An Empirical Analysis of the Average Plant Start-Up Size in Turkish Manufacturing Industries

Many studies have found start-up size of a firm to be an important determinant of its subsequent performance and probability of survival. The aim of this study is to investigate the determinants of average plant start-up size in 51 four-digit Turkish manufacturing industries for the period 1993?C1999. The results of the study suggest that while industry characteristics such as industry growth rate and capital intensity have a positive impact on the average plant start-up size, industrial concentration, import penetration, and the change in research and development expenditures are negatively associated with the same variable. In addition, the macroeconomic environment is also an important determinant of the choice of plant start-up size. Finally, we find evidence that may indicate ??following?? (herd) behavior in Turkish manufacturing industries.     

Experience Matters? The Impact of Prior CEO Experience on Firm Performance

We sample CEOs of the 2005 S&P 500 corporations to look at the relationship between experience in the CEO position of a different firm and the post‐succession financial performance of the firm that they currently lead. We find that experience in the CEO position is negatively related to firm performance. CEOs who directly move to their current CEO position from the previous one and those with job‐specific experience in the same or related industry or at the helm of a previous company similar in size to the current one are associated with significantly lower post‐succession performance than those without prior CEO experience. The results contribute to the literatures on CEO succession, the performance effect of job‐specific experience, and the transferability of human capital. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Supply network capacity planning for semiconductor manufacturing with uncertain demand and correlation in demand considerations

A semiconductor supply network involves many expensive steps, which have to be executed to serve global markets. The complexity of global capacity planning combined with the large capital expenditures to increase factory capacity makes it important to incorporate optimization methodologies for cost reduction and long-term planning. The typical view of a semiconductor supply network consists of layers for wafer fab, sort, assembly, test and demand centers. We present a two-stage stochastic integer-programming formulation to model a semiconductor supply network. The model makes strategic capacity decisions, (i.e., build factories or outsource) while accounting for the uncertainties in demand for multiple products. We use the model not only to analyze how variability in demand affects the make/buy decisions but also to investigate how the correlation between demands of different products affects these strategic decisions. Finally, we demonstrate the value of incorporating demand uncertainty into a decision-making scheme.     

Determinants of Entry in Turkish Manufacturing Industries

The entry of new firms into markets plays an important role in efficient resource allocation and evolution for long term economic growth. Employing dynamic panel data techniques, this paper investigates entry behavior in 66 four-digit Turkish manufacturing industries for the 1993–1999 period. The results of this paper suggest that potential entrants observe the market before the entry takes place; entry is, in general, a follow-up process; and incumbent firms seem to collude to prevent entry in Turkish manufacturing industries. In addition, the real interest rate appears to be a very important determinant of entry decision.     

Projecting total costs and health consequences of increasing mt-sDNA utilization for colorectal cancer screening from the payer and integrated delivery network perspectives

Abstract

Aims: To evaluate total costs and health consequences of a colorectal cancer (CRC) screening program with colonoscopy, fecal immunochemical tests (FIT), and expanded use of multitarget stool DNA (mt-sDNA) from the perspectives of Integrated Delivery Networks (IDNs) and payers in the United States.

Materials and methods: We developed a budget impact and cost-consequence model that simulates CRC screening for eligible 50- to 75-year-old adults. A status quo scenario and an increased mt-sDNA scenario were modeled. The status quo includes the current screening mix of colonoscopy (83%), FIT (11%), and mt-sDNA (6%) modalities. The increased mt-sDNA scenario increases mt-sDNA utilization to 28% over 10 years. Costs for both the IDN and the payer perspectives incorporated diagnostic and surveillance colonoscopies, adverse events (AEs), and CRC treatment. The IDN perspective included screening program costs, composed of direct nonmedical (e.g. patient navigation) and indirect (e.g. administration) costs. It was assumed that IDNs do not incur the costs for stool-based screening tests or bowel preparation for colonoscopies.

Results: In a population of one million covered lives, the 10-year incremental cost savings incurred by increasing mt-sDNA utilization was $16.2 M for the IDN and $3.3 M for the payer. The incremental savings per-person-per-month were $0.14 and $0.03 for the IDN and payer, respectively. For both perspectives, increased diagnostic colonoscopy costs were offset by reductions in screening colonoscopies, surveillance colonoscopies, and AEs. Extending screening eligibility to 45- to 75-year-olds slightly decreased the overall cost savings.

Limitations: The natural history of CRC was not simulated; however, many of the utilized parameters were extracted from highly vetted natural history models or published literature. Direct nonmedical and indirect costs for CRC screening programs are applied on a per-person-per modality basis, whereas in reality some of these costs may be fixed.

Conclusions: Increased mt-sDNA utilization leads to fewer colonoscopies, less AEs, and lower overall costs for both IDNs and payers, reducing overall screening program costs and increasing the number of cancers detected while maintaining screening adherence rates over 10 years.     

Bank lending opportunities and credit standards

This article empirically tests the hypothesis that credit-screening standards can be first increasing and then decreasing in the quality of the bank's pool of potential borrowers, which in turn may vary through the business cycle or across different segments of the lending markets. A key implication is that banks with lending opportunities toward the middle of the quality spectrum can have loan portfolios that perform better than do the portfolios of banks with loan-origination opportunities that are either too weak or too strong. Using banks’ volume of secondary-market loan sales as a proxy for the richness of lending opportunities, I find an inverse U-shaped relation between the performance of banks’ loan portfolios and their activity in the loan sales market. The pattern deserves scrutiny for its policy implications, as many regulators hold the view that countercyclical variation in credit standards may have a destabilizing effect on business cycles.     

Exciting on Facebook or competent in the newspaper? Media effects on consumers’ perceptions of brands in the fashion category

Abstract

Media investments are continuously shifting from traditional media like newspapers to digital alternatives like websites and social media. This study investigated if and how media choice between the two rival channels can influence consumers’ perceptions of a novel brand. 504 Swedish retail fashion customers participated in an experiment to evaluate the identical advertisement placed either in a national newspaper or on Facebook. The results revealed that advertising in a newspaper can have a positive effect on brand equity facets and purchase intention through brand personality perceptions of being competent, while advertising on Facebook have similar effects but through perceptions of being exciting. Besides some evidence that choice between traditional and new media affects brand personality this study is one of the first attempts to incorporate media channel choice into the broader customer-based brand equity framework. The results from this particular study suggest that media channel choice should be considered from a brand equity building perspective at least in the fashion category. This study shows that different media channels could complement each other strategically, as traditional media channels still can have valuable and unique contributions to brand building through brand personality perceptions, especially for brands striving to be perceived as competent.     

Financial expertise of directors

We analyze how directors with financial expertise affect corporate decisions. Using a novel panel data set, we find that financial experts exert significant influence, though not necessarily in the interest of shareholders. When commercial bankers join boards, external funding increases and investment-cash flow sensitivity decreases. However, the increased financing flows to firms with good credit but poor investment opportunities. Similarly, investment bankers on boards are associated with larger bond issues but worse acquisitions. We find little evidence that financial experts affect compensation policy. The results suggest that increasing financial expertise on boards may not benefit shareholders if conflicting interests (e.g., bank profits) are neglected.     

Macroeconomic Drivers of Loan Quality in Turkey

We analyze the drivers of nonperforming loans in the Turkish banking system after the 2000–01 Turkish banking crisis. By constructing a vector autoregression model, we perform dynamic out-of-sample forecasts, which yield quite accurate results compared to the actual data. Since forecasting is a very crucial tool for both policy makers and market players, these results are some of the main strengths and contributions of this study. This article shows various patterns between the economic and financial indicators and the nonperforming loans. One important message obtained from the results is that policy makers should be concerned about the status of the economy and the market expectations to maintain stability in the banking system.