price versus quantity in a mixed duopoly abstract we revisit the classic discussion of the endogenous choice of a price or a quantity contract but in a mixed duopoly we find that choosing the price contract is a dominant strategy for both firms whether the goods are substitutes or complements

advertising competition in a mixed oligopoly we investigate a mixed oligopoly with misleading advertising competition we find that a welfare maximizing public enterprise always engages in misleading advertising and that an increase in the number of firms increases the profit and advertising level of each private firm

corporate social performance firm valuation and industrial difference evidence from hong kong this study addresses two issues first does corporate social performance matter in hong kong second if yes is it relevant to some industries more than others to answer these questions we develop a corporate social performance index csp to measure the quality of corporate social performance of major hong kong listed firms the criteria are based on the oecd principles of corporate governance using the 3 year period from 2002 to 2005 we find that firm valuation is positive and significantly associated with csp interestingly this relation matters less in china related firms and firms with a concentrated ownership structure the results also show that csp impacts firm valuation more positively when the firm is in the service sector we further find that csp is positively related to the market valuation of the subsequent year

determinants of household saving in taiwan growth demography and public policy this article examines the determinants of household saving in the process of economic development in the light of the taiwanese experience during the period 1952 99 the methodology involves the estimation of a saving rate function derived within the life cycle framework it is found that the household saving rate rises with both the level and the rate of growth of household disposable income the real deposit rate has a significant positive impact but the magnitude of the impact is modest public saving seems to crowd out private saving but less than proportionately while both old and young dependency in population have a negative impact on the saving rate the magnitude of the impact of the former is far greater than that of the latter increased availability of social security provisions and enhanced credit availability also seem to reduce saving as regards methodological implications the study casts doubt on the usual practice of lumping together public corporate and household savings in savin

the scope and limits of financial liberalisation in developing countries a critical survey this article reviews the growing literature on financial reform in developing countries we draw both on the theoretical contributions outlining the case for and against liberalisation as well as on the experience of many developing countries with liberalisation we argue that the existence of market failures in financial markets hampers the liberalisation process and indeed suggests that the simple liberalising strategy envisaged in much of the literature is inappropriate we argue instead for an alternative strategy which integrates some aspects of liberalisation with the development of appropriate financial institutions designed to serve best the needs of the real economy

the determinants of private saving in india abstract this paper examines the determinants of private saving in the process of economic development in the light of the indian experience it is found that the saving rate rises with both the level and the rate of growth of disposable income the real interest rate on bank deposits has a significant positive impact but the magnitude of the impact is modest public saving seems to crowd out private saving but less than proportionately furthermore the spread of banking facilities in the economy and the inflation rate have a positive impact and changes in the external terms of trade a negative impact on private saving

the interest elasticity of savings in developing countries the existing evidence abstract this paper presents a critical analysis of some of the most recent empirical work on the interest elasticity of savings in developing economies supported by a set of empirical results the paper argues that a the real interest elasticity of savings is not easily detected using the existing empirical models which generally yield insignificant interest rate parameters in the seventies b the existing models suffer from serious defects that make if very difficult to interpret the estimated parameters

shareholder value stakeholder management and social issues what s the bottom line we test the relationship between shareholder value stakeholder management and social issue participation building better relations with primary stakeholders like employees customers suppliers and communities could lead to increased shareholder wealth by helping firms develop intangible valuable assets which can be sources of competitive advantage on the other hand using corporate resources for social issues not related to primary stakeholders may not create value for shareholders we test these propositions with data from s p 500 firms and find evidence that stakeholder management leads to improved shareholder value while social issue participation is negatively associated with shareholder value copyright 2001 john wiley sons ltd

aggregate spending and the terms of trade is there a laursen metzler effect this paper investigates the spending and current account effects of terms of trade shifts in a model where households maximize utility over an infinite planning period in the framework developed here an economy specialized in production must experience a fall in aggregate spending and a current surplus as a result of an unanticipated permanent worsening in its terms of trade the paper s model thus provides a setting in which the current account deficit predicted by laursen and metzier harberger and others fails to materialize

toward a new conception of the environment competitiveness relationship accepting a fixed trade off between environmental regulation and competitiveness unnecessarily raises costs and slows down environmental progress studies finding high environmental compliance costs have traditionally focused on static cost impacts ignoring any offsetting productivity benefits from innovation they typically overestimated compliance costs neglected innovation offsets and disregarded the affected industry s initial competitiveness rather than simply adding to cost properly crafted environmental standards can trigger innovation offsets allowing companies to improve their resource productivity shifting the debate from pollution control to pollution prevention was a step forward it is now necessary to make the next step and focus on resource productivity

mixed duopoly privatization and subsidization with excess burden of taxation we investigate optimal tax subsidy policies in mixed and private oligopolies with excess burden of taxation we compare the optimal subsidies and the resulting welfare levels among four regimes mixed and private cournot duopolies and stackelberg competition with public and private leaderships we show that in contrast to the existing works on the privatization neutrality theorem privatization affects resulting welfare duopole mixte privatisation et subsidisation en presence de fardeau fiscal excedentaire on examine les politiques optimales de taxes et de subventions dans le cas d oligopoles mixtes et prives en presence de fardeau fiscal excedentaire on compare les subsides optimaux et les effets sur le niveau de bien etre dans quatre regimes les duopoles de cournot mixte et prive et la concurrence a la stackelberg avec leadership public et prive on montre que contrairement a ce que suggeraient les travaux anterieurs sur le theoreme de la neutralite de la privatisation la privatisation affecte les niveaux de bien etre

globalization and household saving is there a link abstractthis article proposes that globalization can affect household saving in the long run in a number of ways social interactions between different cultures can induce value changes which can result in shifts in consumption and saving behaviour international trade allows consumers to have easier access to status goods stimulating consumption and dampening saving extending from veblen s conspicuous consumption theory saving may also decrease when globalization leads to greater population mobility and fosters urbanization thus enhancing the importance of consumption as a way to display wealth in addition financial globalization reduces credit constraints and allows households to save less using cross country data from the united nations un the oecd and other sources this article finds evidence that household saving declines as globalization deepens especially in the social and cultural dimensions

life cycle individual thrift and the wealth of nations this paper provides a review of the theory of the determinants of individual and national thrift that has come to be known as the life cycle hypothesis lch of saving applications to some current policy issues are also discussed part i deals with the state of the art on the eve of the formulation of the lch some 30 years ago part ii sets forth the theoretical foundations of the model in its original formulation and later amendment calling attention to various implications distinctive to it and sometimes counter intuitive it also includes a review of a number of crucial empirical tests both at the individual and the aggregate level part iii reviews some applications of lch to current policy issues though only in sketchy fashion as space constraints prevent fuller discussion this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

do corporate global environmental standards create or destroy market value arguments can be made on both sides of the question of whether a stringent global corporate environmental standard represents a competitive asset or liability for multinational enterprises mnes investing in emerging and developing markets analyzing the global environmental standards of a sample of u s based mnes in relation to their stock market performance we find that firms adopting a single stringent global environmental standard have much higher market values as measured by tobin sq than firms defaulting to less stringent or poorly enforced host country standards thus developing countries that use lax environmental regulations to attract foreign direct investment may end up attracting poorer quality and perhaps less competitive firms our results also suggest that externalities are incorporated to a significant extent in firm valuation we discuss plausible reasons for this observation

saving behaviour under imperfect financial markets and the current account consequences the authors seek to establish the general empirical importance of investment motivated saving their hypothesis is that inadequate financial intermediation will induce agents to save more in order to undertake lumpy physical investment in the future the result is a positive relationship between the degree of capital market imperfection and the size of the private saving rate a simulation exercise calibrated on taiwan found a close match between the simulated and actual data regression analysis established that the private saving rate was negatively related to the level of financial market sophistication copyright 1994 by royal economic society

the determinants of household and private savings in thailand a broad set of possible determinants of household and private savings behaviour is examined through an in depth case study of thailand during the period 1960 to 2004 results suggest that an increase in economic growth inflation and terms of trade all have a significant positive impact on household and private saving rates in contrast the availability of bank credit tends to reduce household and private saving rates while an increase in both old and young dependency has a negative impact on household and private saving rates the magnitude of the impact on the former is far greater than that on the latter furthermore public saving seems to crowd out household and private saving but less than proportionately this reflects a possible role of fiscal policy in increasing national savings in the economy over and above these variables corporate saving is another important determinant of household saving an increase in the former brings about a significant reduction in the latter

data base for development analysis data base for development analysis an overview the paper provides an overview of the situation with respect to the quality and comparability of data commonly used in development analysis a section each is devoted to a discussion of macroeconomic i e national income and its components savings and investment exports and imports data demography population life expectancy fertility and mortality nutrition and health labour force employment and unemployment poverty and income distribution validation and cross checking of data from different sources the discussion is illustrated with examples drawn mainly from india the paper concludes with a set of recommendations for the improvement of data

vertical strategic interaction implications for channel pricing strategy this paper examines two strategic pricing decisions within channels using foresight i e price leadership and considering category implications i e product line pricing are price leadership and product line pricing always the best pricing strategies for a channel member if not when does this occur and why by investigating these questions we address some major concerns of both marketing practitioners and scholars interested in channel management issues in addition this study provides an indepth discussion on why previous analytic studies produced answers to these questions that depend upon the choice of the form of demand functions as such this study should significantly resolve the debate among analytic marketing modelers about the right demand specification at the core of our discussion lies the concept of vertical strategic interaction which is defined in terms of the direction of a channel member s reaction to the actions of its channel partner within a given demand structure specifically if a channel member s best reaction is to reduce its margin when its channel partner increases its margin the type of vertical strategic interaction is referred to as vertical strategic substitutability vss if the best reaction is to increase the margin the environment is referred to as vertical strategic complementarity vsc if the best reaction is no margin change it is referred to as vertical strategic independence vsi using a game theoretic approach we demonstrate that these three types of vertical strategic interactions represent a key driving force for optimal decisions on channel price leadership and product line pricing our investigation involves mathematical analyses of an industry model composed of two manufacturers selling competing products both carried by two competing retailers as such the model allows for retailer product line pricing as well as manufacturer and retailer level competition in addition this general model can be used to analyze three more restrictive industry settings often found in the channels literature i e a bilateral monopoly jeuland and shugan jeuland abel steven m shugan 1983 managing channel profits marketing sci 2summer 239 72 two competing manufacturers selling through competing franchised retailers mcguire and staelin mcguire timothy w richard staelin 1983 an industry equilibrium analysis of downstream vertical integration marketing sci 2spring 161 92 and two competing manufacturers selling through one common retailer using product line pricing choi choi s chan 1991 price competition in a channel structure with a common retailer marketing sci 10fall 271 96 unlike many other channel studies most of our analyses are performed without assuming particular functional forms of demand curves thus this paper provides greater assurance that the insights from this stream of research are broadly applicable not only across industry structures but also across demand conditions the paper starts out by defining three different rules for how prices are set the manufacturer uses foresight the retailer uses foresight and neither channel member uses foresight we then show a one to one mapping between the type of vertical strategic interaction and the optimality of channel price leadership specifically a channel member finds it profitable to be a price leader for vss but prefers to be a follower for vsc for vsi channel members are indifferent to the channel price leadership issue as it has no effect on channel member profits we also show that there exist conditions under which a retailer might see a reduction in profits when it changes its policy from non product line pricing to product line pricing such conditions arise when the retailer is not a price leader and the environment is characterized by vss or vsc at a more general level this study suggests not only the value but also the cost to a firm for using superior knowledge i e foresight and or product line pricing in making strategic marketing decisions in this way ignorance can be bliss we also explore the link between demand characteristics and the three types of vertical strategic interaction we show that the type of vertical strategic interaction present in a given environment is closely related with the convexity of the demand curve and the level of demand for a given price interestingly we find that linearity of demand is not a necessary condition for any of the three types of vertical strategic demand function consequently in evaluating the robustness of analytic analyses it may be more important to determine the type of vertical strategic interaction assumed instead of whether the demand is linear or nonlinear finally our results are limited to situations where the channels are not coordinated and the retailer s precommitment to particular pricing policy and decision is credible although such situations still capture a significant portion of reality we acknowledge that the insights from this study might not be applicable in all situations

the savings growth nexus for the malaysian economy a view through rolling sub samples the purpose of this study is to re investigate the savings growth nexus for the malaysian economy using bounds testing approach to cointegration and toda and yamamoto 1995 and dolado and lutkepohl 1996 tydl granger causality test this study covered the sample period from 1971 q1 to 2008 q4 the cointegration results suggest that the variables are moving together in the long run and the tydl granger causality results indicate that the relationship between savings and economic growth is bilateral in addition the rolling sub samples tydl granger causality test exhibited a relatively stable causal relationship running from savings to economic growth in malaysia particularly before the onset of asian financial crisis in 1997 1998

markets state franchise laws dealer terminations and the auto crisis abstract in fall 2008 general motors and chrysler were both on the brink of bankruptcy and ford was not far behind as the government stepped in and restructuring began gm and chrysler announced their plan to terminate about 2 200 dealerships in this paper we first provide an overview of franchising in car distribution how it came about and the legal framework within which it functions states earn about 20 percent of all state sales taxes from auto dealers as a result new car dealerships and especially local or state car dealership associations have been able to exert influence over local legislatures this has led to a set of state laws that almost guarantee dealership profitability and survival albeit at the expense of manufacturer profits available evidence and theory suggests that as a result of these laws distribution costs and retail prices are higher than they otherwise would be and this is particularly true for detroit s big three car manufacturers which is likely a factor contribut

distribution channels an extension of exclusive retailership the underlying channel structure in most studies to date has consisted either of exclusive dealers that sell only one manufacturer s brand or of a single retailer selling multiple brands little attention has been given to the larger segment of most consumer goods markets in which retailers compete to sell multiple brands at the same location this research seeks to add to the growing literature of channel competition by analyzing three channel structures the least constrained of which deals with two competing manufacturers and two retailers each of whom distributes both products in a noncooperative game with two nash s and one stackleberg equilibrium using differentiated products and a linear demand function we introduce the concept of store substitutability a measure corresponding to product substitutability representing competitiveness at the retail level between the two retailers we are able to obtain closed form solutions for all cases we show that the presence of competitive effects at both retail and manufacturer levels of distribution has a significant impact on profits and prices we also study the effects of various power relationships in the channel furthermore we compare these results to those obtained by previous research finally we propose some testable implications and suggest avenues for future research

r d competition between public and private sectors abstract we investigate a mixed market where a welfare maximizing public research institute competes against profit maximizing private firms we investigate r d competition by using a standard model of patent races where each firm chooses both its innovation size and r d expenditure we find that the innovation size r d expenditure chosen by the public institute is too small too large from the viewpoint of social welfare respectively and so the government should control the public institute appropriately we also discuss the welfare implications of privatization of public research institutes

distribution channel strategies in a mixed market abstract this paper studies equilibrium channel strategies in a mixed market with a public firm and a private firm the public firm is concerned with social welfare while the private firm aims to maximize its own profit each firm decides whether to adopt an integrated or a decentralized channel we examine two standard market competition modes bertrand and cournot within each competition mode we consider two typical vertical contracts wholesale price and two part tariff contracts our results suggest that equilibrium channel structures depend on the market competition mode the vertical contract form and the level of product substitutability specifically the channel strategy of the private firm depends mainly on the vertical contract form under a two part tariff contract the private firm always chooses decentralization under a wholesale price contract the private firm chooses integration for most scenarios except for highly substitutable products under bertrand competition i e under very intense competition the channel strategy of the public firm depends mainly on the competition mode under bertrand competition the public firm always chooses decentralization under cournot competition the public firm always chooses the opposite of the private firm s strategy

why are latin america s savings rates so low an international comparative analysis abstract this paper presents a theoretical and empirical assessment of the determinants of savings rates with special emphasis on latin american savings rates the study is based on international comparisons using data from 36 countries for 1970 1992 a distinction is made between private and public savings the later are endogenously determined by economic and political variables per capita income growth is the most important determinant of private and public savings public savings are lower in countries with higher political instability public savings crowd out private savings but less than proportionately low latin american savings are due to the magnitudes of their determinants rather than structural differences

the corporate social performance financial performance link strategic managers are consistently faced with the decision of how to allocate scarce corporate resources in an environment that is placing more and more pressures on them recent scholarship in strategic management suggests that many of these pressures come directly from sources associated with social issues in management rather than traditional arenas of strategic management using a greatly improved source of data on corporate social performance this paper reports the results of a rigorous study of the empirical linkages between financial and social performance corporate social performance csp is found to be positively associated with prior financial performance supporting the theory that slack resource availability and csp are positively related csp is also found to be positively associated with future financial performance supporting the theory that good management and csp are positively related 1997 by john wiley sons ltd