explaining business cycles in small open economies abstract this paper analyzes the role of world price shocks fluctuations in the prices of capital intermediate and primary goods and in the world real interest rate in the generation and propagation of business cycles in small open developing countries i construct a stochastic dynamic multi sector small open economy model the model is a variant of the specific factors model and reflects the major structural characteristics of developing economies i utilize variance decomposition methods to quantitatively evaluate the impact of world price shocks the results indicate that world price shocks account for a significant fraction of business cycle variability in developing countries

foreign direct investment mode choice entry and establishment modes in transition economies in this study we bridge two streams of foreign direct investment literature specifically studies on establishment mode choice i e the choice between an acquisition and a greenfield establishment and studies on entry mode choice i e the choice between a wholly owned outlet and a subsidiary with shared ownership we arrive at a conceptual synthesis for an examination of the effects of the same predictors on the dual entry establishment mode choice made in the context of a single foreign investment we demonstrate that a parent firm s technological intensity international strategy and experience determine both establishment and entry mode choices moreover we apply williamson s new institutional economics to investigate the influence of institution building on multinational enterprises dual investment choice in the context of transition economies we test empirically the possible moderating effect of a host country s institutional environment we conclude that the degree of the host country s institutional advancement moderates the effect of both technological intensity and international strategy on the establishment and entry mode choice

a managerial decision model of international cooperative venture formation this paper develops a model of international cooperative venture formation that is centered on the decisionmaking process of mne executives central issues for managerial decisions are developed from the organizational studies literature a framework delineating the sequence and criteria used in the decision to form international cooperative ventures is developed from these defined issues and from existing models propositions pertaining to the venture formation decision process are outlined

dynamics of the trade balance and the terms of trade in ldcs the s curve abstract in their analysis of the dynamic behavior of terms of trade and the trade balance backus kehoe and kydland found that the lead and lag correlation between these two variables is s shaped for a set of oecd countries furthermore they show that this s curve can be replicated by a two country dynamic general equilibrium model surprisingly the s curve also describes the dynamic relationship between terms of trade and the trade balance for a large set of ldcs this s curve can also be reproduced by a small open economy model which captures some important features of ldc economies the s curve is unexpectedly robust to variations in the key parameters of the model the model also captures the business cycle properties of the ldc data

how well do linear approximation methods work abstract in this paper we investigate the accuracy of approximating policy functions for three different approximation methods in the context of a neoclassical model with a production tax we find that a variant of the king plosser and rebelo procedure yields the best approximations overall but that in certain instances researchers may be better off using a discrete state space solution to the euler equations of the model

a quantitative analysis of chinese industrial structure and technological change production functions for aggregate industry sectoral industries and small scale industry in this study we estimate the chinese aggregate sectoral and small scale industrial production functions based of three models the ces 1 ces 2 and cobb douglas production functions testing the estimated results we find that the cobb douglas production function is the appropriate functional form for underlying chinese industrial struture the study indicates some serious structural and technological problems such as decreasing returns to scale unitary substitution between labour and capital slow technical progress and low economic efficienty the findings suggest that an intensive industrial development policy should be pursued in china

terms of trade uncertainty savings and the production structure abstract this paper studies the response of savings and the production structure tradeables non tradeables to an increase in future terms of trade uncertainty holding expected utility constant there is no international trade in risky assets the impact on the production structure is studied by analyzing the markets for domestic equity the paper shows that the response of both non tradeables production and savings is ambiguous cross country evidence indicates that an increase in terms of trade uncertainty leads to a higher fraction of the labor force in the non tradeables sector

external shocks u s monetary policy and macroeconomic fluctuations in emerging markets estimated structural vars show that external shocks are an important source of macroeconomic fluctuations in emerging markets furthermore u s monetary policy shocks affect interest rates and the exchange rate in a typical emerging market quickly and strongly the price level and real output in a typical emerging market respond to u s monetary policy shocks by more than the price level and real output in the u s itself these findings are consistent with the idea that when the u s sneezes emerging markets catch a cold at the same time u s monetary policy shocks are not important for emerging markets relative to other kinds of external shocks

limits of floating exchange rates the role of foreign currency debt and import structure abstract a traditional argument in favor of flexible exchange rates is that they insulate output better from real shocks because the exchange rate can adjust and stabilize demand for domestic goods through expenditure switching this argument is weakened in models with high foreign currency debt and low exchange rate pass through to import prices the present study evaluates the empirical relevance of these two factors we analyze the transmission of real external shocks to the domestic economy under fixed and flexible exchange rate regimes for a broad sample of countries in a panel var and let the responses vary with foreign currency debt and import structure we find that flexible exchange rates do not insulate output better from external shocks if the country imports mainly low pass through goods and foreign indebtedness is high

are external shocks responsible for the instability of output in low income countries external shocks such as commodity price fluctuations natural disasters and the role of the international economy are often blamed for the poor economic performance of low income countries the author quantifies the impact of these different external shocks using a panel vector autoregression var approach and compares their relative contributions to output volatility in low income countries vis a vis internal factors he finds that external shocks can only explain a small fraction of the output variance of a typical low income country internal factors are the main source of fluctuations from a quantitative perspective the output effect of external shocks is typically small in absolute terms but significant relative to the historic performance of these countries

openness specialization and the external vulnerability of developing countries deepening real and financial integration of developing countries into the world economy has prompted renewed interest in the contribution of external shocks to their macroeconomic fluctuations this paper revisits the issue using four decades of annual data for a large sample of developing countries the paper implements a conditionally homogeneous panel vector autoregression with exogenous variables to model gdp fluctuations in these countries it uses sign restrictions to identify four external structural shocks demand supply monetary and commodity shocks and analyzes how their impact on growth is shaped by countries policy and structural framework external shocks are found to account for a small share of the forecast error variance of gdp especially at short horizons however their contribution has been on the rise in recent decades further global monetary shocks have become the leading external source of gdp volatility in developing countries the paper presents a quantitative assessment of the effects of real and financial opening up as well as those of commodity specialization on the impact of external shocks on gdp the results suggest that increasing openness can account for the increasing trend in the volatility attributable to external shocks as well as the changing roles of different shocks moreover commodity intensive developing countries are found to be more vulnerable than the rest to all types of external shocks not just commodity shocks

partner selection and venturing success the case of joint ventures with firms in the people s republic of china it has been hypothesized in the international joint venture ijv literature that partner selection affects interpartner fit which in turn influences a synergistic effect on ijv performance this study investigates the relationship between ijv success and the strategic and organizational traits of local partners we address this issue in the context of an emerging economy p r china newly emerging economies have in recent years become major hosts of direct investment by multinational corporations mncs because these rapidly expanding economies characterized by an exploding demand previously stifled by ideologically based government intervention provide tremendous opportunities which mncs can preempt mncs in such economies however face the challenges of structural reform weak market structure poorly specified property rights and institutional uncertainty right local partners can help mncs boost market expansion obtain insightful information mitigate operational risks and provide country specific knowledge the analysis of the data obtained from china suggests that both strategic and organizational traits of local partners are significantly associated with some individual dimensions of ijv performance among strategic traits absorptive capacity product relatedness and market power are favorable to ijvs market and financial outcomes market power and experience significantly reduce ijvs operational uncertainties of organizational traits international experience and organizational collaboration are important for ijvs not only profitability and stability but also local market expansion and export growth organizational form and size influence ijvs local market performance the findings provided by this study can help mncs determine what criteria they should use in opting for local partners and what criteria are vital to their goal accomplishment those investors seeking local market expansion should select those local partners that have rich market experience superior market position high absorptive capacity and related product diversification with the ijvs those seeking profitability and stability should select local firms that have superior international experience longer organizational collaboration and greater market power while mncs should use appropriate strategic and organizational criteria to select local partners the host government or local firms can try to make these traits available to attract more stable and profitable foreign direct investment

government policies market imperfections and foreign direct investment the internalization eclectic theory of foreign direct investment includes the important insight that government policies create market imperfections which make foreign direct investment an economically rational strategic alternative for firms this paper reexamines the effects of government policies on market imperfections and foreign direct investment fdi it broadens and refines the analysis of the impact of government policies by developing the following arguments 1 there is a wide range of government policies that affect firms fdi decisions via their effects on market imperfections 2 there are numerous dimensions of variability in government policies that need to be identified in order to understand fully the effects of government policies on market imperfections and hence fdi flows 3 some of the effects of government policies on market imperfections and fdi are the opposite of those previously noted in the fdi literature 4 the effects of government policies vary across the several individual components of fdi flows the paper thus examines the following variables and relationships more extensively and precisely than has the previous literature government policy variables as causal factors affecting fdi market imperfection variables as intervening factors in the causal connections between government policies and fdi and the multiple indicators of the various dimensions of fdi as dependent variables

domestic alliance network to attract foreign partners evidence from international joint ventures in china partner selection is a critical issue in building international joint ventures ijvs we argue that foreign firms are more likely to select local firms with unique network structural advantages within a local alliance network we frame structural advantages as two network position traits centrality and brokerage specifically network centrality acts as a stronger network trait than brokerage in attracting foreign ijv partners however such a relationship may be moderated by foreign firms local experience and perceived capabilities we contend that when foreign firms have a high level of local market experience and perceived capabilities they may prefer a local broker over a centrally located local firm data on the domestic alliance network in china s electronics and information technology it industries largely support our hypotheses we conclude that as foreign investors become strategic insiders they may not only seek a local partner s capability attributes but also more critically pay attention to a local partner s domestic network

oil prices and the terms of trade abstract the combination of substantial terms of trade variability and unstable correlation patterns of trade prices with output and trade volumes has led some to suggest a break in the link between trade volumes and prices we find that oil accounts for much of the variation in the terms of trade over the last twenty five years and its quantitative role varies significantly over time and since our dynamic general equilibrium model predicts that the economy responds differently to oil supply shocks than to other shocks changes in their relative importance helps to account for the unstable correlations in the data

output value risk for commodity producers the uncertain benefits of diversification summary commodity price volatility has long been recognized as a main risk for commodity producers welfare and has led to diversification efforts less noticed has been the importance of commodity correlations and their increase after 2006 in the risk faced by producers to assess their impact we perform an empirical analysis of the market value of commodity producers output in a sample of 56 countries producing 26 commodities we find that diversification and correlations strongly explain output value volatility during 1987 2006 producers effectively specialized in a single commodity had an average output value volatility of 27 0 while producers of three or more commodities had a 12 7 volatility in this period average correlation was 8 and diversification was very effective in the 2007 12 period correlations averaged 26 and output volatilities for specialized and diversified commodities were 30 4 and 19 5 respectively thus reducing the benefit of diversification at a time of macroeconomic distress in 2013 16 output volatilities reverted to levels close to those in 1987 2006 as commodities decorrelated again our findings should be relevant to policy makers embarking in diversification efforts and in the analysis of macroeconomic risk of commodity producers

on the sources of business cycles in the g 7 abstract this paper examines sources of cyclical movements in output inflation and the term structure of interest rates in the g 7 it employs a novel identification approach which uses the sign of the theoretical cross correlation function in response to shocks to catalog orthogonal disturbances we find that demand shocks are the dominant source of output and inflation fluctuations in several of the g 7 countries the proportion of term structure variability explained by different structural sources does not depend on the horizon apart from the us and canada structural shocks are nearly uncorrelated across countries

strategic determinants of partner selection criteria in international joint ventures prior studies are vague regarding determinants of criteria for selecting complementary partners for international joint ventures ijvs this paper first distinguishes task and partner related dimensions of selection criteria the paper then argues that relative importance of task related selection criteria is determined by the strategic context of the proposed ijv and the parent firm specifically the critical success factors of the venture s competitive environment and the parent s static and dynamic position vis a vis these factors

informal institutions and absorptive capacity a cross country meta analytic study the informal institutions construct has not been well understood in prior research we contribute to the informal institutions literature by developing a generalized two by two conceptualization of institutions that juxtapose the dimension of behavioral uncertainty versus environmental uncertainty and the dimension of informal institutions versus formal institutions in particular we theorize informal institutions based on the extent to which they reduce behavioral uncertainty or environmental uncertainty as well as their alignment with the formal institutional environment with respect to the two types of uncertainty leveraging this fourfold typology we shed new light on the importance of informal institutional conditions in theories of firms absorptive capacity and performance using a cross country meta analytical approach we find that a firm s absorptive capacity is more positively related to performance outcomes in countries with informal institutions that reduce behavioral uncertainty and environmental uncertainty furthermore the misalignment between informal and formal institutions with respect to behavioral uncertainty and environmental uncertainty weakens the relationship between absorptive capacity and performance outcomes overall by re emphasizing the fundamental role of informal institutions in reducing behavioral and environmental uncertainties our typology offers a fine grained perspective to conceptualize informal institutions and constitutes an opportunity to advance theory in informal institutions and international business

host country policies and mne management control in ijvs evidence from china in international joint ventures ijvs partner firms exert three types of management control output process and social since management control critically influences ijv success it is essential to understand what factors drive the development of the control system prior studies have focused mainly on ijvs internal conditions and have largely neglected external institutional influences on ijv control in this study we explore how host country policies affect mne partners control over their ijvs using a sample of ijvs in china we find that mne partners tend to exercise less output and process control when minority equity restriction is present greater process control when they receive government incentives and less social control when they are required to partner with state owned enterprises in contrast the results of a post hoc analysis show that local partners control activities are not significantly influenced by these policies our findings provide new insights into ijv management by demonstrating the impacts of regulatory institutions on partners control activities

performance and survival of joint ventures with non conventional ownership structures the international joint venture jv literature has focused on two parent jvs formed between one foreign and one local firm yet other types of jvs exist this paper identifies four distinct forms of jvs based on the jv partners nationality and equity affiliation these are i jvs that are formed between affiliated home country based firms ii jvs that are formed between unaffiliated home country based firmsl iii jvs that are formed between home country based and local firms and iv jvs that are formed between home country and third country based firms our analysis of 737 japanese jvs in asia demonstrates that the conventionally assumed form of jv represented only 30 percent of the total further each of the four jv forms significantly differed in terms of incidence performance and survival likelihood

explaining saving investment correlations national saving and investment rates are highly positively correlated in virtually all countries this is puzzling as it apparently implies a low degree of international capital mobility this paper shows that the observed positive correlation between national saving and investment rates arises naturally within a quantitatively restricted equilibrium model with perfect mobility of financial and physical capital the model is consistent with the fact that saving investment correlations are larger for larger countries but are still substantial for small countries further the model is consistent with the finding that current account deficits tend to be associated with investment booms copyright 1993 by american economic association

terms of trade and exchange rate regimes in developing countries abstract since friedman essays in positive economics university of chicago press chicago 1953 157 203 an advantage often attributed to flexible exchange rate regimes over fixed regimes is their ability to insulate more effectively the economy against real shocks i use a post bretton woods sample 1973 96 of 75 developing countries to assess whether the responses of real gdp real exchange rates and prices to terms of trade shocks differ systematically across exchange rate regimes i find that responses are significantly different across regimes in a way that supports friedman s hypothesis the paper also examines the importance of terms of trade shocks in explaining the overall variance of output and prices in developing countries

the decoupling of emerging economies theoretical and empirical puzzle with the growing importance of the emerging economies ees in the international scene a lively debate has begun on whether the national economic cycles are converging or the cycles of ees and advanced economies aes are becoming disconnected the so called hypothesis of decoupling of ees from the aes given the important practical implications that decoupling could have for example on the definition of national and international economic policies and on business strategies aimed at investment diversification and risk management the question kindles not only the interest of academics but also policymakers and practitioners are very interested in the issue the decoupling question has been long debated in different circles and from different points of view this survey aims to retrace the steps of this debate and to provide some suggestions for future empirical researches

international capital flows to emerging markets national and global determinants using a novel dataset for emerging markets we empirically investigate the nature and determinants of aggregate and disaggregate capital inflows we present formal statistical evidence of commonalities in capital inflows with the strongest evidence for the level of equity and bank flows advanced economy long run bond yields and commodity prices are identified as determinants of global capital flows we also consider the national determinants of capital flows finding that financial openness and institutions matter for country flows finally we identify important commonalities in the volatility of bank inflows

international business cycles world region and country specific factors the paper investigates the common dynamic properties of business cycle fluctuations across countries regions and the world we employ a bayesian dynamic latent factor model to estimate common components in macroeconomic aggregates output consumption and investment in a 60 country sample covering seven regions of the world the results indicate that a common world factor is an important source of volatility for aggregates in most countries providing evidence for a world business cycle we find that region specific factors play only a minor role in explaining fluctuations in economic activity we also document similarities and differences across regions countries and aggregates jel f41 e32 c11 c32

business cycles through international shocks a structural investigation abstract this paper investigates the sources of output volatility by decomposing the international shocks into finance and trade shocks through structural bayesian estimations of an open economy dsge model on 16 countries on average international shocks explain around 70 of output fluctuations

growth efficiency and convergence in china s state and collective industry in china as in the soviet union and eastern europe economic reform initiatives seek to increase productivity by introducing elements of market oriented policies and institutions into an economy formerly dominated by state planning efforts to evaluate the impact of reform of chinese industry have focused on the measurement of productivity change in state enterprises this study expands the prior framework of analysis in several directions our investigation of productivity trends is not limited to state enterprises but includes quantitative comparisons with china s fast growing collective industries which contributed 36 of overall industrial output in 1988 1 unlike previous studies our analysis works with gross rather than net output this permits us to investigate changes in the productivity of intermediate inputs which occupy a large portion of total costs in chinese industry as well as labor and capital to do this we develop a quasi frontier estimation procedure which seems appropriate for comparisons of total factor productivity based on chinese industrial data finally we offer a quantitative perspective on the extent to which reform efforts have moved industrial resource allocation toward patterns expected of a market system the analysis confirms our previous finding based on a restricted framework employing only labor fixed capital and net output that multifactor productivity in state industry has risen substantially during

timing of investment and international expansion performance in china this study examines the multivariate and univariate performance effects of timing of fdi in an emerging economy at the business unit level a longitudinal analysis of industry wide firm specific data on fdi timing and foreign venture performance in china reveals that timing has a significant influence on overall as well as on individual aspects of venture performance it is observed that early entrants outperform late movers in terms of local market expansion and asset turnover whereas late movers are superior to early entrants with regard to risk reduction and accounting return during the initial period of international expansion factor analysis confirms that the importance of timing in affecting fdi decisions is as significant as that of internalization ownership or location factors

did technology shocks cause the 1990 91 recession real business cycle theory has been used to determine the statistical properties of aggregate fluctuations induced by technology shocks the finding is that technology shocks have been an important contributor to fluctuations in the u s economy for example finn e kydland and prescott 1991 estimate that if the only impulses were technology shocks the u s economy would have been 70 percent as volatile as it has been over the postwar period in this paper we employ the theory to answer the question did technology shocks cause the 1990 1991 recession answering this question requires the determination of the effects of technology shocks on the path of the economy the procedure that we use to make this determination is as follows first we construct a model economy and calibrate it so that its steady state matches actual 1987 values data for other years are used to determine the realizations of the shocks and the nature of the stochastic processes generating these shocks given these stochastic processes the equilibrium decision rules for our calibrated economy are computed we then construct the path for the economy implied by the model for the period 1984 1 1992 3 we set 1984 1 model values of the state variables equal to actual 1984 1 values and use the decision rules and the realized shocks to construct this path finally we examine whether the model economy experiences a recession in 1991 as did the u s economy business cycles are variations in output per adult that are in large part accounted for by variation in the per adult time allocated to market production figure 1 plots the time path of the per adult labor input during the 1983 1 1989 1 period there was a remarkable 12 percent increase in the labor input per adult beginning in 1990 2 there has been a decline of nearly 6 percent in this per adult labor input an unusual feature of the recovery subsequent to the 1990 1991 recession is that this labor input variable has continued to decline well into the recovery this unusual behavior leads to a related question did technology shocks cause the slow recovery we found it necessary to modify the standard real business cycle model in four ways in order to answer the posed question first given the enormous changes in the relative prices of durables as depicted in figure 2 we could not treat technology change as being neutral with respect to different types of final goods following john b long and charles plosser 1983 and jeremy greenwood et al 1992 we consider multiple production sectors with technology change differing across sectors second we assume that there is a technology employed within the household sector that produces a consumption flow from the stock of consumer durables third we consider land to be a factor of production in addition to labor and capital our fourth modification is to introduce population growth

the international transmission of economic fluctuations abstract this paper suggests that for a wide class of international real business cycle models including models with imperfect competition the traditional channels of international transmission of business cycles through world interest rate and terms of trade variations cannot explain the cyclical response of the canadian economy to innovations in u s output empirically testable quantitative models of the effects on canadian economic activity of shocks to the u s economy are developed and their empirical relevance is tested by comparing impulse responses estimated from vector autoregressions to the quantitative predictions of the theoretical models

does openness to trade make countries more vulnerable to sudden stops or less using gravity to establish causality openness to trade is one factor that has been identified as determining whether a country is prone to sudden stops in capital inflows several authors have offered empirical evidence that having a large tradable sector reduces the contraction necessary to adjust to a given cut off in funding such studies may however be subject to the problem that trade is endogenous we use the gravity instrument for trade openness which is constructed from geographical determinants of bilateral trade we find that openness indeed makes countries less vulnerable to crises and that the relationship is even stronger when correcting for the endogeneity of trade

interfirm diversity organizational learning and longevity in global strategic alliances organizational theorists have correctly argued that the emergence and maintenance of robust cooperation between global strategic alliance partners is related to the diversity in the partners characteristics yet previous research has failed to systematically delineate the important dimensions of interfirm diversity and integrate the dimensions into a unified framework of analysis this paper develops a multilevel typology of interfirm diversity and focuses on organizational learning and adaptation as critical processes that dynamically moderate diversity s impact on alliance longevity and effectiveness

on the future of international joint venture research international joint ventures ijvs are an important type of international strategic alliance isa and have been studied by scholars for decades resulting in a plethora of empirical studies publications and reviews yet an inadequate accumulation of knowledge exists as a closer look reveals much more than providing a summary and critical assessment of past contributions this paper develops an expansive research agenda based upon a deep understanding of past research and comprehensive frameworks that distill this research we identify a number of research opportunities that would not only advance ijv research but also closely related literatures and disciplines such as isas theories of the multinational firm international business research and strategic management

equity joint ventures and theory of the multinational enterprise this paper extends the internalization approach to the theory of the multinational enterprise mne to include an expanded role for equity joint ventures using the transaction cost paradigm of williamson this paper explains why joint ventures may sometimes be preferred over wholly owned subsidiaries also presented is empirical work on joint venture performance in developing countries which demonstrates that under certain conditions joint ventures can be the optimal mode of foreign direct investment 1987 jibs journal of international business studies 1987 18 1 16

capital controls and monetary policy autonomy in a small open economy abstract is there a link between capital controls and monetary policy autonomy in a country with a floating currency shocks to capital flows into a small open economy lead to volatility in asset prices and credit supply to lessen the impact of capital flows on financial instability a central bank finds it optimal to use the domestic interest rate to manage the capital account capital account restrictions affect the behavior of optimal monetary policy following shocks to the foreign interest rate capital controls allow optimal monetary policy to focus less on the foreign interest rate and more on domestic variables

diversification and the risk return trade off the article presents information on a study which investigated the risk return trade off at the level of individual firms with both accounting and market based measures of risk the author describe

explaining business cycles a multiple shock approach abstract aiyagari 1992 and prescott 1986 1991 claim that a large fraction of the variance of united states quarterly detrended real gnp is attributable to an unobservable shock to total factor productivity this paper argues that the importance of a productivity shock in explaining the variance of output is fundamentally indeterminate any model that is in accord with the several time series that make up united states macroeconomic data must feature multiple shocks that are correlated at all leads and lags sorting out the separate effects of these various shocks on a single variable such as real gnp is impossible we illustrate this argument using a multiple shock version of the king plosser rebelo 1988 benchmark real business cycle model

multiparty cooperation and performance in international equity joint ventures previous studies have examined the relationship between cooperation and performance in international equity joint ventures ejvs mostly at the partner level this study revisits the issue at multiple levels and considers vertical and horizontal cooperation among the foreign partners the local partner and the venture management team the study also examines how goal incongruence between partners and market uncertainty affect the tripartite relationships between cooperation and performance the test results show a strong positive impact of cooperation between partners on performance as perceived both by the partners and by the venture management team one partner s cooperation with the venture management team is perceived favorably by that party but not necessarily by the other party unless both partners share the same goal market uncertainty requires stronger cooperation at all levels to improve performance in ejvs

the contingent effect of state participation on the dissolution of international joint ventures a resource dependence approach we adopt a resource dependence approach to explain the effect of state participation on the dissolution of international joint ventures ijvs while resource dependence theory rdt has been used to explain the formation of ijvs we propose an extension of the theory to explain their dissolution we do so by highlighting the match between foreign firms resource needs resource hierarchy and the resource provision roles of state controlled vs private local partners resource profiles we further argue that the effect of state participation on the dissolution of ijvs is moderated by foreign firms host country experience and ijv age we test our hypotheses by using data on 623 ijvs in china our results show that state participation reduces the risk of ijv dissolution and that the strength of this effect differs depending on the type of state controlled actor that is involved in an ijv we also find that host country experience and ijv age moderate the effect of state participation on ijv dissolution these findings enhance our understanding of ijv dissolution and contribute to the development of rdt

equity joint ventures and the theory of the multinational enterprise this paper extends the internalization approach to the theory of the multinational enterprise mne to include an expanded role for equity joint ventures using the transaction cost paradigm of williamson this paper explains why joint ventures may sometimes be preferred over wholly owned subsidiaries also presented is empirical work on joint venture performance in developing countries which demonstrates that under certain conditions joint ventures can be the optimal mode of foreign direct investment

can world real interest rates explain business cycles in a small open economy abstract while the world real interest rate is potentially an important mechanism for transmitting international shocks to small open economies much of the recent quantitative research that studies this mechanism concludes that it has little effect on output investment and net exports we re examine the importance of world real interest rate shocks using an approach that reverses the standard real business cycle methodology we begin with a small open economy business cycle model but rather than specifying the stochastic processes for the shocks and then solving and simulating the model to evaluate how well these shocks explain business cycles we use the model to back out the shocks that are consistent with the model s observable endogenous variables then we use variance decompositions to examine the importance of each shock we apply this methodology to canada and find that world real interest rate shocks can play an important role in explaining the cyclical variation in a small open economy in particular they can explain up to one third of the fluctuations in output and more than half of the fluctuations in net exports and net foreign assets

chinese industrial reform accomplishments prospects and implications why has china grown so fast when conditions thought to be necessary for growth were absent nowhere is this dissonance greater than in china s industrial sector which has recorded big gains in output employment and exports in the absence of privatization effective bankruptcy legislation and other policy innovations widely seen as prerequisites for successful reform this essay reviews the accomplishments of chinese industry since the start of reform in 1978 focusing on the internal dynamics of the development process considers the future of partial reform and discusses the implications of china s industrial reform experience

dynamism capital structure and performance in a sub saharan economy extending the institutional difference hypothesis extant research examining the capital structure performance relationship has been undertaken primarily in developed economies these studies integrate agency theory considerations with the contingency perspective and suggest a positive interaction between sector dynamism equity and performance our study extends this research stream by examining the capital structure performance link in a sub saharan economy an underresearched but economically emerging region using logic undergirding a substantial stream of institutional theory based studies that we term the institutional difference hypothesis we argue that the implications of the capital structure performance relationship are contingent on the extent of national level institutional underdevelopment taking into account institutional differences between developed economies and those in the sub saharan region we hypothesize a negative interaction between sector dynamism equity and firm performance in sub sahara using longitudinal data from ghanaia

intertemporal dependence impatience and dynamics abstract this paper develops simple geometric methods for analyzing consumer behavior under recursive but intertemporally dependent tastes since the preferences studied need not be time additive they allow the marginal utility of consumption on a given date to vary with consumption on other dates intertemporal dependence is induced by the presence of a variable individual rate of time preference the optimal consumption responses to transitory and anticipated changes in incomes and interest rates are easily derived and are similar in many respects to the responses implied by the standard constant time preference model intuitive explanations of the first order conditions describing optimal paths are provided

social ties and partner identification in sino hong kong international joint ventures partner identification is an important and under studied precursor to selection and eventual performance of international joint ventures ijvs the mechanics of the identification process were investigated in depth across a sample of eighteen sino hong kong ijvs using the case study research method the cross case findings of this exploratory investigation support the idea that social networks provide a valuable resource for reducing ijv partner search costs specifically the findings reveal that while weakly linked bridge ties are valuable in identifying potential partners searches based on strong ties tend to be shorter and provide a more robust basis for inter partner cooperation

demand changes and real exchange rate dynamics in a finite horizon model with sectoral adjustment costs author affiliation hung ju chen department of economics national taiwan university 21 hsu chow road taipei 100 taiwan e mail hjc ntu edu tw corresponding author chen min hsu department of economics national taiwan university 21 hsu chow road taipei 100 taiwan e mail chenmin ntu edu tw acknowledgment we would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by the program for globalization studies at the institute for advanced studies in humanities national taiwan university grant 95r0064 ah03 03 we wish to express our sincere appreciation for helpful comments and suggestions provided by two anonymous referees the editor of the journal joshua aizenman been lon chen ming chia li tsunao okumura and elias sanidas as well as participants at the 2007 annual conference of the asia pacific economic association and the 2007 conference of korea and the world economy we also thank ke shaw lian for his assistance any errors within the work are our responsibility 1 introductionalthough the traditional macroeconomic models tend to explain economic fluctuations by focusing solely on supply shocks given that equilibrium is determined by both demand and supply it would seem obvious that changes in demand may also have important effects in terms of their contribution to economic oscillations changes in demand can easily occur particularly for those small open economies for example small open economies can be easily disturbed by external shocks such as terms of trade shocks through international trade 1 another example is the reduction in the mortality rate as a result of higher health investment both public and private and better healthcare during the economic development 2 for export orientated growth economies in particular such as those of hong kong and taiwan changes in either the terms of trade or the mortality rate can significantly influence economic performance impacting the real exchange rate investment output savings and the current account the phenomenon that life expectancy is steadily lengthening for most developing countries has led to the emergence of a growing number of studies on the impact of population aging 3 since an increase in life expectancy will change the expectation of lifetime utility it will directly affect households inter temporal decisions with regard to consumption and savings however previous studies tend to analyze the impact of mortality decline in a closed economy or in a small open economy with exogenous and constant factor prices 4in order to study the impact of mortality rate changes on the economic performance in an open economy we use the overlapping generations model with uncertain lifetime developed by yaari 1965 and blanchard 1985 to examine household savings behavior within this model agents live with a finite lifetime such that different types of agents simultaneously live in the economy 5 furthermore we extend the blanchard type model to a three good open economy composed of exportable importable and non traded goods to allow us to consider the dynamics of the real exchange rate when demand changes capital production and accumulation are also incorporated into the framework to facilitate an examination of the investment behavior of firms we assume that the economy uses both capital and labor to produce exportable goods and non traded goods while importable goods are imported from abroad capital is produced by the non traded sector and installation costs are incurred when capital is transported to the exportable sector 6 as indicated by morshed and turnovsky 2004 the inclusion of the sectoral adjustment costs of capital can generate persistent deviations from the long run equilibrium by the real exchange rate in response to demand changes 7 because the real exchange rate is playing a dual role of a non traded goods price and a capital price we are able to study the impact of population aging and terms of trade shocks on international capital flows in a small open economy with endogenous factor prices

trade openness and volatility abstract this paper examines the mechanisms through which output volatility is related to trade openness using an industry level panel data set of manufacturing production and trade the main results are threefold first sectors more open to international trade are more volatile second trade is accompanied by increased specialization these two forces imply increased aggregate volatility third sectors that are more open to trade are less correlated with the rest of the economy an effect that acts to reduce overall volatility the point estimates indicate that each of the three effects has an appreciable impact on aggregate volatility added together they imply that the relationship between trade openness and overall volatility is positive and economically significant

international risk sharing and commodity prices cole and obstfeld 1991 exposited a classic result where equilibrium movements in the terms of trade could make ex ante risk sharing arrangements unnecessary a unity elasticity of substitution across goods and production specialization this paper extends their model to n countries and m commodities n m here the terms of trade provides insurance against commodity specific shocks not country specific shocks using commodity level production data at the national level and world commodity prices we document significant terms of trade variability and positive responses of nation specific production to terms of trade improvements the endogenous terms of trade insurance mechanism highlighted in co is virtually non existent cole et obstfeld 1991 ont developpe un resultat classique montrant que les mouvements d equilibre dans les termes d echange pouvaient faire l economie d arrangements ex ante pour le partage du risque une elasticite de substitution unitaire entre biens et specialisations dans la production ce texte developpe leur modele pour n pays et m biens n m les termes d echange fournissent l assurance contre les chocs specifiques a certains biens mais non contre les chocs en provenance de certains pays utilisant des donnees de production au niveau des biens au plan national et des prix des biens au niveau mondial on observe une variabilite significative des termes d echange et des reponses positives de la production specifiquement nationale aux ameliorations dans les termes d echange le mecanisme endogene d assurance via les termes d echange mis en lumiere par co est virtuellement non existant

the structural determinants of external vulnerability the authors examine empirically how domestic structural characteristics related to openness and product and factor market flexibility influence the impact that terms of trade shocks can have on aggregate output for this purpose they apply an econometric methodology based on semi structural vector auto regressions to a panel of 90 countries with annual observations for the period 1974 2000 using this methodology the authors isolate and standardize the shocks estimate their impact on gdp and examine how this impact depends on the domestic conditions outlined above they find that larger trade openness magnifies the output impact of external shocks particularly the negative ones while improvements in labor market flexibility and financial openness reduce their impact domestic financial depth has a more nuanced role in stabilizing the economy it helps reduce the impact of external shocks particularly in environments of high exposure that is when trade and financial openness are high firm entry is unrestricted and labor markets are rigid

the terms of trade the real exchange rate and economic fluctuations this paper examines the relationship between terms of trade and business cycles using a three sector intertemporal equilibrium model and a large multicountry database results show that terms of trade shocks account for nearly one half of actual gdp variability the model explains weak correlations between net exports and terms of trade the harberger laursen and metzler effect and produces large and weakly correlated deviations from purchasing power parity and real interest rate parity terms of trade shocks cause real appreciations and positive interest differentials although productivity shocks have opposite effects the puzzle that welfare gains of international asset trading are negligible is left unresolved copyright 1995 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

do multinationals deteriorate developing countries export prices the impact of fdi on net barter terms of trade this paper explores the economic relationship between foreign direct investment fdi to developing countries and the export prices of the latter measured by terms of trade it is rst shown that economic theory suggests such a relationship for various reasons but is inconclusive about the direction of the eect to address this open issue empirically i analyze data on more than 50 developing countries throughout the period 1980 2008 using robust dynamic panel data methods the results show that fdi had an economically relevant and statistically signicant positive impact on developing countries net barter terms of trade a higher level of education in the developing country fosters this eect

monetary policy divergence and net capital flows accounting for endogenous policy responses abstract this paper measures the effect of monetary tightening in key advanced economies on net capital flows around the world measuring this effect is complicated by the fact that the domestic monetary policies of affected economies respond endogenously to the foreign tightening shock using a structural var framework with quarterly panel data we estimate the impulse responses of domestic policy variables and net capital flows to a foreign monetary tightening shock we find that the endogenous response of domestic monetary policy depends on each economy s capital account openness and exchange rate regime we use a method to compute counterfactual impulse responses for net capital outflows under the assumption that the domestic policy rate does not respond to foreign monetary tightening our results suggests that failing to account for the endogenous response of domestic monetary policy biases down the estimated elasticity of net capital flows to foreign interest rates by as much as one third for countries with open capital accounts

developed country mnes investing in developing economies progress and prospect this study reviews research from 1970 through 2016 on developed country multinational enterprises dmnes entering and competing in developing economies to identify the current state of knowledge of this research and push it further we review the literature using bibliometric and qualitative content analyses covering leading journals and books we articulate frontier issues that are understudied yet critical to both theorization and practice of dmnes in developing economies we discuss the findings and conclusions from prior research along five key areas 1 entering developing economies 2 organizing local activities 3 managing alliances and joint ventures 4 competing in dynamic environments and 5 dealing with institutions governments and society we offer prospective insights into future agenda that have important implications for mne strategies and decisions and propose frontier directions that encompass strategic localization reverse transfer and adaptation co evolution with local business ecosystems reorganizing and restructuring and strategic responses to institutional and market complexity

environmental risks and joint venture sharing arrangements multinational enterprises mnes have responded to the open door policies of socialist countries in recent years by investing in their economies through joint ventures mnes must formulate their investment strategies to control and manage the environmental risks peculiar to a traditional centrally planned economy cpe in which contextual and transactional environments are blurred joint venture sharing arrangements may be structured to control exposures to uncertainties and to align the interests of transactional parties mostly state owned enterprises to those of the venture this study tests the hypothesis that a foreign investor s share in a joint venture in a cpe is inversely correlated with 1 the amount of uncertainties and risks and 2 the external dependency of the venture on the contextual and transactional relationships of the host country the hypothesis is supported by empirical evidence from data on american joint ventures in china

were there regime switches in u s monetary policy working paper 2004 14 june 2004 abstract a multivariate model identifying monetary policy and allowing for simultaneity and regime switching in coefficients and variances is confronted with u s data since 1959 the best fit is with a model that allows time variation in structural disturbance variances only among models that also allow for changes in equation coefficients the best fit is for a model that allows coefficients to change only in the monetary policy rule that model allows switching among three main regimes and one rarely and briefly occurring regime the three main regimes correspond roughly to periods when most observers believe that monetary policy actually differed and the differences in policy behavior are substantively interesting though statistically ill determined the estimates imply monetary targeting was central in the early 80s but was also important sporadically in the 70s the changes in regime were essential neither to the rise in inflation in the 70s nor to its decline in the 80s jel classification e52 e47 c53 key words counterfactuals lucas critique policy rule monetary targeting simultaneity volatility model comparison i the debate over monetary policy change in an influential paper clarida gali and gertler 2000 cgg presented evidence that us monetary policy changed between the 1970 s and the 1980 s indeed that in the 70 s it was drastically worse they found that the policy rule apparently followed in the 70 s was one that when embedded in most stochastic general equilibrium models would imply non uniqueness of the equilibrium and hence vulnerability of the economy to sunspot fluctuations of arbitrarily large size their estimated policy rule for the later period on the other hand eliminated this indeterminacy these results are a possible explanation of the volatile and rising inflation of the 70 s and of its subsequent decline the cgg analysis has two important weaknesses one is that it fails to account for stochastic volatility us macroeconomic variables and particularly the federal funds rate have gone through periods of tranquility and of agitation with forecast error variances varying greatly from period to period ignoring such variation does not lead to inconsistent estimates of model parameters when the forecasting equations themselves are constant but it strongly biases toward a finding of changed parameters tests of the stability of the forecasting equations the other weakness is that the cgg analysis rests on powerful and implausible identifying assumptions they require that we accept that the response of the monetary authority to expected future inflation and output does not depend on the recent history of inflation money growth or output it is hard to understand why this should be so especially in the 70 s when monetarism was a prominent theme in policy debates congress was requiring reports from the fed of projected time paths of monetary aggregates and financial markets were reacting sensitively to weekly money supply numbers the requirement for existence and uniqueness of equilibrium in dynamic models is that the monetary policy rule show a more than unit response of interest rates to the sum of the logs of all nominal variables that appear on the right hand side of the reaction function if we force a particular measure of expected future inflation to proxy for all the nominal variables that actually appear independently in the reaction function we are bound to get distorted conclusions on the one hand because expected future inflation will be a noisy measure of the full set of nominal influences on policy we might get downward bias in our estimates from the usual errorsin variables effect on the other hand to the extent that expected future inflation like most expected future values shows less variation than current nominal variables we could find a mistaken scaling up of coefficients

adaptive learning in international business building on daniel levinthal s seminal theories on learning adaptation and innovation this article elucidates an adaptive view of organizational learning undertaken by multinational enterprises mnes levinthal s perspectives have tremendous implications for theorizing and examining processes pathways and mechanisms of dynamic learning for mnes competing in a complex environment this article extends these perspectives considering unique organizational traits and environmental characteristics facing mnes for a more nuanced understanding of contexts in which adaptive learning creates global competitive advantage discussion also includes levinthal s perspectives that are not yet adequately extended to but valuable for ib research such as learning mindfulness cognitive search organizational architecture for adaptation and co evolution with technological change we offer additional research questions as well as possible solutions to adaptive learning for international business

volatility and development why is gdp growth so much more volatile in poor countries than in rich ones we identify four possible reasons i poor countries specialize in more volatile sectors ii poor countries specialize in fewer sectors iii poor countries experience more frequent and more severe aggregate shocks e g from macroeconomic policy and iv poor countries macroeconomic fluctuations are more highly correlated with the shocks of the sectors they specialize in we show how to decompose volatility into these four sources quantify their contribution to aggregate volatility and study how they relate to the stage of development we document the following regularities first as countries develop their productive structure moves from more volatile to less volatile sectors second the level of specialization declines with development at early stages and slowly increases at later stages of development third the volatility of country specific macroeconomic shocks falls with development fourth the covariance between sector specific and country specific shocks does not vary systematically with the level of development we argue that many theories linking volatility and development are not consistent with these findings and suggest new directions for future theoretical work

completing china s move to the market beginning in late 1978 by luck as much as design china arrived at a strategy for market oriented economic reform that combined substantial reform with rapid growth in gdp and exports the sequencing of reform began with the easy to reform sectors agriculture and foreign trade and then took up the more difficult task of reforming the large state owned enterprises with respect to agriculture small scale industry and foreign investment china found ways of introducing meaningful property rights into the increasingly marketized system a partially unreformed financial system and inadequate autonomy of large state enterprises accounts however for the current stop go nature of chinese development

learning to compete in a transition economy experience environment and performance does organizational learning as measured by experience in a host country affect international expansion performance if so does such a relationship between experience and performance hold over time how do the environmental forces in the host country affect such a relationship focusing on organizational learning by multinational enterprises mnes operating in a transition economy this study answers these three critical questions by exploring the relationships among experience environment and performance at the subsidiary level based on a recent survey of 108 mne subunits operating in china we find that the intensity and diversity of host country experience is an important predictor of subunit performance while the positive effect of the intensity of experience on performance diminishes over time the impact of the diversity of experience on performance remains unchanged moreover for mnes experiencing greater environmental dynamism complexity and hostility there is a stronger positive relationship between experience and performance