Available Sheep Cheese Supply Chain: Governance System of Channels in the Badia of Jordan

Based on field research in the Badia of Jordan and the first of its kind, this study specifically addresses the supply chain, marketing trends available to Badia farmers, the governance system that impact farmers, and the challenges facing them. Available cheese chains included Safeway and Civic Consumer Corporation chains as inaccessible by Badia farmers and wholesalers and Tal Arrimah (TA) Factory chains as accessible by Badia farmers. The data was elicited from archives, semistructured interviews, PRA (Participatory Rapid Appraisal), and survey with 118 participants carried out during the months of March–June 2007. The new trends have driven new organizational and institutional changes that led to the rise and use of contracts. Contracts varied in their attributes of delivery, prices, risk management, and provision of services such as credit and technical assistance. For the TA Factory, contracts remained unwritten and informal and did not set substantial requirements for technology upgrading and investment. The study recommends initiating written contracts for the benefit of the farmers as well as that of produce quality and standards.     

The influence of demographic characteristics of hospitality alumni on entrepreneurship factors in Egypt

The purpose of this article is to study the effect of demographic characteristics of hospitality alumni on entrepreneurship factors, and determine which factors are the most important for the alumni to become entrepreneurs. A questionnaire had been developed and distributed online using Google Forms. Data were collected from 314 hospitality alumni. All the hypotheses have been supported, proving that the investigated demographic characteristics have a significant effect on entrepreneurship factors, particularly motivation, innovation and personal skills. The study’s sample was limited to alumni of faculties of tourism and hotels in governmental universities only. Policy-makers implication, practical implication, and social implication are discussed based on the results of this study. This is one of the first studies in Egypt to study the effect of demographic characteristics of hospitality alumni on entrepreneurship. Moreover, it provides significant findings that can enhance the overall status of entrepreneurship in Egypt’s hospitality industry.     

Modelling the asymmetric responses of price level to oil price changes in Qatar

This paper inspects the asymmetric effect of oil price on prices level in Qatar. To achieve that, we proceed by employing a nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach on data during the period 1990Q1–2014Q4. The estimation results show evidences of an incomplete and asymmetric influence of oil price on price level in the long term. Moreover, we find that price responses to negative changes in oil price is greater than its response to positive changes. Given Qatar’s economic features, a decrease in oil price could cause lower imports and production prices and consequently a substantial influence on domestic prices level. However, the lower effect of positive oil price changes on consumer prices can be explained by the subsidies system, the consumption patterns, and the exchange rate regime.     

Financing of Firms,Labor Reallocation,and the Distributional Role of Monetary Policy*

We analyze monetary policy in a model with heterogeneous firms, where constrained firms finance operations through external financing and unconstrained firms use internal funds. We show that expansionary monetary policy increases the relative employment of constrained firms, while positive productivity shocks increase that of unconstrained firms. Our results agree with recent empirical findings, emphasizing the role of the monetary authority in reallocating resources across sectors with different financing capabilities. We also show that if the relative productivity of constrained firms is low, then expansionary monetary policy tilts resources towards less productive firms, which decreases the effectiveness of the policy in stimulating aggregate output.     

Foreign Direct Investment and Productivity Spillovers: Firm-Level Evidence From Chilean Industrial Sector

Using firm-level panel data, this article examines whether spillovers from foreign direct investment (FDI) make a contribution to productivity growth in Chilean manufacturing firms. The main contribution of this work is to apply a methodology to estimate, in a consistent manner, the productivity impact of investment climate variables, such as FDI. With this aim, the spillover effects from FDI are analyzed using a stochastic frontier approach (SFA). Productivity growth is decomposed using a generalized Malmquist output-oriented index. The results show positive productivity spillovers from FDI; higher competition is associated with larger spillovers; and firms with high R&D effort gain more spillover benefits compared to those with less R&D effort.     

A signaling approach to soft budgets

A new explanation for soft budget constraints is given. Projects of an agent are often the more profitable, the more confident the agent is in the principal's competence and/or supports. Principals can signal support and/or competence through a soft budget constraint.     

The ethics of using Chapter XI as a management strategy

In the past decade, the use of the Chapter XI has soared to the detriment of many creditors, workers, and consumers. A good number of cases were not based on imminent insolvency, but on firms attempts to avoid litigation claims against them, to terminate labor or other contractual obligations, or to gain new financing.These filings for Chapter XI highlight the use of bank-ruptcy as a strategic option used by management in running a viable organization. This usage is even advised by some academics and management consultants.While such uses may not be illegal, this paper questions the seeming ease with which a firm may use bankruptcy to escape contractual obligations to customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders. It also questions the ethics of the academics and management consultants who recommend such usage. Finally, the paper calls for a change in the law in order to minimize the opportunity for the unethical abuse of the bankruptcy law.Dr. Mahmoud Salem is a lecturer, consultant, and executive training specialist. He is President of The Center for Organizational Synergy in Uniondale, New York. His major areas of interest are Global Strategic Management, Organizational System Transformation, Executive Integrity and Business Ethics.Ms. Opal-Dawn Martin is on the administrative staff of Science Applications International Corporation in McLean, Virginia. Her major areas of interest are International Business and Finance.     

Separating a mixture of two normals with proportional covariances

We propose a simple affine equivariant clustering method, based on the idea of best linear classification, for samples from a mixture of two multivariate normal distributions with different mean vectors but proportional covariance matrices. To ameliorate the curse of dimensionality, a non-parametric approach to find candidates for a best linear discriminant function is presented. By using simulation studies and a real example, we show that for large samples in high dimensions, the proposed method can be a useful supplement to general-purpose multivariate outlier detection methods.     

A Synthetic Approach to Projecting Input–Output Tables

This paper describes an approach used in the Canadian input–output (IO) accounts, which seeks to enhance the timeliness of the tables. It combines traditional updating methods, balancing techniques and the most recent data. To assess the performance of this approach, aggregate estimates from the synthetic accounts are presented for two years, and compared with estimates from benchmarks and with estimates obtained from a mechanical estimation technique. The results show that most IO components can be estimated with a relatively small estimation error and that substantial accuracy is gained from using the synthetic approach compared with a mechanical technique. Results based on data which are two years away from IO benchmarks are obtained at the cost of large errors. Synthetic estimates of the IO accounts improve the timeliness problem by at least a full year.