INCOME,CONSUMPTION AND SAVING IN URBAN AND RURAL INDIA*

The main purpose of the study is to determine the savings potential of urban and rural households in India and in the process determine the possible savings and consumption functions separately for urban and rural areas. Four different possible functions have been used for determining the savings behaviour of the households both at the aggregate level and at the per capita level. The rural households, according to the results, have an extremely low rate of saving with income elasticity of saving of less than unity. For the urban households on the other hand, the income elasticity of saving is high enough to suggest the possibilities of considerably high savings potential. To understand the consumption behaviour of these households, the long-run and the short-run marginal propensities to consume and the marginal propensities to consume out of‘permanent’ or ‘normal’ income and ‘transitory’ income have been worked out. For the urban sector none of these give encouraging enough results and the analysis has been extended to examine whether other factors like prices and household assets are of any significance. Whereas for the rural sector, Milton Friedman's theory of ‘permanent’ or ‘normal’ income is somewhat substantiated, other factors like ‘transitory’ income, prices and assets appear to inthence urban consumption behaviour though no single one of them substantially enough. A negligible effect of ‘permanent’ income on urban consumption behaviour is, on the other hand, very clearly suggested by the results. Household consumption and savings have next been projected using the above results to determine the possible levels for the next three years. The results suggest that the rate of domestic savings likely to be achieved by the end of the Third Five Year Plan (1965–66) falls short of the targets laid down.     

Diversification and Performance: Critical Review and Future Directions*

This article uses an integrative theoretical framework to review existing empirical research on the diversification-performance relationship along the three different research streams which have studied this relationship. the article highlights the considerable diversity in the findings across studies in each stream and identifies certain key theoretical and methodological issues which might help to explain the observed diversity. Also discussed is a contingency-based perspective and several useful directions for future research.     

Modeling and Promoting Organic Food Purchase

This study aims at enhancing organic food product (OFP) purchase by identifying customer segments based on their knowledge and attitude related to organic food along with their demographic profile. Two scales for measuring Knowledge and Attitude related to organic food were developed to measure their levels. The scales have covered six dimensions of organic food: Healthy, Eco-friendliness, Price, Availability, Certification, and Brand. After identifying the customer segments, each segment was further segmented based on their media consumption behavior. Hierarchical followed by K means cluster analysis resulted to six distinct segments with their corresponding subsegments. Cluster analysis was again performed for each customer segment, and a media selection method (MSM) was evolved to effectively communicate with OFP customers. These methods can guide marketers in devising an appropriate communication plan for enhancing OFP purchase.     

Optimal administrative geographies: An algorithmic approach

Centrally planned Beveridge healthcare systems typically rely heavily on local or regional “health authorities” as responsible organisations for the care of geographically defined populations. The frequency of reorganisations in the English NHS suggests that there is no compelling unitary definition of what constitutes a good healthcare geography. In this paper we propose a set of desirable objectives for an administrative healthcare geography, specifically: geographical compactness, co-extensiveness with current local authorities and size and population homogeneity, and we show how these might be operationally measured. Based on these objectives, we represent the problem of how to partition a territory into health authorities as a multi-objective optimisation problem. We use a state-of-the-art multi-objective genetic algorithm customised for the needs of our study to partition the territory of the East England into 14 Primary Care Trusts and 50 GP consortia and study the tradeoffs between objectives which this reveals.     

Looking beyond the focal industry and existing technologies for radical innovations

The “radicalness” of an innovation is often contingent upon access to distinct technologies which arise from sourcing innovation outside a firms' focal industry (exterior sourcing). We posit that exterior sourcing leads to technology distinctness and that the presence of technology distinctness significantly affects the relationship between exterior sourcing and radicalness. In addition, we assert that high technology distinctness results in a stronger association with radicalness irrespective of the levels of exterior sourcing. Further, at lower levels of exterior sourcing, technology distinctness will have a stronger relationship with radicalness than at higher levels of exterior sourcing. We also argue that high technology distinctness and low exterior sourcing will have the strongest relationship with radicalness. We used patent filings from 1996 through 2009 from the IT industry from within the S&P-500 database to test our assertions. The empirical evidence validated our affirmations. Our findings suggest that to maximize the chance of radical innovations, firms must obtain highly distinct technologies from minimum possible contacts outside their focal industry. We conclude the paper by summarizing the key findings, discussing implications for theory and practice, and suggesting avenues for future research.     

The influence of international networks on internationalization speed and performance: A study of Czech SMEs

Drawing on social capital theory and the international entrepreneurship literature, we develop hypotheses relating the structural, cognitive and relational aspects of the international network of SME CEOs to two internationalization outcomes – speed and performance. The study is based on a sample of 155 Czech SMEs covering a broad range of manufacturing industries. Our findings indicate that firms sharing a common language with their international ties are able to internationalize faster than firms that do not share a common language. Moreover, we observe that geographically diverse networks contribute to superior performance. Extensive reliance on personal contacts hinders the performance of the first international venture.     

WHO GAINS FROM CORPORATE ASSET SALES?

This study documents that sell-offs, on average, are firm value enhancing, as both stockholders and bondholders gain from such transactions. Further, it reveals that sell-offs can be wealth redistributing, value destroying, or value enhancing depending on the way the sale proceeds are distributed and the motive underlying the sell-off. The wealth effects on stockholders and bondholders are not always symmetrical. Our results suggest that benefits from the sale of assets that do not strategically fit the firm's core business accrue primarily to stockholders, while benefits from distress-related sell-offs accrue to bondholders. Sell-offs to thwart takeovers destroy firm value. We document that a significant proportion of sell-offs results in wealth transfers between securityholders. Restrictive dividend covenants play an important role in protecting bondholders from wealth expropriation. Our analysis suggests that the relative size of the asset sale, the uses of the sale proceeds, and the degree of protection afforded bondholders via a dividend restriction may be relevant in explaining the direction of wealth transfer.     

Contractual Mix Between Cash and Kind Wages of Casual Workers in an Agrarian Economy

A two‐agent general‐equilibrium model is developed for explaining the mix of wage payment between cash and kind among landowners and workers. Its focus is on how, in the absence of insurance instruments but in the presence of heterogeneous tastes and attitudes toward risk among agents, the payment mix between cash and kind can serve as a welfare‐improving, risk‐hedging device. The model is used to determine how this optimal mix of wage payment would be affected by changes in risk‐aversion, consumption preferences, technology, price risk, and production risk. While the complexity and nonlinearity of the model make it impossible to obtain clear‐cut analytical results, simulation results are derived and shown to be rather robust. These results are also broadly supported by the findings of a small‐scale survey of agricultural wage contracts in India.     

Organizational fit and acquisition performance: Effects of post-acquisition integration

Based on 173 acquisitions in the U.S. manufacturing industry, this study examines the impact of organizational differences between acquiring and acquired firms on post-acquisition performance. The findings indicate that differences in top management styles have a negative impact on performance in acquisitions characterized by both high and low levels of post-acquisition integration. However, no such relationship was observed between differences in the reward and evaluation systems and post-acquisition performance in either the high or low integration subgroups. Implications of the findings, along with directions for future research, have been discussed in the concluding section of this paper.