Can internally generated futures accelerate organizational learning?

After many years of scenario planning, this paper takes a moment to reflect on its use within, and value to, organizations. The author states that ultimately the benefit of scenario planning must result from ‘changed and more skilful action by the organization within its business environment.’ Navigating through the business environment is discussed as taking on two forms, that of strategising and learning where the former is dominated by ‘knowing by gaining control’ and the latter by ‘knowing by participation’ and reflection. Taking this logic a step further, van der Heijden sees the purpose of scenario planning as being categorisable along two dimensions content/process and thinking/action producing a matrix of four categories of purpose. Although he sees these four reasons for using scenario planning as harbouring different degrees of difficulty and likelihood of success, he advocates above all that organizations think carefully about which category is appropriate for them and ensure that the process of scenario planning is designed to support this goal.     

Dynamic Supply Response and Welfare Effects of Technological Change on Perennial Crops: The Case of Cocoa in Malaysia

Modern biotechnology will generate crops with higher yields and enhanced resistance to pests and diseases. In the case of perennial crops, the age composition of the present stand, the farmers' willingness to invest, and the yield profiles of old and new trees determine the speed of adoption of the new technology and the timing of the effects on supply and demand conditions. We adapt conventional welfare measures to account for these factors in the Assessment of research induced supply shifts. The application to cocoa in Malaysia shows that consumers and adopting producers gain and non-adopters lose. Overall, 72% of the welfare gains go to the consumers.     

Private Equity and Shareholder Activism: Summary of the 2007 Annual Meeting Reports of the Royal Netherlands Economic Association

Summary This Communication is a summary of the 2007 Annual Meeting Reports of the Royal Netherlands Economic Association. It draws a few policy conclusions in relation to private equity, hedge funds and shareholder activism in the Netherlands. This richly varied collection of the 2007 reports and columns of the Royal Netherlands Economic Association adequately reflects the diversity of analyses and opinions on private equity, hedge funds and shareholder activism in the Dutch society. How the balance in corporate governance will be restored is something that cannot be determined precisely at this moment. However, the reports and columns in this collection contain many good and interesting recommendations that can serve as guidelines for academics and policymakers. We would like to thank the Board of the Koninklijke Vereniging voor de Staathuishoudkunde for the confidence they have placed in us as editors of the Annual Meeting Reports 2007 on ‘Private Equity and Shareholder Activism’. We would also like to thank the authors of the reports and columns for their excellent contributions to this collection. It is a great honour for us that so many renowned policymakers and scholars immediately showed themselves willing to lend their cooperation to the creation of this unique collection of reports and columns.     

Financial Market Competition: The Effects of Transparency

European and US financial markets are faced with increased competition for order flow. Fundamental in the competition process is the organization of the trading process, since this directly influences the performance and trading costs of those markets. In this paper we examine the effects of public quote disclosure and the disclosure of transaction information on market liquidity and price efficiency. Our results indicate a clear trade-off between efficiency and liquidity. These findings could explain why a variety of co-existing trading structures can be optimal among competitive financial markets.     

SOCIO-ECONOMIC ACCOUNTS FOR THE NETHERLANDS

In this paper the authors present Socio-economic Accounts for the Netherlands for the year 1981. Detailed information on income components, consumption components and savings for 52 household types are provided. The household types are a cross-classification of household size, income source and income level. For each income and consumption component, the sum of the amounts over the houshold types and three intermediary funds equals the macro amount in the National Accounts. The accounts are constructed by intregating macrodata from the National Accounts and microdata from the Income Statistics and the Budget Survey.