This Little Piggy Went to Market with a Passport: The Impacts of U.S. Country of Origin Labeling on the Canadian Pork Sector

This paper examines the potential impacts of U.S. mandatory country of origin labeling. North American hog and pork markets are represented as vertically related in a partial equilibrium non-spatial model. A synthetic model is calibrated to historic data and then used to trace the program's added costs as they are passed through the market to determine who wins and who loses. The transactions costs reduce the welfare of all agents in the United States. Canadian welfare depends primarily on whether mixed supply chains continue to be accepted in the United States and trade in hogs continues. A closed border significantly reduces the welfare of Canadian hog producers and increases the welfare of Canadian pork processors.
Le présent article porte sur les répercussions éventuelles de l'étiquetage obligatoire du pays d'origine réclamée par les États‐Unis. Les marchés nord-américains du porc vivant et de la viande de porc sont représentés comme étant verticalement liés dans un modèle non spatial d'équilibre partiel. Un modèle synthétique est étalonné avec des données historiques et est ensuite utilisé pour déterminer les coûts supplémentaires qu'occasionne le programme à mesure qu'ils sont répartis sur le marché pour déterminer les gagnants et les perdants. Les coûts de transaction diminuent le bien‐être de tous les agents aux États‐Unis. Le bien-être au Canada dépend principalement de l'acceptation ou non des chaînes d'approvisionnement mixtes et de la continuité ou non du commerce du porc vivant. La fermeture des frontières diminue considérablement le bien-être des producteurs de porcs canadiens et augmente celui des transformateurs de porcs canadiens.     

Epidemiological patterns of suicide terrorism in the civilian Pakistani population

In this study, we assessed the epidemiological patterns of suicide terrorism in the civilian population of Pakistan. Information about suicide terrorism-related events, deaths and injuries was extracted from the South-Asian Terrorism Portal (SATP) for the period from 2002 to October 2009. Of 198 events, civilians were involved in 194 events. Civilians accounted for 74.1% (N?=?2017) of those who died and 93.8% (N?=?6129) of those who were injured. In nine districts, mortality rates were more than one death per 100,000 inhabitants per year. The yearly trend showed a shift of attack targets from foreigners and sectarian targets in 2002-2005 to security forces or general public in 2006-2009. Attacks on public installations (mosques) or political gatherings resulted in a significantly greater (P?≤?0.02) number of deaths (22 vs. 8) and injuries (59 vs. 24) per event compared with security installations. These results show that prevention might focus on political negotiation with armed groups and that appropriate measures should be taken to protect mosques and political gatherings.     

An Investigation of Market Orientation (MO) and Tourism Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises’ (SMEs) Performance in Developing Countries: A Review of the Literature

This paper aims to build a structured literature review of the field of market orientation and its impact on tourism small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) performance in developing countries. This literature review will present a comprehensive survey of market orientation (MO) published articles to facilitate good understanding of MO. It serves as an archive and aims to help the scholars and practitioners to explore, analyse, and develop a clear understanding about the different research points and methodologies implemented in previous studies related to MO and its impact on tourism SMEs’ performance. The paper systematically reviews and categorizes the published literature implementing a three-stage methodology, and thereafter analyzes and reviews this literature methodologically. The review covered many areas and identified some factors that drive/hinder market-oriented activities within tourism SMEs. Furthermore, suggestions have been made to understand more thoroughly how market orientation influences tourism SMEs performance in developing economies. A research gap in the area of market orientation and tourism SMEs performance in developing countries was identified. The study provides great benefits for owner-managers, government policy makers, scholars, and educators by clarifying the concept of market orientation and its relationship with performance in the context of tourism SMEs.     

Corporate ownership concentration and audit fees: The case of an emerging economy

The paper investigates the effects of corporate ownership concentration on audit fees in emerging economies, using Bangladesh as a case. Prior studies have indicated that audit fees in Bangladesh are significantly low. Also, the Bangladeshi private sector is dominated by high ownership concentration. Agency theory predicts that in an efficient market, managers in a highly concentrated ownership situation will have sufficient incentives to have more rigorous audits performed. However, managers in emerging economies, where the markets are not as strong, may not have similar incentives. We test whether audit fees in Bangladesh are related to corporate ownership concentration. Our results indicate that audit fees have a significant negative relationship with sponsor and institutional ownership concentrations. This indicates that in Bangladesh, companies actually pay lower audit fees when these are dominated by sponsor and institutional shareholders. For the public shareholders, we find a negative, but statistically insignificant relationship. The results seem to suggest that corporate ownership pattern may be a major factor in explaining the low audit fees in Bangladesh.     

Efficiency differentials favouring resource-based industries

This note draws attention to some characteristics of resource-based industries, not mentioned in Roemer's (1979) recent survey on resource-based industrialization, which suggest that efficiency in these industries may be higher than in other LDC industries. Some empirical support is also provided.     

Intersubjectivity — the challenge and opportunity for accounting

The purpose of this paper is to examine the origin, nature and intellectual character of the frameworks being used by the various critics of the public accounting profession. The paper looks at three major questions: (1) what are the frameworks critics are using to hold the profession accountable? (2) What does the response of the profession tell us about how it perceives the problem? (3) Where is the current mode of response likely to lead the profession? Our analysis identifies two different frameworks that underlie the criticism being directed at the profession. We label these the “rational scientist” and “humanist-philosopher” viewpoints. These frameworks differ in the way in which they approach intersubjective phenomena. The differences are especially sharp on the notion objectivity. The profession, thus, is caught between the crossfire of these views and is in the difficult position of responding to a set of critical standards for which there exists no consensual framework. Unfortunately, they seem to be moving more toward the “rational-scientist” position of objectivity which is likely to compound their difficulties.     

Welfare implications of growth under quotas

Using the standard trade model, it is shown that growth under quotas always improves welfare. This result is contrary to Johnson's (1967) result on the possibilities of immeserizing growth in the presence of tariffs.     

Has Adoption of IFRS Increased Non–North American Institutional Investment in the Canadian Stock Markets?

We investigate whether non–North American (non‐NA) institutional investment in firms listed on the Canadian stock markets increased between the pre‐ and post‐IFRS adoption periods relative to such investment in firms listed on the U.S. stock markets. Prior to IFRS adoption, Canada had high‐quality financial reporting standards that were similar to the U.S. standards. As consequences of IFRS adoption, Canadian financial statements became more comparable with European and other IFRS country financial statements and less comparable with neighboring U.S. financial statements. Thus, a question of interest is whether the enhanced comparability with non‐NA companies was beneficial in terms of attracting non‐NA investment to Canadian companies versus U.S. companies. We find that there was no significant change in non‐NA institutional investment in Canadian firms relative to U.S. firms for the very largest (fifth quintile) and for smaller (first, second, and third quintiles) Canadian companies. However, intermediate‐sized Canadian companies in the fourth size quintile lost non‐NA institutional investment relative to their U.S. peer companies, suggesting that non‐NA investors cared more about comparability with U.S. peer companies than non‐NA peer companies for companies in this size quintile.