Squatting as a transition problem in South Africa

This paper applies principles of transition to land tenure and squatting in South Africa. Political transition in South Africa reassigned political property rights, which produced contestable, and rent‐seeking incentives for squatting as a means to privatize land and redistribute wealth. Government failure to establish and protect private property rights in a squatter camp resulted in common‐pool problems that resisted private and public resolution with consequent rent dissipation and social loss. In response to this retreat from duty, informal agents emerged to claim their own share of the prize. Without enforceable rules of capture, the growth of squatter camps in South Africa will continue. JEL classification: D7, H8, K1, K4, R1, R4.     

Worldwide Tax Reform ‘How Does Australia Compare?’

Drawing principally on the English-speaking countries, where tax reform has proceeded furthest, the common characteristics and causes of the worldwide tax reform movement of the 1980s are examined. Tax reform reflected the change in economic philosophy — disillusionment with state intervention and a revival of belief in the efficacy of markets.
The causes and content of tax reform in Australia have much in common with those elsewhere except that the reduction in marginal rates of income tax was achieved with no real change in the tax mix. The success of tax reform is assessed using as criteria: (i) how far the outcome matched the objectives specified by the reformers themselves — in particular tax neutrality; (ii) the sustain-ability of the reforms; and (iii) how far 'undesirable' consequences (especially distributional effects) were avoided. Applying these criteria to Ireland, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, New Zealand and Australia, it is concluded that in all these countries there are deficiencies, but Australia comes second to New Zealand in the success league. The notable Australian deficiencies are the lack of a broad-based consumption tax (Australia is now the only OECD country without one) and the fact that lower marginal rates of income tax have been achieved mainly because of falling real thresholds of the tax brackets.     

Erratum to: Beyond Acclamations and Excuses: Environmental Performance,Voluntary Environmental Disclosure and the Role of Visibility

Some researchers have argued that firms with favorable environmental performance are more likely to provide voluntary environmental disclosure, while others have argued that firms with poor environmental performance are most likely to disclose. The authors propose a curvilinear relation between environmental performance and environmental disclosure that is moderated by visibility. Data were obtained from S&P 500 firms queried by Ceres’ Climate Disclosure Project. Results show a U-shaped environmental performance–environmental disclosure relation and a main effect for visibility but no moderating effect for visibility on the U-shaped environmental performance–environmental disclosure relation. The authors discussed the implications of these results for future research and practice.     

Technology profiles and export marketing strategies

This paper defines four different profiles which reflect the nature and level of a firm's technological involvement in exporting and foreign sales. It is also possible to characterize a firm's export marketing strategy along a reactive-proactive continuum. Technology profiles and marketing strategies are then linked together to suggest the optimal approach to developing overseas markets for a given type of firm. A number of essential requirements for successful export marketing are also described. It is suggested that success requires a combination of innovation, adaptation, and an appropriately selected marketing strategy.     

The day-of-the-week pattern of price clustering in Bitcoin

Following Urquhart (2017) who finds evidence of price clustering in Bitcoin, we answer the question of whether the documented price clustering in Bitcoin is driven by any given day-of-the-week. We find evidence that Bitcoin prices cluster around whole numbers more on Fridays and least on Mondays. We also show that Bitcoin price clustering around the top three most frequent two-digit decimals is primarily a Friday phenomenon.     

Investor sentiment and aggregate stock returns: the role of investor attention

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - We build on the intuitive, albeit overlooked, relationship between investor attention and investor sentiment to explore the open question of the...     

A Participatory Simulation to Facilitate Farmers' Adoption of Livestock Feeding Systems Based on Conservation Agriculture in the Uplands of Northern Vietnam

In the mountain areas of northern Vietnam, extensive husbandry of large-ruminants is limited by the lack of natural forage. Since 2000, the Mountain Agrarian System Program has been concerned with this issue and has evaluated technical alternatives aimed at sustainable integration of crop-livestock systems. One alternative consists of feeding systems for largeruminants based on cropping systems with plant cover. Diffusion of information about the new system is supported by a set of interactive communication tools for use between farmers and researchers. A participatory simulation method was developed that combines a compartmental model of the village territory with five technical innovations. Farmers simulate the adoption of the innovations they choose among food-forage cropping systems in rotation or in association, and urea-treated straw. They evaluate the quantity of forage that can be grown for their herd using the chosen set of techniques.

Simulations revealed farmers' constraints and objectives in adopting sustainable cropping systems on the hillsides while maintaining a small animal husbandry system. The results obtained by each farmer provide a useful basis for discussion about the implementation of innovation. This participatory simulation method could be more widely used to facilitate the diffusion of innovations such as integrating livestock feeding systems with conservation cropping practices.     

The impact of customer-to-customer interaction and customer homogeneity on customer satisfaction in tourism service—The service encounter prospective

Customer satisfaction has been an important topic in tourism service management. Many researchers have argued that customer-to-customer interaction may affect customers’ evaluation of the service experience. Consequently, the objective of this research is to investigate the relationship between customer-to-customer interaction, customer homogeneity and customer satisfaction. This research adopted questionnaires to investigate tourists traveling to foreign areas from Taiwan. In conclusion, the perception of customer-to-customer interaction incidents could be extracted into six factors, including protocol and sociable incidents, violent incidents, grungy incidents, malcontent incidents, crude incidents, and inconsiderate incidents. The results of the analysis indicate that “protocol and sociable incidents” have a significantly positive impact on the “evaluation of fellow customers”. However, “malcontent incidents” have a significantly negative impact on customer satisfaction. “Marital homogeneity” has a positive influence on the “evaluation of fellow customers”. Finally, “evaluation of fellow customers” has a positive influence on customer satisfaction. Some suggestions for practitioners to manage customer compatibility and enhance customer satisfaction are proposed.