Implementation of International Environmental Commitments in Countries in Transition

MOCT-MOST: Economic Policy in Transitional Economies -     

The structure of production of the Spanish telecommunications sector

The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical measures of the returns to scale coefficients, substitution elasticities between capital and labor, their marginal productivities, and the profitability of inputs in the Spanish telecommunications industry. The results of this study indicate that constant returns to scale can strongly be rejected and that the profitability indices of both factors have risen consistently since 1974. Furthermore, it concludes that the company is relatively overcapitalized, a result generally consistent with the Averch-Johnson effect for rate of return regulated monopolies.The author wishes to thank Dr. Boris Bravo-Ureta and Dr. Emilio Pagoulatos for thoughtful comments on an earlier draft. She is also indebted to an anonymous referee for valuable suggestions and to Telefónica de España for providing the data necessary for this study.     

Students' Perception of the Ethical Business Climate: A Comparison With Leaders in the Community

Although undergraduate students are exposed to ethical issues through class assignments, discussions, and readings, they typically do not have first hand experience with business dilemmas. Student opinions on ethical standards and behavior in American business have received scant attention in the literature. The purpose of the study is to provide additional information to both educators and organizations about the ethical perceptions of students. Furthermore, the study contrasts student responses to business and community leaders' responses obtained in a prior study conducted by Touche Ross (1988). The findings from this study are based on an opinion survey about ethics in American business, completed by 476 liberal arts and business students attending a private, religiously affiliated college in New York State. The data indicate numerous differences in perceptions between students and business and community leaders. Differences were also found when students were classified by school (Arts &; Science versus Business) and by gender. Overall, students appear to place a strong value on education. Students are the source of new entrants to the business world and the foundation for ethical structures being built by organizations. The findings from this study should assist both educators and employers in the development of necessary programs to maximize the ethical potential of their constituents.     

How crosslisting affects merger and acquisition activity

Consistent with crosslisting decreasing the cost of capital, we find that firms which issue American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) are much more likely to undertake an acquisition than non-crosslisted firms. The results do not appear to be driven by self-selection, as the increase in acquisitions is robust to a Heckman correction as well as to a fixed-effect analysis. Adding the home country’s shareholder rights to the analysis, we find that crosslisted firms increase their takeover activity primarily if they are from weak shareholder rights countries. This evidence is consistent with crosslisting reducing the cost of capital of firms from weak governance countries significantly, and this reduction in cost of capital allows these firms to pursue more domestic and international takeovers.     

Regional knowledge production as determinant of high-technology entrepreneurship: empirical evidence for Germany

Similar to the creation and distribution of new knowledge through industrial R&D and university research, entrepreneurial activity tends to vary across regions. Therefore the regionalized production of new knowledge is a prerequisite of entrepreneurial innovation. Based on endogenous growth theory, in particular the so-called Griliches-Jaffe-Model of regional knowledge production, we investigate industrial and university characteristics as determinants of technologically oriented entrepreneurship. Using hand-collected data from multiple sources, our results clearly show that high-technology entrepreneurship is highly dependent on regional knowledge production by industry and university, while technology entrepreneurship does largely not dependent on these factors.     

The impact of religiosity on self- assessments of health and happiness: evidence from the US Southwest

Using an age stratified random sample from an ongoing population-based study of Mexican Americans 45 years of age or older living in the Southwest this study fexamines the relationship between religiosity and self-rated indices of physical health, subjective health status and happiness. After estimating a set of binary logit models and controlling for individual characteristics such as age and gender, findings indicate that religiously involved respondents have a lower probability of reporting a health problem than those less or not involved. Further, those respondents who attend religious services regularly are more likely to assess themselves healthier and happier than those reporting sporadic or no attendance. However, when the religious variable is factored into six constructs, as the frequency of religious attendance increases the happiness measure initially increases to an inflection point then it continues to increase but at a slower rate. This result is consistent with the argument that those individuals who, on average, attend religious services once a week appear to reap the greatest incremental rewards in terms of assessments of subjective health and overall happiness.     

Giving the consumer the choice: A methodology for Product Ecological Footprint calculation

As global consumption increases we are faced with a major threat; exceeding the Earth's capacity to create new resources and absorb waste. In the present study we develop a self-improving, market-driven process of ecological footprinting of products, proposed as a means to give consumers a real choice in actively monitoring and reducing their ecological impact. We conduct a small scale case study to illustrate first stage calculations. A wider market application of higher accuracy second or third stage calculations changes market information dynamics, as ecological information is internalized for consumers. Potential impacts on purchasing behavior, demand and eco-technological innovation are discussed.     

Strategies developed by leading EU agrifood cooperatives in their growth models

The objective of this article is to identify the factors that have brought about the greatest degree of competitiveness in some of the principal agrifood cooperative groups in the European Union (EU), using pertinent case studies from a range of sectors including the dairy, meat and fruit and vegetable sectors from three EU member states: Holland, Ireland and Denmark. With this purpose in mind, seven cases were identified for inclusion: Kerry Group, the Irish Dairy Board, Arla Foods, The Greenery BV, Danish Crown, Agrifirm and DLG. The article identifies the main barriers and problems faced by this type of cooperative and shows the strategies developed by leading cooperatives in their sector within the current comparative context and familiarizes readers with the different growth models these cooperatives use to achieve and maintain their market standing.     

Banking crises and market discipline: International evidence

This paper analyzes the effect of banking crises on market discipline in an international sample of banks. We also evaluate how bank regulation, supervision, institutions, and crisis intervention policies shape the effect of banking crises on market discipline. We control for unobservable bank, country, and time specific effects using a panel data set of banks from 66 countries around 79 banking crises. The results suggest that on average market discipline weakens after a banking crisis. This weakening is higher in countries where bank regulation, supervision, and institutions promoted market discipline before the banking crisis, and where a more accommodative approach is adopted to resolve it.