Greasing the Wheels of Trade: A Profile of the Dutch Transaction Sector***

How many resources does a nation spend on transactions costs to ‘grease the wheels of trade’? To examine this question the Dutch economy is used as a case study. The Netherlands are known as a nation of traders and this image was derived in the seventeenth century from successes in long distance trade, shipping and financial innovations. Despite its historical background the trading sector has never been adequately measured. In this paper, we present a first attempt in measuring and describing the Dutch transaction sector. Measurement by means of occupational data points out that approximately 25% of Dutch workers is employed in transaction jobs, and 29% if one includes transport tasks. We make the case that traditional industrial sector categories overestimate the true transaction character of an economy. Traditional ‘trade’ sectors employed 13% of the workers in 1807 and 39 percent in 1998, but these figures conceal the fact that all organizations employ jobs which have transformation and transaction tasks. A counterfactual exercise suggests that the growth of the transaction sector share in employment over two centuries was not 200% but 42%.     

The Cost of Intra-firm Transaction and Organization of Economic Activities

The internal market transaction and the external market transaction have quite different characteristics. The cost of internal market transaction is decided by the inspection cost within a firm, while the inspection cost is mainly decided by the rationality of procedures assessing simple labor in a firm and the fairness in fixing every coefficient.     

Investigating the impact of brand vs cause interaction on cause related advertisements

Cause-related Marketing (CRM) strategies have been widely implemented by numerous brands in their communication with customers through advertisements. This research employs four quasi-experimental studies to understand how brands and cause related variables interact to impact attitude towards advertisements and brands. Study I (n = 623) seek to understand the influence of brand related variables, namely, brand familiarity, brand importance, and brand association on the attitude towards advertisements and brands. Study II (n = 722) shows the moderating effect of advertisement type (CRM vs non-CRM) on the relationships connecting branding variables to advertisement and brand attitude. In Study III (n = 637), the effect of cause related dimension, namely, cause familiarity, cause importance, and cause brand fit on the attitude towards advertisement and brands is studied. Finally, study IV (n = 549) shows the interaction effect of brand and cause related dimensions on the attitude towards advertisements and brands. Results indicate cause brand fit to be the most significant variable affecting attitudes followed by brand association, brand importance, and cause importance. Cause importance also interacted with brand importance and brand association to cause a positive and negative magnifying effect on the advertisement attitudes respectively.     

Institutional determinants of ownership stake in cross-border acquisitions in Africa: The moderating role of geographic distance

We look at how emerging markets' institutional features affect ownership stake in cross-border acquisitions (CBAs) within Africa. Particularly, we show that the presence of shared colonial history between the home and host country and the extent of fractionalization distance and formal institutional distance influence the acquiring firm's decision regarding its ownership stake in the target. Moreover, we show that geographic distance between the home and host country, by augmenting uncertainty faced by acquiring firms, moderates the relationship between these institutional features and ownership stake. We test our hypotheses in a sample of 341 intra-Africa CBAs from 2001 to 2016. Generally, we find that greater ex ante uncertainty and ex post costs increase ownership stake. Specifically, greater geographic distance strengthens the positive relationship between shared colonial history and ownership stake and reverses the negative relationship between formal institutional distance and ownership stake. As for fractionalization distance, the relationship is more nuanced and needs to be further studied. We contribute to advance research on south–south CBAs in general, particularly within Africa, as well as to extend hostage theory in foreign market entry strategies in and from emerging markets.     

建立中部地区反洗钱监测分析中心的若干思考

文章结合中部地区反洗钱形势,分析了建立中部地区反洗钱监测中心的必要性,并对反洗钱监测分析中心的职能定位进行了思考,建议通过设计科学的反洗钱监管核心指标和反洗钱风险预警体系,引入先进的可疑交易监测分析技术和可疑交易模型技术,建立多层次分析机制等措施,不断提高中部地区反洗钱监测分析水平。     

No arbitrage and closure results for trading cones with transaction costs

In this paper, we consider trading with proportional transaction costs as in Schachermayer’s paper (Schachermayer in Math. Finance 14:19–48, 2004). We give a necessary and sufficient condition for , the cone of claims attainable from zero endowment, to be closed. Then we show how to define a revised set of trading prices in such a way that, firstly, the corresponding cone of claims attainable for zero endowment, , does obey the fundamental theorem of asset pricing and, secondly, if is arbitrage-free then it is the closure of . We then conclude by showing how to represent claims.      

巴泽尔国家理论的分析框架——基于交易成本理论的视角

巴泽尔从交易成本的视角研究了国家的起源、特征、功能、范围、国家与社会的关系以及国家运行的控制机制。他认为：国家起源于人们产权交易过程中实施协议的需要;国家是使用暴力实施交易合约的终极第三方;国家通过实施合约降低了交易成本,使资产获得更多的收益;国家实施的合约数量和范围决定了国家的职能范围;国家与人们对实施合约带来的收益分配方式映射了国家与社会的关系;国家运行的控制机制是实施收益分配合理化的保证。     

基于交易成本理论的人力资源外包业发展战略研究

人力资源外包作为一种新型的管理模式,近几年在我国得到迅猛的发展,但在其发展过程中不可避免地要受到种种因素的制约。文章从一个全新的角度—交易成本对该行业进行系统分析,并最终提出降低行业交易成本、促进行业健康发展的有效建议。     

大型企业市场链管理模式研究

市场链是大型企业业务组织单元和经营规模扩张到一定程度,其组织管理的边际交易成本超过了边际规模效率时而生成的一种新的管理模式。与一般的企业内部市场化不同,市场链是一种贯穿于企业运营全过程的整体性、流程式交易机制,它将企业内部不同部门、上下流程、上下工序和岗位之间的业务关系,构造成为通过内部市场价格机制调节的相互咬合、无缝链接、环环相扣的扁平化链状交易流程,以此实现对每一个利益主体的有效激励与约束,达到企业运营效应的整体优化。企业内部市场链是基于一体化业务流程的连续性、关联性而建立起来的在固定对象之间展开的确定性、重复性、高度专用性特质交易,按照高度专用性交易的强度,可以将市场链交易关系划分为不同类型,从而形成市场链的特质交易结构。与不同交易关系类型相适应的契约结构安排以及保障措施,不断地巩固和强化着市场链流程的特质交易关系。市场链管理模式有效克服了在信息不对称情形下企业基层组织和个人的动力不足与机会主义行为,极大地降低了企业内部的交易费用,从而能够强有力地推动大型企业超越"规模陷阱"、在持续发展中提高管理与运营效率。     

Re-treatment with varenicline is a cost-effective aid for smoking cessation

Objective: One quit attempt with varenicline has been found to be a cost-effective smoking cessation intervention. The purpose of this study was to analyze varenicline’s cost-effectiveness in patients who relapse during or after the first treatment. A comparison was made between re-treatment schema with varenicline and re-treatment schema with bupropion, NRT and unaided cessation, and treatment once with varenicline in a Finnish context.

Methods: The two-quit version of BENESCO Markov model was used to follow a cohort of smokers making up to two quit attempts over a lifetime. The abstinence rates of the interventions were derived from a Cochrane review. Gender- and age-specific data on the incidence and prevalence of five smoking-related diseases were included in the model. Quality-adjusted life-years, total expected costs, and the lifetime cumulative incidence of smoking-related morbidities and mortality were the primary outcomes evaluated.

Results: The study cohort comprised 116,533 smokers who were willing to make a quit attempt. In the lifetime simulation, re-treatment with varenicline yielded 6,150–20,250 extra quitters, depending on the comparator. Among these quitters it was possible to prevent 899–2,972 additional cases of smoking-related diseases, and 395–1,307 deaths attributable to smoking. Re-treatment with varenicline resulted in cost savings of up to 54.9 million Euros. Re-treatment with varenicline dominated all the other smoking cessation interventions used in the analysis. Sensitivity analysis supported the robustness of the base case results.

Limitations: The analysis did not consider adverse events, and included only five major smoking-related diseases, which is a conservative approach, and probably leads to under-estimation of cost-effectiveness of cessation interventions. Furthermore, assumptions of constant relative risks for smoking-related diseases for each smoking status and the proxy values used as efficacy estimates of second quit attempts for other interventions than varenicline are limitations.

Conclusions: A second quitting effort with varenicline is economically justifiable.