Markov analysis of land use change: Continuous time and stationary processes

In an earlier paper one of the authors has used actual land use maps to establish the validity of the Markov process for describing and projecting land use changes. In a subsequent paper the same data was used to calibrate a non-homogeneous, birth and death process in which the land uses were dichotomized into either of two states: developed or undeveloped. The present paper pursues two aspects raised by the earlier ones: whether the process of land use changes can be considered a stationary process and, if so, whether it can be fit by a continuous-time, rather than discrete-time, model. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a feasible fit are indicated.     

Corporate governance and IPO underpricing in a cross‐national sample: A multilevel knowledge‐based view

Prior studies of IPO underpricing, mostly using agency theory and single‐country samples, have generally fallen short. In this study, we employ the knowledge‐based view (KBV) to explore underpricing across 17 countries. We find that agency indicators are insignificant predictors, board of director knowledge limits underpricing, and external knowledge both substitutes for and complements internal board knowledge. This third finding suggests that future KBV studies should consider how internal and external knowledge states interact with each other. Our study offers new insights into the antecedents of underpricing and extends our understanding of comparative governance and the KBV of the firm. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Farmers' Market consumers: a Scottish perspective

Farmers' Markets in Scotland have gradually developed since 1999 as an alternative retail outlet for consumers. Throughout the UK, shoppers have become increasingly concerned about the quality and safety of their food and as a result seek healthier, locally grown organic and non‐organic produce. Thus, the growth of Farmers' Markets is directly related to consumer demand for fresh foods, direct from source, with the high quality of products being a primary reason for shopping. Farmers' Markets are not only seen as a place to buy ‘good food’ but also as a means to express consumer values associated with food choices. Scottish Government efforts to revitalize rural economies through local enterprise initiatives is evidenced by funding the initial establishment of the Scottish Association of Farmers' Market (SAFM), formed in 2000 by market organizers to further their development. The benefits of fresh local produce for Scottish consumers, the revival of a sense of community and the concept of ‘new consumption spaces’ tied to locality means the rural economy benefits from the increase in activity and profits through direct sales. This research investigates consumption habits at farmers' markets through the use of attitudinal theories along with food behaviours and motivations for purchasing. The results demonstrate that a positive attitude is important but the influence of others and barriers are not. Consumers are particularly motivated towards resource conservation and there are distinct differences in attitude between urban and rural shoppers. This research provides a unique insight into the attitudes that influence and motivate Farmers' Market consumers in Scotland.     

Over the moon or sick as a parrot? The effects of football results on a club's share price

This article considers the impact of match results on the stock returns of English football clubs. We propose that the magnitude of the response to a given result depends on the importance of the game, which is measured in two ways. First, we consider the extent to which the clubs are close rivals vying for similar league positions, as winning such games is particularly significant. Second, we argue that each individual game becomes more important for those clubs likely to be promoted or relegated as the season draws to a close, since a given match will have increasing information content concerning the final league position of the club. Using a fairly large panel comprising data for 19 clubs, we find some support for the notion that stock prices are affected more by the results of important matches than matches of lesser importance. We also observe that the difference between the number of points the club secures from a given match, and the number it was expected to secure, affects its stock price, as does the number of goals that the club under question scores in the match, relative to its competitor.     

Calculating long-run impacts of social programs with staggered implementation

When measuring the causal impacts of policy interventions, evaluators often contrast samples with and without the intervention tracked longitudinally. This article considers what happens when the without-intervention portion of the sample begins to be treated with the intervention part way through the follow-up period. The authors focus on randomized control trials, whose sponsors increasingly guarantee all participants in the study the intervention—the control members with a lag—while noting that the problem and their proposed solution apply to non-experimental impact evaluations as well. Once the control group (or other counterfactual group) receives the intervention, the treatment-control comparison becomes a measure of the difference in impacts between interventions of different durations—longer in the treatment group than the control group—rather than a measure of the total impact of the longer duration compared to no intervention. To measure this total impact—which tends to matter more to policy than differential or short-term impacts—the authors propose to sum the available experimental impact estimates from consecutive time periods, thus combining an experimental measure of the impact of the short duration intervention with an incremental measure of the added impact of the longer duration. The statistical properties of this estimator are explored, as are the conditions under which it provides an unbiased estimate of the total long-term effects of treatment.