Modeling services liberalization: The case of Kenya

This paper employs a 55 sector small open economy computable general equilibrium model of the Kenyan economy to assess the impact of the liberalization of regulatory barriers against foreign and domestic business service providers in Kenya. The model incorporates foreign direct investment in business services and productivity effects in imperfectly competitive goods and services markets endogenously, through a Dixit–Stiglitz framework. The ad valorem equivalent of barriers to foreign direct investment have been estimated based on detailed questionnaires completed by specialists in Kenya. We estimate very substantial gains to Kenya from regulatory liberalization in business services, and additional gains from uniform tariffs. The estimated gains increase to 50% of consumption in the long run steady state model, where the impact on the accumulation of capital from an improvement in the productivity of capital is taken into account. Decomposition exercises reveal that the largest gains to Kenya will derive from liberalization of costly regulatory barriers that are non-discriminatory in their impacts between Kenyan and multinational service providers.     

Commercial Farm Workers and the Politics of (Dis)placement in Zimbabwe: Colonialism, Liberation and Democracy

The widespread land occupations of 2000 demonstrate the uneasy fit of commercial farm workers within the politics and development of Zimbabwe. Not only have farm workers borne the most violence at the hands of land occupiers, but their current socio-political situation on predominantly white-owned commercial farms has either been reduced by a nationalist liberation war binary of exploitation/abuse by racist white settlers or totally elided through human rights and democracy discourses anchored in the liberal subject. Based on periodic fieldwork research with commercial farm workers from 1992 to 2000, this paper analyses how farm workers have been represented by the various public actors during the current land occupations and the complex ways some farm workers have responded to these events. The emphasis is on how political actors need to rethink the situation of commercial farm workers if they are to take an active role in the improvement of their living and working lives.     

The Impact of Range Pricing on Marketing Time and Transaction Price: A Better Mousetrap for the Existing Home Market?

In various markets around the country, some real estate professionals are employing a new pricing strategy that involves marketing homes for sale with a price range rather than a single asking price. This strategy is often touted as a mechanism that will attract more potential buyers to look at a house and thus result in reduced marketing times for existing homes, with prices determined by competitive forces. The purpose of this study is to empirically examine whether houses using range pricing, often referred to as value range marketing, sell in the same amount of time and sell for similar prices as those marketed in the traditional manner. Two staged least squares with a correction for sample selection and Weibull duration models are used to test the hypotheses, employing a sample of 5,852 residential houses that were sold during the period January 1999 to December 2000. In contrast to claims of the strategy’s proponents, the results indicate that houses take longer to sell when using the range pricing strategy after controlling for physical characteristics and market conditions. Furthermore, there is no evidence that this strategy has any significant impact on transaction prices.     

Trade Reform in the Partially Liberalized Economy of Turkey

Recent reforms in trade policy in Turkey have produced a foreigntrade regime that exhibits very little antiexport bias on average.A quantitative, multisectoral general equilibrium model of theTurkish economy shows that piecemeal trade policy reform, basedon first-best rationales that are appropriate for highly distortedeconomies, would not now be appropriate. Further tariff reductionsmust be coordinated with export subsidy reductions to attainsignificant welfare benefits. The dispersion of distortions,especially export subsidies, is more important than their level.A policy of harmonizing tariffs to the common external tariffof the European Community has virtually no effect on welfare.     

Theoretical constructs in practice: managers rate their importance

This research explores a proposed model of restructuring knowledge constructs and activities of the modern hotel housekeeping department. The model is based on statistical analysis of the relative importance given to topics by professional housekeepers and has implications for housekeeping managers, corporate planners, industry training programs and hospitality educators. The model uses factor analysis as an exploratory and patterning tool and suggests potential new ways to pattern or structure the importance of housekeeping activities.     

The role of network density and betweenness centrality in diffusing new venture legitimacy: an epidemiological approach

To survive and grow, new ventures must establish initial legitimacy, and subsequently diffuse this legitimacy through a given population. While the notion of initial legitimacy has received substantial attention in the recent literature, diffusion has not. This work endeavors to outline the legitimacy diffusion process via drawing parallels with the field of epidemiology. Ultimately, to effectively diffuse legitimacy (and grow) a firm must gain positive judgments of appropriateness from members of a given network. Importantly, as with diseases, the characteristics of the network are critical to the diffusion process. A relatively dense network is posited to invoke a normative evaluation process by its members, and can be difficult for new ventures to access, but subsequent diffusion of new venture legitimacy can be rapid. A less dense network, on the other hand, is posited to invoke a pragmatic evaluation process by its members, and is likely easier for new ventures to access initially, but may result in lower levels of new venture legitimacy diffusion in the long run. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Trade and direct investment in producer services and the domestic market for expertise

Abstract.  Foreign producer services can provide substantial benefits for domestic firms. We build on earlier monopolistic‐competition models of intermediate producer services in this paper. Results show that: (1) while foreign services are partial‐equilibrium substitutes for domestic skilled labour, they may be general‐equilibrium complements, (2) service trade can provide crucial missing inputs that reverse comparative advantage in final goods, (3) the 'optimal' tax on imported services may be a subsidy, and (4) in our dynamic formulation, there may be earnings losses for immobile workers along a transition path that suggest potentially important equity consequences of reform. JEL classification: F12, F16, F23     

Response to General Health Information in the Food Industry: A Panel Case Study in the Domestic Cracker Market

An autoregressive consumer response function was derived and showed that response to general heart health information for the domestic cracker market is small and positive when the consumer adjusts consumption among several products. These results suggest that, when general health information affects various foods, not all of which may be specifically addressed in that information, the response to a particular food product is difficult to predict a priori in magnitude and direction, particularly when the food is relatively inexpensive and comprises a small percent of expenditure.