The choice and timing of foreign direct investment under uncertainty

This paper sheds new light on why timing and entry mode should be considered simultaneously in the international investment literature. We derive the profit levels at which it is optimal to switch from exporting to setting up a wholly owned subsidiary, creating a joint venture, or licensing production to a local firm. The preferred entry mode depends on uncertainty about future profits, tax differentials between the home and the foreign country, the cost advantages of local firms, institutional requirements, and the degree of cooperation between partners in a joint venture.     

The Hazard Rate of Foreign Direct Investment: A Structural Estimation of a Real‐option Model*

The hazard rate of investment is derived within a real‐option model, and its properties are analysed so as to directly study the relation between uncertainty and investment. Maximum likelihood estimates of the hazard are calculated using a sample of multinational enterprises (MNEs) that invested in Central and Eastern Europe over the period 1990–98. Employing a standard, non‐parametric specification of the hazard, our measure of uncertainty has a negative effect on investment, but the reduced‐form model is unable to control for nonlinearities in the relationship. The structural estimation of the option‐based hazard is instead able to account for the nonlinearities and exhibits a significant value of waiting, although the latter is independent of our measure of uncertainty. This finding supports the existence of alternative channels through which uncertainty can affect investment.     

Tariffs, licensing and market structure

This paper challenges the conventional wisdom that exclusive owners of an advanced technology are always better off when producing as a monopolist than when competing against another firm. Competition against a less-efficient firm weakens the power that a host country can exert on the incumbent in the form of its tariff policy. We show that this gives a motive for a monopolist to license its technology to another foreign firm. A host country gains more from increased competition if it can induce the foreign incumbent to transfer technology to the host country firm. We show that the host country can do so by tariff commitment. We also discuss the implications of bargaining under licensing and Bertrand competition in the product market. Hence, this paper qualifies and extends the recent work of Kabiraj and Marjit [Protecting consumers through protection: The role of tariff-induced technology transfer. European Economic Review 47, 113-124].     

An option approach to the new product development process: a case study at Philips Electronics

The paper considers the product development process as a series of (real) options with reducing uncertainty over time. Criteria are developed to decide on speeding up or delaying the development process. The paper demonstrates how, in the R&D phase, any particular project may be assigned within a 2 × 2 matrix of uncertainty versus R&D option value. A similar matrix can be established for the product launch phase. The matrices support portfolio management throughout the different phases of development and enable management to decide on an appropriate point at which to abandon individual projects. The approach originates from applying real options insights into the product development process at Philips Electronics. The paper is illustrated with some actual R&D projects.     

Time‐varying Hedge Ratios: A Principal‐agent Approach

We use the classic agency model to derive a time‐varying optimal hedge ratio for low‐frequency time‐series data: the type of data used by crop farmers when deciding about production and about their hedging strategy. Rooted in the classic agency framework, the proposed hedge ratio reflects the context of both the crop farmer's decision and the crop farmer's contractual relationships in the marketing channel. An empirical illustration of the Dutch ware potato sector and its futures market in Amsterdam over the period 1971–2003 reveals that the time‐varying optimal hedge ratio decreased from 0.34 in 1971 to 0.24 in 2003. The hedging effectiveness, according to this ratio, is 39%. These estimates conform better with farmers’ interest in using futures contracts for hedging purposes than the much higher estimates obtained when price risk minimisation is the only objective considered.     

The American Inventors Protection Act: A Natural Experiment on Innovation Disclosure and the Cost of Debt

We examine the impact of innovation disclosure through patenting on firms' cost of debt, focusing on the American Inventors Protection Act (AIPA) as an exogenous shock in innovation disclosure regulation. Post‐AIPA, firms have an incentive to apply for patents only if commercial success is likely. Accordingly, we expect post‐AIPA patents to be a better proxy for successful innovation activity, and thus to have a stronger effect on reducing the cost of debt than pre‐AIPA patents. Indeed, we find that pre‐AIPA patents reduce the cost of debt only for the most innovative firms, while post‐AIPA, this effect holds for all firms.     

Performance expectations of small firms considering radical product innovation

Performance expectations influence business decisions such as investment decisions and demand for supplies, particularly in small firms with limited strategic planning. Despite widespread use of performance expectations by firms and governments when making sales forecasts and economic outlooks, surprisingly little research exists about how small firms form performance expectations. This paper contributes to reduce this knowledge gap by analyzing performance expectations of small firm managers operating in markets with radical product innovations. This paper proposes a model and hypotheses, which explain performance expectations of small firm managers based on firms' current success, radical product innovation, and variables that indicate firms' ability to respond to customer needs for radical product innovation. Data from 200 decision-makers in a real decision-making context support the model. The results show that performance expectations in small firms are only to a limited extent a naïve extrapolation of current success: radical product innovation and small firm's ability to respond to customer needs for radical product innovation influence performance expectations.     

Individual investor perceptions and behavior during the financial crisis

Combining monthly survey data with matching trading records, we examine how individual investor perceptions change and drive trading and risk-taking behavior during the 2008–2009 financial crisis. We find that investor perceptions fluctuate significantly during the crisis, with risk tolerance and risk perceptions being less volatile than return expectations. During the worst months of the crisis, investors’ return expectations and risk tolerance decrease, while their risk perceptions increase. Towards the end of the crisis, investor perceptions recover. We document substantial swings in trading and risk-taking behavior that are driven by changes in investor perceptions. Overall, individual investors continue to trade actively and do not de-risk their investment portfolios during the crisis.     

The price path due to order imbalances: evidence from the Amsterdam Agricultural Futures Exchange

The lack of sufficient market depth particularly in many newly initiated futures markets results in relatively high hedging costs, and this inhibits the growth of futures contract volume. In this article the price path due to order imbalances is analyzed and a two-dimensional market depth measure is derived.Understanding the underlying structure of futures market depth provides the management of the futures exchange with a framework for improving their market depth and gives hedgers a better understanding of market depth risk. The managerial implications of our findings are demonstrated empirically using data from the Amsterdam Agricultural Futures Exchange.     

Futures markets,price stabilization and efficient exploitation of exhaustible resources

Markets for natural resource futures contracts and cash forward contracts experience a rapid growth. According to theory, this should result in more efficient resource depletion, implying that price formation is more consistent with Hotelling's rule. The rationale of this stabilization effect is briefly discussed. Next, we analyze the impact of expanding futures markets on the behaviour of individual resource owners trading on the cash market. Using a simple pulse extraction model, we demonstrate that the expected time of depletion can shift to the present or the future, and that utility of exploitation can go up or down, as market prices are stabilized.