Technology transfer through imports

Abstract .  We study international technology transfer through R&D spillovers in sixteen countries' manufacturing industries since the early 1970s. The analysis shows that the productivity impact of international technology transfer often exceeds that of domestic technological change, more so in high-technology industries. Moreover, technology transfer is found to be strongly varying across country-pairs and tends to decline in geographic distance, pointing to goods trade as the transfer channel. We directly evaluate this hypothesis, and results suggest that trade is crucial for technology transfer from Germany, France, and the UK, while for the US, Japan, and Canada non-trade channels are more important.     

Price Behavior in a Dynamic Oligopsony: Washington Processing Potatoes

Punishment strategies are necessary to sustain a collusive oligopsony in a repeated game context when demand is uncertain and only market variables are observable. This paper proposes a test for tacit collusion among potato processors in Washington state using a dynamic regime-switching model estimated with a finite mixture method. The results support the existence of punishment and collusive regimes and show the welfare losses due to anti-competitive behavior on the part of processors to be significant. Processors' oligopsony power is enhanced by higher domestic production, imports, and existing stocks, but it is ameliorated by high capacity utilization rates and exports.     

Private Equity vs. PLC Boards in the U.K.: A Comparison of Practices and Effectiveness

The consistently higher returns generated by the most successful private equity firms have been attributed in part to their willingness to take on high levels of debt and their ability to exit from their investments at attractive multiples. But recent research suggests that the largest contributor to the superior performance of the best PE firms has been their ability to improve the operating performance of the companies they buy. And as the authors of this article argue, a key source of such improvements are fundamental differences in the way boards function in the public and private realm.
Using in-depth interviews with 20 executives who have served on both PE and plc boards of relatively large U.K. companies, the authors provide a number of suggestive insights into such differences:
Perhaps the most visible of these differences is the "single-minded" focus of PE boards on "value creation," as contrasted with the focus of plc boards on issues of "governance" and "compliance."
Whereas PE boards view their role as "leading" the strategy of the firm and overseeing its execution by top management, plc boards are described as "monitoring" or "accompanying" strategies that are proposed and executed by management.
Whereas PE boards report near-complete alignment of objectives between executive and non-executive directors, plc boards are described as having multiple commitments to and priorities that are divided among multiple stakeholders.
Finally, whereas PE board members undergo an intensive "due diligence" process when joining boards, have frequent ongoing contacts with management, and focus heavily on the cash-generating capacity of the business, initiations of plc board members are much more formal and ceremonial, their dealings with operating management are few and limited, and the information provided them has an "accounting" orientation and covers a broad range of subjects and corporate "responsibilities."     

Potential impacts of the devaluation of Nepalese currency: A general equilibrium approach

This paper measures the potential impacts of the devaluation of domestic currency of the small, developing, landlocked and transition South Asian economy of Nepal, which is lagging behind in policy studies. The impacts on growth, distribution, price changes in factor and product markets, and on selected macroeconomic features are measured. Using a computable general equilibrium model applied to social accounting matrix data, we conclude that devaluation is expansionary but mostly benefits the rich, thus leading to a more uneven income distribution. In general, the expansion of economic activities occurs in agricultural and industrial sectors, whereas services activities contract. However, when the rate of devaluation is high, the agricultural sector also starts contracting. To this typical developing economy, devaluation causes an improvement in saving investment and export/import ratios, whereas the budget deficit widens.     

When does Strategic Debt-service Matter?

Recent work in corporate finance has suggested that strategic debt-service by equity-holders works to lower debt values and raise yield spreads substantially. We show that this is not quite correct. With optimal cash management, defaults occassioned by deliberate underperformance (strategic defaults) and those forced by inadequate cash (liquidity defaults) work as substitutes: allowing for strategic debt-service leads to a decline in the equilibrium likelihood of liquidity defaults. In some cases, this decline is sufficiently sharp that equilibrium debt values actually increase and yield spreads decline. We provide an intuitive explanation for these results in terms of an interaction of optionalitiesExpanded versions of this paper were presented in conferences and seminars at the Scottish Institute for Research in Finance, European Finance Association, Western Finance Association, Financial Management Association, 10th Derivative Securities Conference, Santa Clara University, Virginia Tech, the Norwegian School of Management, the Norwegian School of Business and Economics, Duke University, and Carnegie-Mellon University. We benefitted greatly from the comments of participants at these seminars and would particularly like to thank Francesca Cornelli, Kose John, Pete Kyle, Sanjay Unni, and Raman Uppal in this context     

How has microcredit supported agriculture? Evidence using panel data from Bangladesh

Improving agricultural productivity has received a greater attention in recent years amid concerns about rising food insecurity, population pressures, and climate change. Many believe that better access to institutional credit, spanning microcredit as well as commercial and agricultural banks, can help rural households smooth risks, and access inputs and other technology to modernize agriculture and improve farm/nonfarm linkages. We use recently augmented household panel data spanning over 20 years in Bangladesh to examine the effects of rural credit expansion (both microcredit and formal bank channels) on outcomes for agricultural households. We find that microcredit has benefited households with lower landownings, raising agricultural income from activities such as livestock rearing that require less land, as well as nonfarm income diversification for all households, but with the strongest effect for landless or near‐landless households. We do not find effects of microcredit on crop income, but do, however, find that reported supply‐side credit constraints significantly lower crop income. Borrowing by both men and women has contributed to nonfarm income growth for marginal farmers, but only men's borrowing has contributed to nonfarm income growth among higher landowning groups.     

Does industry-wide distress affect defaulted firms? Evidence from creditor recoveries

Using data on defaulted firms in the United States over the period 1982–1999, we show that creditors of defaulted firms recover significantly lower amounts in present-value terms when the industry of defaulted firms is in distress. We investigate whether this is purely an economic-downturn effect or also a fire-sales effect along the lines of Shleifer and Vishny [1992. Liquidation values and debt capacity: a market equilibrium approach. Journal of Finance 47, 1343–1366]. We find the fire-sales effect to be also at work: Creditors recover less if the industry is in distress and non-defaulted firms in the industry are illiquid, particularly if the industry is characterized by assets that are specific, that is, not easily redeployable by other industries, and if the debt is collateralized by such specific assets. The interaction effect of industry-level distress and asset-specificity is strongest for senior unsecured creditors, is economically significant, and robust to contract-specific, firm-specific, macroeconomic, and bond-market supply effects. We also document that defaulted firms in distressed industries are more likely to emerge as restructured firms than to be acquired or liquidated, and spend longer time in bankruptcy.     

Perspectives and problems of development in sub-Saharan Africa

This paper analyses the initial conditions for development facing post-colonial African nations, outlines alternative development strategies followed by different groups of countries and assesses the consequences for growth and poverty alleviation. On the basis of this diagnosis the paper outlines a number of policy priorities for the future including greater research, extension and infrastracture support for smallholder agriculture, an improvement in the overall structure of incentives in favour of agriculture, a more realistic urban formal sector wage structure to reduce rural—urban migration and foster a more internationally competitive manufacturing sector, and greater emphasis on surplus generation through government budgets and parastatal enterprises.     

Spatial competition and market power in banking

Banks in non-metropolitan areas compete in a spatially differentiated environment. Non-metro community banks have been insulated from increasing competition from metro banks due to their reliance on soft information in relationship lending. Proximity to borrowers, therefore, may be an important source of market power for non-metro community banks. This paper estimates a structural model of the supply and demand of banking services in which pricing power is allowed to depend explicitly on the distance between rival banks. A spatial autoregressive econometric model shows that approximately 38.0% of economic surplus earned by firms in non-metropolitan banking in the upper midwest is due to spatial market power.