Relative-to-rival corporate philanthropy,product market competitiveness,and stakeholders

Unlike most of the literature that examines the relationship between corporate philanthropy and financial performance, this study investigates the mechanisms through which corporate socially responsible behaviors produce financial outcomes. We propose that corporate philanthropy improves corporate competitiveness by eliciting positive responses from stakeholders, who assess a firm’s philanthropic contribution in relation to its rivals to determine what level of support they wish to provide to the firm. We predict that a firm’s philanthropy relative to its rivals has a positive effect on its product market competitiveness, and that this positive effect is moderated by three conditions that influence stakeholder response: stakeholder attention to philanthropy, its perceived legitimacy, and expectations of corporate giving. Our predictions are generally supported by our analyses. Overall, this paper shows that strategic philanthropy has a quantitative dimension, and firms obtain the market competitiveness associated with corporate philanthropy by integrating their rivals’ positions into their decision making.     

Costs and potential funding of expanded public pension coverage in Asia

Public pension burdens in most emerging Asian economies are still relatively small. However, there are a number of reasons to believe that they will increase markedly in the coming years. First, many Asian economies will face rapidly ageing populations, which will raise pension and other old‐age‐related spending dramatically. Second, as economies develop, political pressures to expand the coverage of public pensions and raise pension benefits will likely increase. The first objective of this paper is to identify the potential fiscal burden of public pensions in 23 emerging Asian economies, based on econometric models and forecasts of GDP and demographic trends. Using two different methodologies yields estimated increases in the average share of public pension expenditures in GDP of 1.0 percentage point and 3.6 percentage points by 2030 compared with current levels. We believe the latter estimate is more realistic. The second objective is to recommend policies to provide adequate funding for public pension needs, including enhancing the efficiency of social insurance programs, improving the balance of revenues and expenditures, implementing more explicit fiscal rules and frameworks, and establishing stronger fiscal surveillance at the national and regional levels.     

Low price equilibrium in multi-unit auctions: the GSM spectrum auction in Germany

The second–generation (GSM) spectrum auction in Germany is probably the most clear cut example of a low price outcome in a simultaneous ascending-bid multi-unit auction. The present paper gives an account of the events, describes the auction rules and market conditions, and provides a game theoretic explanation of low price equilibrium in simultaneous, ascending-bid multi-unit auctions. In particular, it is shown that in the unique equilibrium that survives iterated elimination of dominated strategies, the efficient allocation is reached at minimum bids.     

Intraday Lead-Lag Relationships Between the Futures-, Options and Stock Market

In rational, efficiently functioning and complete markets, returns on derivative and underlying securities should be perfectly contemporaneously correlated. Due to market imperfections, one of these markets may reflect information faster. The use of high-frequency data and the choice for a small unit time interval to measure these lead-lag relations comes at the cost of some or many missing observations, causing traditional estimators to either under- or overestimate covariances and correlations. We use a new estimator to estimate lead-lag relationships between the cash AEX index, options and futures. We find that futures returns lead both options and cash index returns by approximately 10 minutes. The relationship between options and the cash market is not completely unidirectional.     

Multinationals and Training: Some Evidence from Irish Manufacturing Industries

This paper sets out to analyse the effect of plant and sectoral level characteristics on the provision of training to employees using plant level data for Irish manufacturing. There is no clear evidence that foreign owned plants are more likely to provide training. By contrast, we find that they spend less than domestic plants on training, ceteris paribus. There is also no evidence that plants that receive training grants are more likely to provide training. This may be likely to reflect the targeting of training grants on plants that are otherwise unlikely to provide much training. We do, however, find that training activity in the sector, either by other foreign or domestic plants, has a positive effect on plant level training activity, at least for domestic owned plants.     

On Assisting Domestic Industries under Bertrand Competition

In a homogeneous‐good duopoly game with a home and a foreign firm, which compete on prices, it has been shown that the optimal way to assist the domestic industry is by a production subsidy. The argument here is that the subsidy is used to keep potential competitive pressure on the foreign firm. This paper analyzes under which conditions this threat of entry of a subsidized home firm is credible. It is shown that in markets where the firms move before the government, a subsidy is not credible and dominated by a tariff in terms of welfare.     

灌区配套与节水改造的设计体会

伊犁河流域现有灌溉面积678万亩。其中列入国家级大型灌区的有5个,现有灌溉面积为424万亩,在工程建设中的主要设计体会有：制定经济合理的规划设计方案,设计遵循因地制宜、统筹兼顾的原则,建筑物设计新颖别致、运行方便,尽量利用原有结构改建、降低工程造价,因地制宜规划设计渠道,为高寒地区湿陷性黄土地带渠道建设总结经验。     

The Economic Benefits of Australian University Degrees: Bachelor and Research Higher Degrees

The investment in Australian bachelor and research degrees results in significant economic benefits for the individual and for society.