Industrial Centralization in Indonesia

In certain situations, economic liberalization policies canincrease the degree of spatial centralization of resources andspatial concentration of manufacturing in large metropolitanareas. In addition, historical patterns of location make itdifficult to alter the degree of centralization. This articleexplores these issues by specifying and estimating a nestedlogit model of industrial location of manufacturing activityin Java, focusing on the unincorporated sector. The resultsindicate that plants strongly prefer locations with mature plantsin related industries, which offer a built-up stock of localknowledge. In addition, the 1983 liberalization in Indonesiawas associated with increased centralization of the unincorporatedsector. Although the liberalization gave unincorporated firmsbetter access to government and other centralized services,firms needed to centralize to take advantage of these opportunitiesbecause the bureaucratic process is centralized and communicationsare poor. The relative increased growth of the corporate sectorfollowing liberalization may also have helped to further drawunincorporated plants into centralized locations.     

Critical reading in accounting

The wave of postmodernism has reached accounting studies. With it that wave has brought new thought provoking and inspiring ideas such as: the local determination of meaning and the proposition that meaning of signs comes from other signs, not from reality. However, if these ideas are left abstract, they may not inspire accounting education with their full potential. Hence, this paper offers a three-stage framework of analysis, the so-called strategy of critical reading, which draws upon ideas of postmodernism and hermeneutics. The framework suggests how the reading of accounting texts could find new insights from postmodern ideas, without lapsing into a linguistic idealism that would deny the world any external reality independent of language.     

Environmental value chain management of laundry detergents in the use phase

Environmental value chain management is concerned with the environmental aspects of products and services along the whole value chain, from raw material and energy acquisition to waste management. The use phase in the value chain remains an understudied subject, despite considerable consumption‐related environmental impacts. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the use phase of laundry detergents in households. Our empirical data consist of interviews in the laundry rooms of 299 Finnish households. Consumers’ environmental awareness, use of dosage measuring devices and actual doses of laundry detergents are studied in the empirical part of the study. The results show that consumers do not perceive households as significant polluters, the measuring devices they use are diverse and the number of ‘heavy users’ is high in all detergent brands. It is concluded that in the consumption of laundry detergents, consumers do not perceive environmental issues as specific value criteria in relation to the use of laundry detergents. Manufacturers, marketers and other actors in the value chain of laundry detergents could contribute to alleviating the harmful environmental impacts of the use phase by more effective consumer education and better product design. For consumers, it might be beneficial to adopt eco‐efficiency thinking in their daily consumption.     

Economics of venue selection for special sporting events: With special reference to the 1996 Melbourne grand prix

Venue selection for major sporting attractions can be a highly politicized decision making process. Due to the sometimes controversial nature of venue selection, politicians can be circumspect on related issues including potential economic impacts. This was the case with the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix held at Albert Park, Melbourne in March 1996. Comments provided by the authorities on matters associated with the venue selection referred to both the opportunity to showcase Melbourne on international and national television due to the proximity of Albert Park to the Melbourne skyline as well as referring to the fact that the Australian Grand Prix had been conducted at Albert Park in the 1950s and therefore the race could be said to be returning home! However, limited details have been made public regarding the financial aspects of the event. A real challenge was to estimate expenditure by the visitor and the indirect economic benefits on regional economies in the absence of formal data. In the aftermath of the event, however, the media amply reported estimated figures for gross economic gains attributable to the Grand Prix. This paper argues that it is possible to use these estimates of gross economic gains, as reported by the media, to derive the direct contribution of this event This paper investigates the comparative benefits of an alternative venue, such as Sandown Park in the Eastern region and concludes that the higher multiplier effects evident in the Melbourne Metropolitan Region ensured that any decision made on economic grounds would favor Albert Park over outlying regions.     

Income Inequality and Technology Diffusion: Evidence from Developing Countries*

We study the effect of within‐country income inequality on the diffusion of mobile phones using data on market penetration in a sample of developing countries from 1985 to 1998. Mobile phones are an example of international technology, originating in industrialized countries and diffusing worldwide. We find that income inequality, as measured by the income share of the highest earning deciles, has a positive effect on the early diffusion of mobile phones and that the estimated effect becomes greater when a measure of agricultural endowments is used as an instrument. The instrumental variable results are robust to weak instruments. Our findings suggest that the diffusion of new technologies originating from industrialized countries may generate yet another channel that links inequality and development.     

Asymmetric Information and the Market Structure of the Venture Capital Industry

In this paper we study a horizontally differentiated market for financial intermediation and develop a simple explanation for concentration in the financial intermediation industry. We show that under asymmetric information, if the demand for funds is not perfectly elastic, the heterogeneity of entrepreneurs in need of financing translates into a barrier to entry. That is, we do not need to resort to learning, weak property rights or exogenous costs of entry to generate this result.     

Understanding co‐consumption between consumers and their pets

Pets live with people; they participate in people's everyday life activities and are often seen as human‐like family members. Consumers in the industrialized countries are investing more money in their pets and spending more time with them than ever before. The pet and the owner can even be considered to form a unit that consumes together. In this article, we develop a conceptual understanding of co‐consumption by examining how pets act as co‐consumers in everyday consumption. The pet owner and pet have joint consumption experiences in which they interact with other actors such as service providers. The consumer (pet owner) consumes because of the pet, meaning that he or she constantly needs to take the pet into account in choices and activities beyond pet‐related consumption, such as what kind of car to buy, where to work, whom to marry and how to live. The co‐consumer (pet) also acts as an active agent who experiences, feels, suffers and likes the goods and services that the consumer buys for the pet. Reciprocally, the pet provides the consumer (pet owner) with companionship, support and a boost to wellbeing. As such, our research suggests that co‐consumption provides an understanding not only of consumption with pets but also of other contexts, especially those in which the aim is shared well‐being such as consumption together with children, the disabled or the elderly.     

Crises,contagion and cross-listings

We investigate whether cross-listing shares in the form of depositary receipts in overseas markets benefits investors in emerging market countries during periods of local financial crisis from 1994 to 2002. We regress cumulative abnormal returns for three windows surrounding the crisis events on the cross-listing status while controlling for cross-sectional differences in firm age, trading volume, foreign exposure, disclosure quality and corporate governance. Further, we examine cross-listing effects in countries popularly thought to experience contagious effects of these crises. We find that cross-listed firms react significantly less negatively than non-cross-listed firms, particularly in the aftermath of the crisis. The results on contagious cross-listing effects are however mixed. Our findings are consistent with predictions based on theories of market segmentation as well as differential disclosure/governance between developed and emerging markets. We do not find evidence that foreign investors “panic” during a currency crisis.     

J-curve in Turkish bilateral trade: A nonlinear approach

ABSTRACT

This study aims to bring further evidence on recent developments of the J-curve literature by employing linear and nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approaches for Turkish bilateral trade data with respect to 18 European Union member countries over the period from 1990Q1 to 2017Q3. Findings obtained from the nonlinear ARDL model yield more support for the J-curve phenomenon compared to the linear model. This result provides evidence of an asymmetrical impact of appreciations and depreciations on the Turkish bilateral trade balances and suggests that allowing for nonlinearity in the adjustment process gives better results in terms of the J-curve effect.