Common Agency and Partial Cooperation

A modified common agency model is used to investigate the impact of partial cooperation on agent incentives. In the case where principals move simultaneously, it is shown that partial cooperation is self-defeating from the organizing principals' perspective despite a strengthening of agent incentives and effort. In the second scenario, where the organizing principals have a first-mover advantage, it is demonstrated that not only are individual cooperating principals better off but the outcome in terms of agent incentives and effort is constrained Pareto efficient. This latter scenario illustrates the possibility that partial cooperation, when coupled with a strategic advantage, improves efficiency.     

Common and Exclusive Agencies and Partial Delegation

Within the context of common agency, the article examines separationand partial delegation. The first entails breaking the multiple-taskagency into smaller single-task agencies, whereas the secondallows principals to substitute some of their efforts for theagency's. With respect to the first alternative, it is shownthat common agency can be sustained against separation by thepresence of strong complements. For the second alternative,principals partially delegate their effort and retain the rightto influence agency output at a later stage of the game. Althoughthis tends to weaken agency incentives, principals may preferthis version of common agency than one under full delegationand may prefer it to an exclusive one.     

Participation in organized and unorganized protests and rebellions

The paper investigates the individual decision of whether to join and participate in a protest or rebellion. When the protest activity is unorganized and individuals join spontaneously without regard to the effect on the probability of success and failure and without regard for potential benefits, multiple equilibria can exist, which may in turn have consequences for government policies. I also consider the case where a protest or rebellion is coordinated by a leader. The broad conclusion is that institutional analysis is required to specify the environment within which a protest or rebellion takes place.     

Should special agricultural safeguard be ignored? An evaluation for dairy trade

This study measured the impact of special agricultural safeguards (SSG) on dairy products imports by the US and Japan. It was observed that dairy products have been the most affected by this protectionist measures, and that these countries are relevant importers that impose SSG. The tariff lines subject to SSG were selected, and the period of analysis was from 1995 to 2015. The results showed that the impact of SSG applied by the US was much higher than for Japan. The overall estimated value of imports that did not happen due to the application of SSGs was approximately USD 2 billion. Specifically for the Brazilian economy, the condensed milk not exported to the US due to SSG applied cost the country BRL 345 million in GDP value and almost 4.5 thousand jobs. These results might be underestimating these effects, since the SSG tariff was not subject to calculation in several years.     

Complementarities of human capital and information technology: small businesses,emerging economy context and the strategic role of firm resources

How information technology (IT) may complement other key firm resources such as human capital is a question that has drawn increasing attention from scholars and practitioners. Answers to this question are crucial for small businesses in today’s environment. These businesses face a growing demand for IT usage at the same time that they typically can count only on limited resources. This has become a common situation that is particularly critical for small businesses operating in developing countries with emerging economies. We develop propositions and test them with a dataset of service small businesses in an emerging economy. We find that the use of IT services is positively related to firm productivity and that this relationship is positively moderated by entrepreneurs’ management education. Our findings indicate that firm productivity is associated with a combination of human and technology resources.     

Global terrorism: deterrence versus pre-emption

Abstract .  This paper analyses two anti-terrorism policies when a targeted nation's people and property are in jeopardy at home and abroad. A country's deterrence decision involves both external benefits and costs as the terrorist threat is deflected, while its preemption decision typically gives external benefits when the threat is reduced for all potential targets. With damages limited to home interests, a country will overdeter, while, for globalized terror, a country will underdeter. Pre-emption is usually undersupplied. Leader-follower behaviour is apt to lessen inefficiency for deterrence, but worsen inefficiency for pre-emption, compared with simultaneous-choice equilibrium allocations. Targeted nations can never achieve the proper counterterrorism policy through leadership.     

Is the Annual Earnings Response Coefficient Statistically Significant in Brazil?

The aim of this paper is to analyze the significance of firm-specific and pooled earnings response coefficients in the Brazilian market. The lag structure of earnings-return relations is also analyzed. The sample consists of 61 Brazilian public firms that represent all firms with a minimum of seven continual data from 1995 to 2008. The analysis is based on linear regressions of two different proxies of earnings and two different proxies of return. The results show that, for firm-regressions, few companies presented a significant relationship between earnings and stock returns, and for some firms a negative coefficient was found. In the pooled regressions a positive and statistically significant coefficient was found, and the tests suggest that variance in cross-sectional observation is more relevant in explaining the earnings response coefficient than the time-series variance.     

A Mixed Contract with Alternative Performance Measures in a Multitask Agency

We compare the impact of two different mixed contracts on agent efforts when production depends on agent efforts at their own tasks as well as at helping others. The first contract combines compensation based on team output with that of a tournament where the bonus award is based on a ranking of individual output. The second contract also combines team output compensation with that of tournament except that the bonus award is based upon a relative ranking of an index constructed of alternative performance measures. We show that the latter contract can lead to higher levels of welfares than the former one. We also show that if the weights are properly constructed, the alternative contract can prompt agents into choosing first‐best levels of effort. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.