A longitudinal study of the cause and consequences of changes in diversification in the U.S. pharmaceutical industry 1977–1986

The paper hypothesizes that diversification by firms based in the pharmaceutical industry during the 1977-86 time period was primarily undertaken to reduce the risks associated with being dependent upon a technologically dynamic environment. Consistent with this non-efficiency motive for diversification, declining economic performance is predicted. A longitudinal empirical analysis provides support for these propositions.     

The Division of Labor Under Homogeneity: A Critique of Mises and Rothbard

A bstract .   Even the most passionate defenders of free trade, such as Mises and Rothbard, claim that trade cannot occur under conditions of strict homogeneity of land, labor, and capital. We show that specialization, trade, and the division of labor can emerge even when resources are initially homogenous, due to "natural heterogeneity," economies of scale, and learning.     

Environmental Innovations in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises

Supporting and accelerating the adoption and diffusion of environmental innovations amongst small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is a major challenge to environmental policy makers. Research suggests that whilst SMEs possess high flexibility, their innovative capacity may be limited to incremental changes within their existing technology system and network. Twenty case studies examining the innovation adoption process in SMEs in four sectors and in five countries within the ENVIS project (commissioned by the EU) revealed great variety in factors driving this process. Findings indicate that this variation can be attributed to the character of the environmental innovation, the specific business opportunity, the regulatory setting and pressure experienced by the sector. Based on these findings an analytical framework is suggested, whereby the environmental innovative capability of SMEs is conceived as the result of an interplay between the competencies, the network relations and the strategic orientation of the company (the 'dynamic triangle'). This indicates that policy to support SME's adoption of environmental innovations has to take an integrated form, i.e. addressing and developing competence, networks and strategic orientation of SMEs simultaneously whilst remaining systemic and context sensitive.     

Implied Volatility of Interest Rate Options: An Empirical Investigation of the Market Model

We analyze the empirical properties of the volatilityimplied in options on the 13-week US Treasury bill rate. These options havenot been studied previously. It is shown that a European style put optionon the interest rate is equivalent to a call option on a zero-coupon bond.We apply the LIBOR market model and conduct a battery of validity tests tocompare three different volatility specifications: contact, affine, and exponentialvolatility. It appears that the additional parameter in the affine and theexponential volatility function is not justified. Overall, the LIBOR marketmodel fares well in describing these options.     

A Tutorial on Palm Distributions for Spatial Point Processes

This tutorial provides an introduction to Palm distributions for spatial point processes. Initially, in the context of finite point processes, we give an explicit definition of Palm distributions in terms of their density functions. Then we review Palm distributions in the general case. Finally, we discuss some examples of Palm distributions for specific models and some applications.     

Pure meat – Public perceptions of risk reduction strategies in meat production

Experience has shown that both the assessment and implementation of new technologies in food production are challenged by negative assessments of the technologies by the public. This article seeks to deepen our understanding of the concerns that may underlie negative attitudes to various kinds of risk reduction strategy in meat production, with the aim of distinguishing between forms of risk reduction in terms of their acceptability. The paper reports the result of a focus-group study. Six focus groups with Danish citizens (N: 5–9) were conducted during May 2006. The design of the groups took a bottom-up approach and included elements of meat quality, meat safety and risk reduction strategies. The study shows the dilemma risk reduction presents to members of the public. On the one hand, people want safe meat; on the other, the study showed that with the exception of hygiene practices, people generally have an aversion to risk reduction strategies. Some variation was found, however, in the rejection of the strategies. Thus, more acceptable strategies are characterised by a low degree of technological interference, and by being close to the consumer’s experience in everyday life and/or familiar to the participants’ picture of meat production. It is also important that the strategy does not alter the quality of the end-product (meat) in an unfavourable way. The implications of the results and the inherent dilemma for meat safety policy formation are discussed.     

Partner‐diversity effects on alliance termination in the early stage of green alliance formation: Empirical evidence from carbon‐emission reduction projects in Latin America

Partner diversity is a key influencer in interorganizational alliances, and several empirical studies have shown that its outcomes are contingent on alliance‐specific factors. We extend this research as well as the growing literature on green alliances, in which partner diversity is uniquely high. Specifically, we examine partner‐diversity effects on alliance termination in the early stage of green alliance formation. We hypothesize that in this context, size disparity increases termination likelihood, whereas organizational variety and cultural separation have the opposite effect. To test our hypotheses, we use a sample of 366 alliance projects located in Latin America and submitted to the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism for evaluation, validation, and registration from 2004 to 2014. Our findings contribute to several research streams and provide practical guidance for successful formation of alliances focused on environmental protection.