How the discipline of geography exacerbates poverty in the Third World

Conventional wisdom informs us that poverty represents a lack of development; naturally economic development is seen as the answer to the problem. Contrary to that, I claim that poverty is a form of scarcity induced by the very process of development. The materiality of the poverty problem does not exist independent of discourses we have constructed to understand it. By concealing how development induces scarcity, social science discourse is implicated as a causative agent of poverty. Using a poststructural framework of reasoning, I demonstrate this argument by examining how mainstream geographers (in the spatial tradition) have looked at the topics of poverty and development.     

The value of idiosyncratic functional forms in conjoint analysis

We compare the part-worth model against alternative specifications with linear and nonlinear functions for continuous attributes. We use four criteria: expected error variance of the model, expected mean squared error for average preference predictions, expected mean squared error for individual preference predictions, and a measure of the quality of parameter estimates. Although the part-worth model is generally superior to the alternatives, the expected validity of conjoint results can be improved with idiosyncratic functional forms. Continuous functions also offer an opportunity to the analyst to impose constraints on the parameter estimates.     

Futures and forward price differential and the effect of marking‐to‐market: Australian evidence

The objective of this paper is to examine the effects of marking‐to‐market of futures contracts on the price differential between futures and forward contracts based on the predictions of the Cox, Ingersoll and Ross (1981) (CIR) model. Cox et al ., (1981) derive a series of propositions with respect to the relationship between futures and forward prices and a set of testable implications. These are tested empirically in this paper using Australian data from November 1991 to June 1997. The results provide evidence of the presence of significant futures and forward price differences, where the futures price is consistently below the forward price. Only partial support is found for the Cox et al ., (1981) propositions, implying that the effect of marking‐to‐market is not able to fully account for the price differential. Therefore, it is not possible to rule out the influence of other institutional factors on the futures‐forward price difference.     

Dating the ‘world business cycle’

By mid-2008 the world was witnessing the unfolding of a relatively rare macroeconomic phenomenon, namely, the onset of what one might call a synchronized international – or ‘world’ – recession. But what exactly is a ‘synchronized world recession’? This article proposes a practical definition of a ‘synchronized world recession’ and a putative set of historical post-WWII dates for a ‘world business cycle chronology’. Further, using a constructed ‘world coincident index of economic indicators’ and an associated ‘world leading index of economic indicators’, this article demonstrates that evidence was available from early in the second half of 2007 that the world was indeed sliding inexorably towards its fourth synchronized world recession since WWII (although, interestingly, already its second of the twenty-first century!).     

An Evaluation of Alternative Methods of Forecasting Australian Inflation

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the forecast of Australian inflation based on four alternative procedures: a univariate time series model, an interest rate model, an error correction model and a public survey of inflation forecasts. We derive estimates of expected and unexpected inflation from each of the methods and compare the out-of-sample forecasting results. Based on a range of evaluation criteria, the time series model dominates the other models, with the interest rate model, the error correction model and the survey forecasts following in that order.     

The Australian Term Structure as a Predictor of Real Economic Activity

This study examines the empirical relation between the yield spread of the term structure of interest rates and future economic activity in Australia. Results indicate that the term spread has significant power to predict real GDP growth but not nominal GDP growth. The term spread has more power in forecasting cumulative future growth than marginal growth in periods ahead. Around one-third of the variance of two year GDP growth can be explained by the term structure one to two quarters ahead. Explanatory power begins to decline beyond two to three years into the future whatever the combination of the long and short term yields used to measure the spread. The term spread has more explanatory power than the most widely used leading index for forecasting economic activity when forecasting cumulative GDP growth beyond two quarters.     

Ethics Trumps Culture? A Cross-National Study of Business Leader Responsibility for Downsizing and CSR Perceptions

Downsizing remains a topic of great interest to both academics and practitioners. Yet, the impact of layoff decisions on perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has hardly been studied. We examine the impact of responsibility of business leaders making these layoff decisions, and characteristics of the downsizing implementation on convergence and divergence in (1) CSR perceptions, (2) victims’ perceptions of fairness, and (3) survivor commitment, in four countries. Using an experimental design, sixteen scenarios were distributed to (1) 163 managers in Estonia, (2) 152 MBA students in India and 125 MBA students in France, and (3) 186 (non-traditional) undergraduate students in the USA. Results suggest that when top managers are attributed with the responsibility for downsizing, the resulting perceptions of CSR are negative. A similar pattern of results is obtained for victims’ perceptions of fairness and survivor commitment. In addition, although there are differences in effect-size based on differences in power distance, these results hold good (are similar) across the four countries, from four different society clusters. We discuss implications, limitations, and future research directions.     

TIME VARYING RISK PREMIUM AND THE PREDICTIVE POWER OF THE AUSTRALIAN TERM STRUCTURE OF INTEREST RATES

Using weekly data on bank accepted bills over the 1976 to 1993 period, this paper provides direct evidence of the presence of a term premium in the Australian term structure. The term premium is shown to vary over time and have an adverse effect on the predictive power of the term structure. The variance of the expected term premium is quantified in terms of its lower bound relative to the upper bound of the variance of the rational expectations error. This ratio is observed to vary over sample sub periods and rise to a high of one in some periods which include the period immediately prior to the market crash.     

REGULARITIES IN THE VARIATION OF SKEWNESS IN ASSET RETURNS

This paper documents regularities in the comparative skewness characteristics across several classes of assets and over time. We find smaller capitalized stock indices are more negatively skewed than larger stock indices. Over time, the skewness of stock indices follows a business-cycle-related variation. Skewness is more negative during economic upturns and less negative, even positive, during downturns. Three alternative methods for testing the statistical significance of skewness and for making confidence interval estimates of skewness are presented. These include a bootstrap methodology and a test that allows for nonindependent observations.     

Supplier-Focused Knowledge Management in the Automobile Industry and Its Implications for Product Performance

abstract    This study focuses on the impact of knowledge management in supplier relations (termed as supplier-focused knowledge management, SFKM) within the automobile industry of an emerging economy (Brazil), on financial and product performance. A model of the relationship between supplier-focused knowledge management, including its associated processes, and performance is described and the associated hypotheses are developed and then tested. Knowledge sharing through face-to-face communication is positively related to both product and financial performance, while technological knowledge sharing has a positive impact on product performance under conditions of high technological dynamism. Supplier involvement in the production process is related to product performance and use of knowledge management tools is related to financial performance. The results support the major hypotheses of our SFKM model. These results are discussed in the context of the knowledge management and supplier-relations literatures in terms of the contributions, implications for research and practice, and directions for future research.