The Post-Issue Operating Performance of IPO Firms

This article investigates the change in operating performance of firms as they make the transition from private to public ownership. A significant decline in operating performance subsequent to the initial public offering (IPO) is found. Additionally, there is a significant positive relation between post-IPO operating performance and equity retention by the original entrepreneurs, but no relation between post-IPO operating performance and the level of initial underpricing. Post-issue declines in the market-to-book ratio, price/earnings ratio, and earnings per share are also documented.     

Futures assessment by field anomaly relaxation : A review and appraisal

Futures research includes the problem of generating reasonably exhaustive and plausible scenarios for a given topic, a problem for which there are no truly satisfactory solutions. This article reviews and evaluates a method, field anomaly relaxation, first put forward some 20 years ago. The evaluation is in the context of an illustrative study of political developments in Europe. The research reconstructs and further develops the method and concludes that it has something to offer for scenario generation. Its weaknesses are identified and suggestions for further research are made.     

International trade in a differentiated good: Trade elasticities in the world rice market

In many previous rice trade models, the commodity has been regarded as a homogeneous product. However, homogeneity is not an appropriate assumption, given the various types of rice that are traded and consumed. Parameters estimated from these models, therefore, do not reflect the real world market for rice and, hence, may mislead decision makers who use the results for policy evaluation purposes. This study uses an Armington approach to model the world rice trade as a differential good market and to derive trade elasticity parameters.     

Significant Issues for the Future of Product Innovation

The value of a technology strategy has been increasingly discussed by R&D personnel and those involved in product development and business planning efforts. In this issue Albert Rubenstein and Americo Albala elevate this discussion by showing the importance of preparing a firm to compete by stressing the development of important, relevant technologies. Discovery and development must be channeled into areas that will be needed to support business initiatives likely to occur in the future. Albala stresses the importance of this change for the development of economies in nations that have been disappointed by the lack of success of importing technologies from more developed nations, while Rubenstein maintains that the pace of marketplace change requires a technology strategy in order to reduce the misapplication of scarce resources within the firm and the possibility of being blindsided by competitive developments. These essays continue a year-long series of contributions that the editor-in-chief solicited from members of the editorial board. Members were asked to reflect upon changes and opportunities that they see influencing our profession during the coming decade. Both of these short essays are designed to introduce new perspectives. It is not essential that you agree with the recommendations, but we hope that you are stimulated as you reflect on the issues they raise.     

hayek's economics

The dispersal of information in the economy is the key to Hayek's analysis of economic planning, the trade cycle and entrepreneurship. Gerald Steele, a lecturer at Lancaster University, explores Hayek's analysis. The function of the market is to coordinate this dispersed information.     

The approximation capabilities of the minflex-Laurents,translog, and generalized Leontief forms

This paper compares the approximation capabilities of the minflex-Laurents translog and minflex generalized Leontief cost functions with their translog and generalized Leontief counterparts in Monte Carlo experiments. The minflex Laurent specifications generally provided closer approximations to underlying technical and economic parameters. Imposition of nonlinear restrictions on some of the parameters of the minflex Laurent models yielded measurable improvement in estimated elasticities of substitutions, returns to scale, and rates of technical change.The refereeing process of this paper was handled through E. Appelbaum.     

Hispanic Ethnicity,English‐Skill Investments,and Earnings

Analyzing synthetic cohorts in the 1980 and 1990 Public Use Microdata Samples, we find that Mexican‐Americans and other Hispanics acquired English fluency at a faster pace than Puerto Ricans and Cuban‐Americans during the 1980s. Additional results indicate that English‐skill investments differently influenced the earnings distributions of these ethnic groups.     

Removal of nitrates from groundwater through the use of artificial wetlands

Intensive fertilizer use has led to nitrate contamination of groundwater in many areas. This article examines the possibility of removing nitrates through the construction of artificial wetlands. A pilot study conducted in Denmark has found that the method is effective and economical, at least for small waterworks, though further treatment is necessary before an acceptable microbiological water quality is attained.     

Price Changes and Some Underlying Aspects of Measurement of Poverty

The paper deals with effects of price changes on measurement of poverty. It is shown that there are situations, when prices and nominal incomes change, a higher nutritional intake or an increase in commodity consumption of the poor can be associated with higher poverty gaps and a higher poverty index of the society. A positive relationship of this kind is quite counter-intuitive in the context of poverty measurement. This is caused by the adjustment of the poverty line and/or incomes of one situation by the prices of the other for the purpose of comparison.

     

Offshoring in the New Global Political Economy

abstract    This essay challenges claims by economists and management scholars that 'offshoring' is simply another form of trade with mutual benefits. I argue that reducing wages through offshoring leads to wealth creation for shareholders but not necessarily for countries and employees, and that many displaced workers have difficulty 'trading up' to higher skilled jobs. Offshoring is a new phenomenon that entails the organizational and technological ability to relocate specific tasks and coordinate a geographically dispersed network of activities. It decouples the linkages between economic value creation and geographic location. The result is the creation of global commodity markets for particular skills and a shift in the balance of market power among firms, workers, and countries.