Capital Markets, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992, xi + 391 pages.

Krugman, Paul R., Currencies and Crises, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1992, xix + 219 pages.

Howell, Thomas R., Alan Wm. Wolff, Brent L. Bartlett, and R. Michael Gadbaw, Conflict Among Nations: Trade Policies in the 1990s, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992, xiv + 633 pages.

Starr, Martin K., Global Corporate Alliances and the Competitive Edge: Strategies and Tactics for Management, New York: Quorum Books, 1991, xiii + 236 pages.

Liesch, Peter W., Government Mandated Countertrade, Aldershot, England: Avebury, 1991, xv + 172 pages.

Kotabe, Masaaki, Global Sourcing Strategy: R&D, Manufacturing, and Marketing Interfaces, New York: Quorum Books, 1992, xviii + 237 pages.