Market discovery and the international expansion of the firm

The objective of this paper is to formulate a theoretical framework for studies of antecedents and consequences of discoveries during international expansion. By introducing market discovery it seems to be possible to offer a richer understanding of the pattern and pace of the international expansion of a firm. Market discovery is the result of both exploration and exploitation activities, but in order to exploit market discovery, a firm must learn to handle the discovered opportunity. A discovery, usually made while a firm is conducting daily activities, occurs in connection with search, planning, routine, and improvisation. The resulting learning can lead to changes in pace, orientation, and extension of the international expansion of the firm.     

Public Policy and Innovative Capabilities: The Case of Philips' IT Activities

The main aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of public policy on innovative capabilities of firms, focusing on, on the one hand, the measure of sheltering provided by the policies and, on the other hand, the effects of policies on industrial life cycles and on the life cycle related patterns of firms' behaviour. The paper deals with one sector, IT, and discusses EU and Dutch policies directed toward this sector. Furthermore, a case will be presented concerning Philips' ventures in the IT sector. The way in which public policy influenced the innovative capabilities of Philips helps to explain the relative success of the various projects.     

Hedge funds,fund attributes and risk adjusted returns

We use proprietary data to examine factors that lead hedge fund managers to offer hurdle rates and investigate relative hedge fund performance based on risk-adjusted returns. Using data from 3,571 hedge funds over a 15 year period, we find that funds that do not offer a hurdle rate outperform those that do. Funds offering a high watermark charge substantially higher performance fees. Further, emerging market, fixed income, and funds of funds are significantly more likely to offer a hurdle rate than other types of funds. Performance fees have a positive impact on the likelihood of offering a hurdle rate. Fund leverage and management fees are negatively associated with hurdle rates. The cross-sectional regressions show that funds, which offer a hurdle rate, underperform those that do not. Funds that charge a high performance fee appear to outperform those that charge a relatively low fee. The results are consistent with the view that those managers who wish to improve risk-adjusted returns should not focus on hurdle rates.     

{\varvec{P}}-value model selection criteria for exponential families of increasing dimension

Let $\mathcal{M }_{\underline{i}}$ be an exponential family of densities on $[0,1]$ pertaining to a vector of orthonormal functions $b_{\underline{i}}=(b_{i_1}(x),\ldots ,b_{i_p}(x))^\mathbf{T}$ and consider a problem of estimating a density $f$ belonging to such family for unknown set ${\underline{i}}\subset \{1,2,\ldots ,m\}$ , based on a random sample $X_1,\ldots ,X_n$ . Pokarowski and Mielniczuk (2011) introduced model selection criteria in a general setting based on p-values of likelihood ratio statistic for $H_0: f\in \mathcal{M }_0$ versus $H_1: f\in \mathcal{M }_{\underline{i}}\setminus \mathcal{M }_0$ , where $\mathcal{M }_0$ is the minimal model. In the paper we study consistency of these model selection criteria when the number of the models is allowed to increase with a sample size and $f$ ultimately belongs to one of them. The results are then generalized to the case when the logarithm of $f$ has infinite expansion with respect to $(b_i(\cdot ))_1^\infty $ . Moreover, it is shown how the results can be applied to study convergence rates of ensuing post-model-selection estimators of the density with respect to Kullback–Leibler distance. We also present results of simulation study comparing small sample performance of the discussed selection criteria and the post-model-selection estimators with analogous entities based on Schwarz’s rule as well as their greedy counterparts.     

Contracts,Negotiation, and Learning: An Examination of Termination Provisions

Taking a temporal view of learning in partnerships, we argue that learning to contract from prior relationships can be manifested not only in an increase in the level of contractual detail but also in a decrease in negotiation time for a given level of contractual detail. We analyse the influence that the length of prior relationships and the detail of termination provisions have on negotiation time, or the time period that it takes for partners to reach a mutually acceptable agreement. We find that: (1) the length of prior relationships has a curvilinear, U‐shaped effect on negotiation time, suggesting the possibility of diverse learning mechanisms as the relationship unfolds; (2) the impact of the detail of termination provisions on negotiation time varies across different types of termination provisions; and (3) it takes a shorter time to negotiate certain types of termination provisions when partners have longer prior relationships. Beyond suggesting the need to investigate the consequences of contractual provisions for collaborators, our study proposes negotiation time as an additional indicator of a learning‐to‐contract effect that complements existing ones.     

Transnational ties and performance of immigrant entrepreneurs: the role of home-country conditions

This study contributes to the recent empirical literature on the performance of transnational immigrants' firms by investigating the effect of transnational ties on the firm's growth. In addition to the effect of the ties, the paper shows that home country's institutional and socio-economic characteristics and country-specific entrepreneurial factors have a crucial role in shaping the ties–performance relationship. The evidence from a sample of immigrant-owned firms in the Italian information and communications technology (ICT) sector in the period 2000–2010 confirmed the relevance of the proposed model and helped in understanding a potential channel of improvements in immigrant firms' performance through transnational ties. Our results show the limited relevance of a direct, or linear, impact of ties on the growth of sales in immigrant-run firms in the ICT sector, but support the crucial moderating role of home-country characteristics on the ties–performance relationship.     

Dutch Economists Top 40

There is a tradition in the Netherlands to publish an annual ranking of economic and business researchers working in Dutch universities. The most recent such ranking, published in 2013, emphasizes research quantity over research quality. We propose an alternative ranking based on quality. Important information about a researcher’s quality and impact is lost when moulding it to fit a template of numbers. Our ranking is no exception. Nevertheless, we argue and demonstrate that our ranking fits international consensus on research prominence and that the 2013 ranking does not.     

Seek and Ye Shall Find: How Search Requirements Affect Job Finding Rates of Older Workers

Unemployment insurance recipients in the Netherlands were for many years exempted from the requirement to actively search for a job after they reached the age of 57.5. We study how this exemption affected the job finding rates of the recipients involved. Our results indicate that the job finding rate starts to fall just prior to the removal of the search requirement at age 57.5. In addition we find a large negative effect on job finding rates of the actual removal of the search requirement at age 57.5. Apparently, even for persons with seemingly poor job prospects search requirements have a positive effect on finding rates.     

Unemployment of Non-Western Immigrants in the Great Recession

This paper examines whether unemployment of non-western immigrant workers in the Netherlands was disproportionally affected by the Great Recession. We analyze unemployment data covering the period November 2007–February 2013 finding that the Great Recession affected unemployment rates of non-western immigrant workers in absolute terms more than unemployment rates of native workers. However, in relative terms there is not much of a difference. We also find that the sensitivity of individual job finding rates to the aggregate state of the labor market does not differ between natives and non-western immigrants. In combination our findings suggest that the Great Recession did not have a different impact on the unemployment of non-westerns immigrants and native Dutch.