Durable goods,financial frictions,and business cycles in emerging economies

Business cycles in emerging economies display very volatile consumption and strongly countercyclical trade balance. We show that aggregate consumption in these economies is not more volatile than output once durables are accounted for. Then, we present and estimate a real business cycles model for a small open economy that accounts for this empirical observation. Our results show that the role of permanent shocks to aggregate productivity in explaining cyclical fluctuations in emerging economies is considerably lower than previously documented. Moreover, we find that financial frictions are crucial to explain some key business cycle properties of these economies.     

Segmentation, advertising and prices

This paper explores the implications of market segmentation on firm competitiveness. In contrast to earlier work, here market segmentation is minimal in the sense that it is based on consumer attributes that are completely unrelated to tastes. We show that when the market is comprised by two consumer segments and when there is sufficient variation in the per-consumer costs firms need to incur to access the different consumer populations, then firms obtain positive profits in symmetric equilibrium. Otherwise, the equilibrium is characterized by zero profits. As a result, a minimal form of market segmentation combined with advertising cost asymmetries across consumer segments give firms an opportunity to generate positive rents in an otherwise Bertrand-like environment.     

Export experience counts: exploring its effect on product design change

In this paper, we explore how managers' export experience can affect the change in product design following changes in perceived past performance. Using data from 519 Portuguese exporters, we find that performance improvement will encourage safe decision making in which firms either will not change the product design or will change it in a way that makes it more similar across the product range. However, when managers' export experience is greater, they encourage change in ways that could support product differentiation. The abilities of experienced managers to read the market, i.e. to interpret changes in performance and translate them into product specifications, help explain these findings. We contribute to the literature in two ways. First, we explore the relationship among past export performance change, product design, and managers' export experience. Second, we identify specific kinds of design changes that firms adopt in response to changes in different dimensions of organizational performance. Based on our findings, we would recommend to new product development managers to consider both managers' export experience and the dimension used to measure performance when evaluating calls for standardizing the design by export managers. Our findings suggest that such calls could be driven by short‐term gains in export performance. Furthermore, we would also emphasize the need to routinely capture information from experienced export managers to ensure that it is considered in future decisions about design changes.     

Technology Newness and Impact of Go/No-Go Criteria on New Product Success

This study shows that the relative effect of five dimensions of go/no-go criteria on new product success is contingent on the stage of the development process and newness of the technology. Specifically, strategic fit criteria are critical to new product success at the initial screening. Technical criteria are significantly correlated with product success only at the go-to-development decision gate. Market opportunity criteria relate positively with project success at the initial screening, the market launch gate and the post-launch review. Financial criteria correlate positively with success from the go-to-development decision to the first post-launch review. Customer-acceptance criteria stand out as equally important to success throughout the entire development process. In relation to the moderating effect of technology newness, it was found that customer acceptance and market opportunity criteria at the initial screening are more important for the success of low technologically innovative projects than for the success of high technologically innovative projects. At the initial screening, financial criteria exert a negative effect on the success of projects incorporating highly innovative technologies.     

International drug procurement and market intelligence: Cuba

Cuba's experience during the last 20 years is reviewed as far as international procurement and market intelligence are concerned. The steps taken during that period, in order to provide the Cuban people with the most efficacious medicines at the lowest cost are enumerated and analysed. The paper then discusses several aspects of Cuban drug policy: for instance, promoting national production of drugs; converting active ingredients into pharmaceutical forms; promoting research and development and technological innovation; and establishing an adequate infrastracture, including specialized institutional structures, for the evaluation of technology transfer and development in order to meet the demands made by human beings and animals on the pharmaceutical industry. The article also discusses the functions of Medi-Cuba dealing both with foreign commerce and its role as a drug intelligence centre for the pharmaceutical industry and research establishment.     

The stock market’s reaction to macroeconomic news under ambiguity

Financial Markets and Portfolio Management - We investigate the quality of the information that macroeconomic news conveys to the stock market about future business conditions. Our econometric...     

Living Costs and Real Wages in Nineteenth Century Lima: Levels and International Comparisons

This article provides new evidence on salaries and living standards of low-skilled workers in Lima in 1825–73. During this period, low-skilled workers in Lima could cover their basic needs. Real salaries increased in the early-1830s, but declined in the following decades. Real salaries declined during the Guano Era in spite of the commercial bonanza. An international comparison shows that Lima had lower living standards than Northern Europe and Australia, but higher than Asia. In most of the nineteenth century, Peru and other Latin American economies had higher welfare ratios than China, India, and Japan.     

Union Response to Teamwork: the Case of Opel Spain

The article examines the unions’ response to teamwork in Opel Spain in the light of the different theoretical analyses of this change. It is argued, through this case study, that both the unions’ responses and the theoretical approaches to teamwork, are partially derived from particular features of the national systems of industrial relations from where they stem.     

Preference Intensities and Majority Decisions Based on Difference of Support Between Alternatives

Simple majority is one of the most used decision rules in practice. However, under this decision rule, an alternative can defeat another one with very poor support. For this reason, other decision rules have been considered in the literature, such as qualified and special majorities as well as other majorities based on difference of votes. In this paper we generalize the latter mentioned voting systems by considering individual intensities of preference, and we provide some axiomatic characterizations.