international risk and perceived environmental uncertainty the dimensionality and internal consistency of miller s measure increasingly scholars have suggested that there is a need to approach the problem of international risk from a multidimensional perspective brouthers 1995 miller 1993 shan 1991 miller 1992 1993 developed and tested the most comprehensive framework to date miller 1993 showed high inter rater reliability in his measure of perceived environmental uncertainty peu in this paper we test the dimensionality of the scales from a statistical viewpoint and find that the statistical determination is reasonably consistent with miller s conceptual determination we also investigate miller s measure by comparing scales conceptualized by miller with ones determined by factor analysis we test the reliability of these scales and find that the conceptualized scales have generally high internal consistency in samples of both manufacturing and service firms however the findings also suggest that several changes in the peu measure are warranted resulting in a refinement of miller s measure which we have labeled peu 2

estimating residential demand for electricity in greece abstract this paper examines the residential demand for electricity in greece the issues of structural stability price and income sensitivity of both long and short run residential demand for electricity in greece were examined employing monthly data over the period 1986 1999 the long run residential demand for electricity is estimated taking into account changes in weather conditions weighted by the size of the population employing multivariate framework analysis a long run residential demand function for electricity sensitive to real income price level and weather conditions is found to exist and the importance of short run deviations is presented using vector error correction model vecm estimation the empirical evidence suggests the presence of a stable residential demand for electricity in greece both in the long and short run periods and the policy implications of such a relationship are presented

resource based fdi and expropriation in developing economies abstract globally foreign direct investment fdi assets are expropriated more in resource extraction industries compared to other sectors despite the higher apparent risk of expropriation in resources countries more likely to expropriate also have a larger share of fdi in the resource sector an incomplete markets model of fdi is developed to account for this puzzle the type of government regime is stochastic with low penalty regimes facing a relatively low exogenous cost of expropriating fdi and country risk is measured by the variation in these costs across different regimes the key innovation of the model is that the government before the regime type is known is able to charge different prices to domestic and foreign investors for mineral rights granting cheap access increases fdi and reduces the country s share of resource rents increasing the temptation to expropriate in a relatively low penalty regime in very high risk countries subsidizing resource fdi increases the total value of output by raising investment and the net gains from expropriating in a low penalty regime outweigh the rents foregone under a high penalty one however a stochastic resource output price results in relatively low risk countries restricting fdi inflows to the resource sector instead windfall profits in this sector raise incentives to expropriate when prices are high yet minimization of the ex ante risk of expropriation is preferred owing to the relatively high penalty for expropriating these results imply a higher average share of resource based fdi in countries most likely to expropriate while resources account for a high share of expropriated assets compared to the sector s global share of fdi we show that the model is able to reconcile observed patterns of foreign investment and expropriation for a sample of 38 developing and emerging economies

elements for the development of public policies in the residential sector of mexico based in the energy reform and the energy transition law abstract mexico has entered in an important dynamic of structural changes in the energy area proof of this it is the energy reform 2013 and the energy transition law published the last december 24th 2015 thus it is important to carry out studies of the impacts of future politics in the consumption of the population so this study estimate an energy demand system using microdata collected from 97 817 households in a national households income and expenditure survey enigh acronyms in spanish encuesta nacional de ingresos y gastos de los hogares in the 20 years period from 1994 to 2014 the magnitudes of all the fuels are smaller than one indicating that electricity lpg gasoline and public transport are normal goods while lpg is the most inelastic energy source the geographic factor shows that households in the north of mexico tend to consume more gasoline whereas in the south of the country the lowest share of lpg expenditure is reported the rigorous evaluation of energy demanded in households will help policy makers to put forward more efficient reforms

industry and country effects on managers perceptions of environmental uncertainties international management research highlights political government policy and macroeconomic uncertainties strategy studies focus on input supply product market and competitive uncertainties this study develops and tests the reliability of an instrument for measuring managers uncertainly perceptions data analyses using an international sample provide insights into the relative importance of country and industry factors for explaining managers perceptions of different environmental uncertainties

fuel demand elasticities for energy and environmental policies indian sample survey evidence india has been running large scale interventions in the energy sector over the last decades still there is a dearth of reliable and readily available price and income elasticities of demand to base these on especially for domestic use of traditional fuels this study uses the linear approximate almost ideal demand system la aids using micro data of more than 100 000 households sampled across india the la aids model is expanded by specifying the intercept as a linear function of household characteristics marshallian and hicksian price and expenditure elasticities of demand for four main fuels are estimated for both urban and rural areas by different income groups these can be used to evaluate recent and current energy policies the results can also be used for energy projections and carbon dioxide simulations given different growth rates for different segments of the indian population

household electricity demand revisited respond to price changes this paper develops a model for evaluating the effects of alternative tariff designs on electricity use the model concurrently addresses several interrelated difficulties posed by nonlinear pricing heterogeneity in consumer price sensitivity and consumption aggregation over appliances and time we estimate the model using extensive data for a representative sample of 1300 california households the results imply a strikingly skewed distribution of household electricity price elasticities in the population with a small fraction of households accounting for most aggregate demand response we then estimate the aggregate and distributional consequences of recent tariff structure changes recent efforts to restructure electricity markets have renewed interest in electricity demand and pricing this interest reflects a broad desire to improve the efficiency of electricity markets and policy makers concerns over the impact of price changes on consumers how new pricing mechanisms would affect households consumption and expenditures is a matter of considerable uncertainty however this uncertainty has provoked controversy and debate in the regulatory policy arena hampering market reforms using econometric methods to assess the effects of electricity price changes presents several challenges these include the nonlinear structure of tariff schedules aggregation of metered consumption behaviour over time and appliances and the interdependence of energy use with longer term household decisions over appliance ownership and dwelling characteristics the first two issues introduce complex simultaneity problems between marginal prices and consumption the third issue imposes high data requirements information on household specific appliance holdings and residence features and creates heterogeneity in consumption responses related to the characteristics of these durable goods when the researcher s objective is to develop a model for simulating the effects of prospective tariff changes ignoring these issues will provide an incomplete assessment of demand responses and potentially misleading predictions of a new tariff s consumption and revenue consequences in this paper we estimate a model of household electricity demand that can be used

coping with uncertainty in international business international business as compared with domestic business is usually characterized by increased uncertainty a study of 10 multinational companies uncovered several methods of coping with uncertainty this paper focuses on 2 methods which may not be apparent control and flexibility a framework of analysis suggesting appropriate methods for coping with uncertainty is also developed

zero expenditures and the estimation of engel curves over the brief interview periods typical of budget surveys such as the u k family expenditure survey households recorded expenditures are liable to be misleading indicators of their underlying consumption most starkly a household may not be observed to purchase commodities that it nevertheless consumes this paper considers the implications of such measurement errors for the estimation of demand systems and derives a consistent estimator for the special case of linear engel curves

econometric modeling of electricity consumption in post war lebanon this paper applies econometric models to investigate determinants of electrical energy consumption in post war lebanon the impact of the gross domestic product gdp proxied by total imports ti and degree days dd on electricity consumption is investigated over different time spans covering the period from 1993 to 1997 the time spans are chosen according to the rationing level of electricity supply for the 1993 1994 time span ti is found to be a significant determinant of energy consumption whereas dd has a negative correlation this inconsistency might be attributed to an extensive rationing policy followed during this period for the 1995 1997 time span which includes reduced rationing period 1995 all electrical energy consumption determinants are found to be significant at the 5 significance level analysis results for the rationing free 1996 1997 time span also show the significance of ti and dd at the 5 level furthermore cointegration analysis for the 1995 1997 and 1996 1997 subsets reveals the existence of a long run relationship between all variables in addition error correction models for both subsets are developed to predict short run dynamics finally statistical performance measures such as mean square error mean average deviation and mean average percentage error are presented for all models

short and long run demand for energy in mexico a cointegration approach abstract the objective of this paper is to estimate the demands for the different types of energy consumption for the mexican economy over the period 1965 2001 these demands are modeled as a function of output and the own real price the johansen j econ dynamics control 12 1988 231 procedure and the likelihood ratio tests indicate the existence of long run and stable relationships between each type of energy demand and income with the exception of the industrial sector where the cointegrating vector also includes the relative prices the weak exogeneity tests indicate that energy consumption and income do not reject the null hypothesis of weak exogeneity when relative prices are weak exogenous the final econometric models show that relative prices in the short run are relevant in all cases with the exception of the residential sector these results indicate that in mexico the demand for energy is fundamentally driven by income and that the effect of the relative prices is basically concentrated on the short run with the exception of the industrial sector which also shows a long term price impact the strong dependence of energy consumption with respect to income and the price inelastic response indicates that it is necessary to introduce strong measures to decouple energy consumption from output in order to obtain sustainable economic growth in mexico

demand for gasoline in kuwait an empirical analysis using cointegration techniques abstract this paper estimates the demand for gasoline in kuwait for the period 1970 1989 using a cointegration and error correction model ecm it is found that gasoline demand is inelastic with respect to price in the short and long run and while it is elastic in the long run gasoline demand is inelastic with respect to income in the short run this suggests that gasoline demand response to income changes is higher in the long run than in the short run furthermore gasoline consumption adjusts towards its long run level with about 52 of the adjustment occurring in the first year

the demand for residential electricity in south africa abstract this paper examines the residential demand for electricity in south africa as a function of real gross domestic product per capita and the price of electricity during the period 1978 2005 we make use of the bounds testing approach to cointegration within an autoregressive distributed framework suggested by pesaran et al 2001 bounds testing approaches to the analysis of level relationships journal of applied econometrics 16 3 289 326 following the literature we use a linear double logarithmic form using income and price as independent variables in the empirical analysis in the long run we find that income is the main determinant of electricity demand while electricity price is insignificant

international corporate entrepreneurship and firm performance the moderating effect of international environmental hostility abstract globalization of the world economy has encouraged u s companies to leverage their resources and skills by expanding into existing or new foreign markets u s companies have also acquired new capabilities by locating important functional activities overseas and joining with foreign partners in new markets through alliances and joint ventures these opportunities however are tempered by the constraints imposed by the competitive forces that exist in international environments aggressive government intervention technological changes and fierce local rivalries all contribute to hostile international environments for u s firms global expansion success in global business operations requires resourcefulness and entrepreneurial risk taking the activities of u s companies in foreign markets therefore provide a unique opportunity to examine the effects of international corporate entrepreneurship ice efforts on company performance ice is defined as the sum of a company s efforts aimed at innovation proactiveness and risk taking these efforts offer an important means of revitalizing and renewing established companies and improving their performance few studies have empirically examined the effects of ice activities on companies financial performance this study used data from 98 u s companies to 1 determine the impact of ice efforts on firm performance and 2 explore the moderating effect that the perceived hostility of the international environment has on the relationship between ice and company performance the results showed that ice was positively associated with a firm s overall profitability and growth as well as its foreign profitability and growth those firms that aggressively pursued ice in international environments with higher levels of hostility had higher return on assets roa but did not achieve significantly higher levels of growth however as hostility in the international environment continued to intensify roa rose and then fell as companies increased their ice activities thus there was a point of diminishing returns to a company s aggressive pursuit of ice under excessive environmental hostility the results highlight both the rewards and risks of pursuing ice companies benefit from ice activities by achieving higher overall performance as well as foreign profits and growth in revenue however the aggressive pursuit of ice does not always guarantee superior performance our results show that the payoff from ice is moderated by executives perceptions of the hostility of their firm s international business environment our findings highlight the importance of ice for organizational success both overall and in foreign markets yet the results compellingly suggest that there are upper limits to the potential gains a firm achieves from its aggressive pursuit of ice when the international environment in which it competes is hostile

regional distribution effects of different electricity network tariff designs with a distributed generation structure the case of germany abstract the growing share of distributed generation and the corresponding need for grid extensions are anticipated to considerably influence electricity grid tariffs in the future depending on the regulatory framework and demand structure of the respective country the necessary expansion measures being taken are disparately affecting different regions with the underlying public support for the energy system transformation taking place across europe crucial to its success mechanisms to facilitate a cost reflective and non discriminatory cost distribution should be investigated based on a classification of critical factors responsible for regional discrepancies we model and estimate residential customers tariffs in germany and their regional distributional disparities while assessing various reform measures the findings show that the overall tariff rates in germany and the already existing regional disparities are poised to increase substantially by 2025 a tariff corridor and deep first connection charges considerably limit tariffs and increase distributional equity amongst regions a generation tariff alters the distribution and reduces the highest tariffs an energy based tariff that neglects the impact of prosumers further aggravates the regional distributional disparities this paper gives insights into the challenges of cost allocation within electricity grids and intends to help to design an adequate and fair cost allocation mechanism

hedging foreign exchange exposures independent vs integrative approaches many financial managers think that foreign exchange hedging decisions are mainly a choice between to hedge or not to hedge nevertheless previous researchers applied ederington s portfolio approach and found that even for risk minimization a complete hedge does not lead to the lowest risk instead there exists an optimal hedging ratio which yields the lowest variance however the discussions of these former studies were concentrated on a single foreign currency cash flow in the real world financial managers are more likely to expect multiple cash flows arriving at different times even for the same foreign currency this paper therefore discusses whether financial managers should hedge these cash flows independently or combine them under one integrative hedging scheme it is shown that while the independent approach does not lead to the lowest risk its hedging effectiveness is close to that of the integrative approach given the time and resource constraints of financial managers the simpler independent approach appears to be a better choice

a framework for integrated risk management in international business treatments of risk in the international management literature largely focus on particular uncertainties to the exclusion of other interrelated uncertainties this paper develops a framework for categorizing the uncertainties faced by firms operating internationally and outlines both financial and strategic corporate risk management responses

phasing the operation mode of foreign subsidiaries reaping the benefits of multinationality through internal capital markets the lifetime of foreign equity partnerships is often limited research suggests that mncs abandon their local partners when the need for sharing ownership in foreign subsidiaries has diminished this study shows that mncs may abandon their local equity partners to reap the benefits of multinationality as mncs gain a competitive advantage from leveraging resources across borders they will initially benefit from sharing ownership with a local firm to embed their foreign subsidiaries in the local environment and access local resources more effectively later they will benefit from taking over the local partner s equity share to better embed their subsidiaries in the parent organization and transfer locally accessed resources to the mnc s other locations moderated mediation regressions provide evidence of such practice in the context of cross border transfers of capital resources this strategy seems to work as a corollary of our model panel regressions suggest that sharing ownership with local firms in a host country with a capital resource advantage is associated with appropriating more capital resources from the local debt market while abandoning these partner firms later is associated with transferring more capital resources from this host country via internal capital markets to other parts of the mnc

energy demand in the transportation sector of mexico abstract this paper report results of an analysis of the demand for energy in the mexican transport sectors focusing on the railroad air transport and motor vehicle modes the approach is an econometric one with emphasis placed on the structure for each mode for two of the modes a two stage approach is employed where in the first stage demands for services from the particular mode are modeled and in the second stage demand is treated as a derived demand from these transport services for the motor vehicle mode gasoline demand is considered as the product of gasoline consumption per vehicle times the total number of vehicles and then these components are related to economic and structural variables diesel demand of motor vehicles is modeled in a more reduced from approach the principal finding is that changes in income play a more important role in affecting energy demand than do changes in energy prices especially in the railroad and air transport sectors for the gasoline and diesel fuel demand in the monitor vehicle sector however price is of substantial importance

household electricity end use consumption results from econometric and engineering models information about total electricity consumption is available for most households however the electricity consumption related to different end uses e g space heating lighting and services from household appliances are usually not metered metering data are costly to achieve and in this paper we study two methods for end use estimation which can be applied on household data for appliance holdings demographic and economic variables the first method is the engineering model which has been used to calculate the so far only documented norwegian end use results applied on data from a norwegian energy survey the second method is an econometric conditional demand model applied on data from the same survey we compare the numerical results from the two models and give some recommendations regarding choice of end use approach and what questions to implement in household surveys designed to disaggregate electricity consumption

the demand for residential industrial and total electricity 1973 1998 this paper estimates residential industrial and total electricity demand by a partial adjustment approach and by a simultaneous equation approach simultaneous equation models are more appropriate since they provide negative price elasticity estimates for the residential industrial and total electricity samples flow adjustment models yield positive price elasticity estimates in some cases suggesting they fail to identify proper supply considerations that may be influencing prices the simultaneous equation approach suggests that residential customers are more price sensitive than industrial customers weather seems to have the greatest impact on the residential sector and cold weather appears to affect demand more than hot weather

on the relationship between firm size and export intensity export marketing literature supports the view that firm size is positively related to export intensity although the empirical findings have been mixed a number of theoretical arguments are used to support this proposition i e international marketing economies of scale limited managerial and financial resources of small firms decisionmaker s risk perception based on a large survey of the italian manufacturing industry the article falsifies the proposition and challenges some widely held assumptions in export marketing literature

choice of foreign market entry mode impact of ownership location and internalization factors firms interested in servicing foreign markets face a difficult decision with regards to the choice of an entry mode the options available to a firm include exporting licensing joint venture and sole venture several factors that determine the choice of a specific foreign market entry mode have been identified in previous literature these factors can be classified into three categories ownership advantages of a firm location advantages of a market and internalization advantages of integrating transactions this study examines the independent and joint influences of these factors on the choice of an entry mode multinomial logistic regression model is employed to test the hypothesized effects

the politics of foreign direct investment into developing countries increasing fdi through international trade agreements the flow of foreign direct investment into developing countries varies greatly across countries and over time the political factors that affect these flows are not well understood focusing on the relationship between trade and investment we argue that international trade agreements gatt wto and preferential trade agreements ptas provide mechanisms for making commitments to foreign investors about the treatment of their assets thus reassuring investors and increasing investment these international commitments are more credible than domestic policy choices because reneging on them is more costly statistical analyses for 122 developing countries from 1970 to 2000 support this argument developing countries that belong to the wto and participate in more ptas experience greater fdi inflows than otherwise controlling for many factors including domestic policy preferences and taking into account possible endogeneity joining international trade agreements allows developing countries to attract more fdi and thus increase economic growth

multinational investment under uncertainty in the chemical processing industries this study uses a sample of chemical processing industries to evaluate the effect of two types of uncertainty on the decision to invest in an industry it analyzes the effects of relative price uncertainty through exchange rates and input prices and demand uncertainty on the probability of expansion in a particular country the study then focuses on the behavior of individual companies and distinguishes companies by whether or not they are multinationals in the production of the product the results confirm previous evidence that exchange rate uncertainty has a negative effect on capacity expansions by domestic corporations and no effect on investment by multinational corporations finally the study also shows that expansions of production capacity in this industry are more likely to occur in those countries where capacity utilization is higher

an empirical analysis of energy demand in namibia abstract using a unique database of end user local energy data and the recently developed autoregressive distributed lag ardl bounds testing approach to cointegration we estimate the long run elasticities of the namibian energy demand function at both aggregated level and by type of energy electricity petrol and diesel for the period 1980 2002 our main results show that energy consumption responds positively to changes in gdp and negatively to changes in energy price and air temperature the differences in price elasticities across fuels uncovered by this study have significant implications for energy taxation by namibian policy makers we do not find any significant cross price elasticities between different fuel types

global strategy and multinationals entry mode choice this paper makes a case directed towards establishing the importance of global strategic considerations in choosing multinationals entry mode specifically it is our contention that beyond the environmental and transaction specific factors well established in the literature to affect the entry mode decision we should also consider the strategic relationship a multinational envisages between its operations across borders in reaching this decision after incorporating various global strategic variables into an eclectic framework of the factors influencing the entry mode choice this paper tests both the validity of the overall framework and the importance of each entry mode determinant in differ entiating among entry modes this is done based on ninety six multinational managers responses to a survey questionnaire concerning their entry mode decision experiences the results suggest that an express incorporation of global strategic variables into an analysis of the entry mode decision is warranted

an analysis of gasoline demand elasticities at the national and local levels in mexico abstract the majority of evidence on gasoline demand elasticities is derived from models based on national data since the largest growth in population is now taking place in cities in the developing world it is important that we understand whether this national evidence is applicable to demand conditions at the local level the aim of this paper is to estimate and compare gasoline per vehicle demand elasticities at the national and local levels in mexico national elasticities with respect to price income vehicle stock and metro fares are estimated using both a time series cointegration model and a panel gmm model for mexican states estimates for mexico city are derived by modifying national estimates according to mode shares as suggested by graham and glaister 2006 and by estimating a panel within groups model with data aggregated by borough although all models agree on the sign of the elasticities the magnitudes differ greatly elasticities change over time and differ between the national and local levels with smaller price responses in mexico city in general price elasticities are smaller than those reported in the gasoline demand surveys a pattern previously found in developing countries the fact that income and vehicle stock elasticities increase over time may suggest that vehicles are being used more intensively in recent years and that mexico city residents are purchasing larger vehicles elasticities with respect to metro fares are negligible which suggests little substitution between modes finally the fact that fuel efficiency elasticities are smaller than vehicle stock elasticities suggests that vehicle stock size rather than its composition has a larger impact on gasoline consumption in mexico city

determinants of investment under incentive regulation the case of the norwegian electricity distribution networks investment in electricity networks as regulated natural monopolies is among the highest regulatory and energy policy priorities the electricity sector regulators adopt different incentive mechanisms to ensure that the firms undertake sufficient investment to maintain and modernise the grid thus an effective regulatory treatment of investment requires understanding the response of companies to the regulatory incentives this study analyses the determinants of investment in electricity distribution networks using a panel dataset of 129 norwegian companies observed from 2004 to 2010 a bayesian model averaging approach is used to provide a robust statistical inference by taking into account the uncertainties around model selection and estimation the results show that three factors drive nearly all network investments investment rate in previous period socio economic costs of energy not supplied and finally useful life of assets the results indicate that norwegian companies have to some degree responded to the investment incentives provided by the regulatory framework however some of the incentives do not appear to be effective in driving the investments

household energy demand in kenya an application of the linear approximate almost ideal demand system la aids abstract this paper estimates price and fuel expenditure elasticities of demand by applying the linear approximate almost ideal demand system la aids to 3665 households sampled across kenya in 2009 the results indicate that motor spirit premium msp automotive gas oil ago and lubricants are price elastic while fuel wood kerosene charcoal liquefied petroleum gas lpg and electricity are price inelastic kerosene is income elastic while fuel wood charcoal lpg electricity msp and ago are income inelastic the results also reveal fuel stack behaviour that is multiple fuel use among the households main policy implications of the results include increasing the penetration of alternative fuels as well as provision of more fiscal incentives to increase usage of cleaner fuels this not withstanding however the household income should be increased beyond a certain point for the household to completely shift and use a new fuel

does foreign aid mitigate the adverse effect of expropriation risk on foreign direct investment abstract we construct a model of fdi risk and aid where a country loses access to fdi and aid if the country expropriates fdi we show that i the threat of expropriation leads to under investment ii the optimal level of fdi decreases as the risk of expropriation rises and iii aid mitigates the adverse effect of expropriation risk on fdi the empirical analysis employs data for 35 low income countries and 28 countries in sub saharan africa over the period 1983 2004 we find that risk has a negative effect on fdi and that aid mitigates but cannot eliminate the adverse effect of risk

information costs agglomeration economies and the location of foreign direct investment in china1 he c 2002 information costs agglomeration economies and the location of foreign direct investment in china reg studies 36 1029 1036 foreign investors suffer from adverse information asymmetry and face internal and external uncertainties in host economies better access to information and a variety of agglomeration economies could attenuate the disadvantages that foreign investors encounter statistical results strongly buttress the argument that foreign investors are inclined to favour such locations that could minimize information costs and offer a variety of agglomeration economies theoretical and policy implications and further research directions are discussed at the end 1 this paper was presented at the 63rd annual meeting of the association of pacific coast geographers sept 13 16 2000 arcata ca

economic exposure and integrated risk management most corporate risk management research focuses on particular risk exposures to the exclusion of other interrelated exposures by contrast this study models corporate risk exposures using a multivariate approach integrating the distinct exposures of interest to finance international business and strategy researchers the paper addresses the implications of multivariate modeling for corporate risk management some key methodological issues arising in empirical estimation of corporate economic exposures and directions for research on integrated risk management 1998 john wiley sons ltd

residential electricity demand in spain new empirical evidence using aggregate data this paper presents an empirical analysis on residential demand for electricity this analysis has been performed using aggregate panel data at the province level for 47 spanish provinces for the period from 2000 to 2008 for this purpose we estimated a log log demand equation for electricity consumption using a dynamic partial adjustment approach this dynamic demand function has been estimated using a two step system gmm estimator proposed by blundell and bond 1998 the purpose of this empirical analysis is to highlight some of the characteristics of spanish residential electricity demand particular attention has been paid to the influence of price income and weather conditions on electricity demand the estimated short and long run own price elasticities are negative as expected but lower than 1 furthermore weather variables have a significant impact on electricity demand

short and long run elasticities in us residential electricity demand a co integration approach abstract co integration techniques show promise in the analysis of short and long run effects of economic variables on energy use we use these techniques to develop an error correction model of annual us residential electricity demand we construct equipment stock indices and estimate the model for 1949 1993 our analysis suggests a structural shift in consumption during the 1960s we discuss reasons for this shift report the short and long run elasticities provide forecasts for 1994 1995 and compare the model s forecasts with other published forecasts

misreading liberalisation and privatisation the case of the us energy utilities in europe in response to energy market liberalisation and privatisation initiatives promoted by the eu and other european states in the 1990s a large number of us energy utilities expanded their activities in europe mainly through acquisitions the size of their investment was a decade later matched by the ensuing scale of their retreat wealth destruction and often forced exit combining interviews industry studies published financial data and company reports this article examines critically their strategy and in light of widespread failures seeks to answer the question of what went wrong it is argued that mistakes might have been avoided through greater appreciation of how market liberalisation evolves given changing government priorities and general sovereign risk

the international control conundrum the case of hyperinflationary subsidiaries standard methods for financial controls of multinational corporations mncs foreign subsidiaries generally provide inadequate managerial support under conditions of extreme environmental turbulence resulting in a highly distortive performance evaluation system this article examines the specific conditions of monetary hyperinflation and how existing control systems should be upgraded or environmentalized in order to cope with such operating conditions a taxonomy of hyperinflationary environments and a control model based upon variance analysis aimed at smoothing excessive swings in the performance of foreign operations is developed thereby correcting for some of the dysfunctionalities in the traditional planning and control processes

the impact of political risk on the volatility of stock returns the case of canada this paper examines the impact of political risk in canada on the volatility of stock returns our results suggest that political news associated with the possible separation of quebec from canada plays an important role in the volatility of stock returns however our evidence indicates that investors do not require a risk premium supporting the idea that political risk is diversifiable we also show that stock return volatility varies with the degree of a firm s exposure to political risk namely the structure of assets and the extent of foreign involvement which indicates that firms most exposed to political risk bear the burden of diversification

testing the bargaining hypothesis in the manufacturing sector in developing countries the bargaining power model of hc mnc host country multinational corporation interaction conceives of economic nationalism in terms of rational self interest and assumes both inherent conflict and convergent objectives in extractive industries there is strong evidence that outcomes are a function of relative bargaining power and that as power shifts to developing hcs over time the bargain obsolesces a cross national study of the bargaining model using data from 563 subsidiaries of u s manufacturing firms in forty nine developing countries indicates that while the bargaining framework is an accurate model of mnc host country relationships manufacturing is not characterized by the inherent structurally based and secular obsolescence that is found in the natural resource industries shifts in bargaining power to hcs may take place when technology is mature and global integration limited in industries characterized by changing technologies and the spread of global integration the bargain will obsolesce very slowly and the relative power of mncs may even increase over time

the exchange rate exposure of a global competitor this paper analyzes the exposure of operating cash flows to an exogenous exchange rate change for a firm operating internationally as a multimarket oligopolist i e a global competitor and facing demand that depends in a general way on the exchange rate it is shown that exposure is the sum of a base case exposure identified in other studies and two other components terms associated with exchange rate induced demand shifts and terms associated with competitors s reoptimization following the exchange rate shock in general the magnitudes of these additional terms are significant especially in the presence of asymmetries across markets and firms numerical examples are provided that incorporate asymmetries corresponding to stylized facts about some u s markets and u s manufacturers

the effect of national context on perceptions of risk a comparison of planned versus free market managers a model is developed to explain the effect of national context on risk related decisions an essential feature of risk related decisions is substantial uncertainty or inadequate information as well as significant consequences regarding future outcomes we argue that differences in information flows and consequences across national institutional environments affect the perceived uncertainty of decision situations for this reason the institutional environment in which managers reside should play a fundamental and systematic role in influencing their perceptions of risk we test our model on managers from two environments that contrast in terms of information and consequences related to risk a free market economy the u s and a centrally planned economy the czech republic in 1992 our results indicate that the institutional environment does indeed play a strong and systematic role in explaining managers risk related decisions thus national environment appears to be an important contextual condition to which the propensity to take risks is sensitive

the economic effect of electricity net metering with solar pv consequences for network cost recovery cross subsidies and policy objectives abstract net metering is commonly known as a practice by which owners of distributed generation dg units may offset their electricity consumption from the grid with local generation the increasing number of prosumers consumers that both produce and consume electricity with solar photovoltaic pv generation combined with net metering results in reduced incomes for many network utilities worldwide consequently this pushes utilities to increase charges per kw h in order to recover costs for non pv owners this could result into inequality issues due to the fact that also non pv owners have to pay higher chargers for their electricity consumed to make up for netted costs of pv owners in order to provide insight in those inequality issues caused by net metering this study presents the effects on cross subsidies cost recovery and policy objectives evolving from different applied netmetering and tariff designs for a residential consumer eventually this paper provides recommendations regarding tariffs and metering that will result in more explicit incentives for pv instead of the current implicit incentives which are present to pv owners due to net metering

government intervention in the venezuelan petroleum industry an empirical investigation of political risk two important aspects of political risk analysis that have not received much attention in the literature are a the reasons why multinational firms experience different types of intervention and b the timing of intervention in order to address these issues this research develops a conceptual model of political risk based on the premise that host government intervention is related to specific objectives of the government vis a vis multinational firms information reflecting the attainment of objectives motivates the government to intervene in a given manner the application of this model to the case of the venezuelan petroleum industry from years 1947 to 1976 provides some support for this model and gives insight into the timing of specific types of intervention

price elasticities policy measures and actual developments in household energy consumption a bottom up analysis for the netherlands in the netherlands it seems likely that the large number of new policy measures in the past decade has influenced the response of households to changing prices to investigate this issue the energy trends in the period 1990 2000 have been simulated with a bottom up model applied earlier for scenario studies and extensive data from surveys for a number of alternative price cases the elasticity values found are explained using the bottom up changes in energy trends one finding is that the specific set of saving options defines for a great part the price response the price effect has been analysed too in combination with the policy measures standards subsidies and energy taxes the simulation results indicate that the elasticity value could be 30 40 higher without these measures

imitation costs and patents an empirical study it has long been recognised that the costs of imitating new products have an important effect on the incentives for innovation in a market economy as arrow i962 and others have pointed out if firms can imitate an innovation at a cost that is substantially below the cost to the innovator of developing the innovation there may be little or no incentive for the innovator to carry out the innovation in their discussions of the innovation process economists frequently have called attention to the major role played by the costs of imitation but there has been little or no attempt to measure these costs to test various hypotheses concerning the factors influencing them or to estimate their effects in this paper we report some findings of what seems to be the first study of this topic in addition we present data regarding the effects of patents on imitation costs and on the rate of innovation

competing for capital the diffusion of bilateral investment treaties 1960 2000 over the past forty five years bilateral investment treaties bits have become the most important international legal mechanism for the encouragement and governance of foreign direct investment the proliferation of bits during the past two decades in particular has been phenomenal these intergovernmental treaties typically grant extensive rights to foreign investors including protection of contractual rights and the right to international arbitration in the event of an investment dispute how can we explain the widespread adoption of bits we argue that the spread of bits is driven by international competition among potential host countries typically developing countries for foreign direct investment we propose a set of hypotheses that derive from such an explanation and develop a set of empirical tests that rely on network measures of economic competition as well as more indirect evidence of competitive pressures on the host to sign bits the evidence suggests that potential hosts are more likely to sign bits when their competitors have done so we find some evidence that coercion and learning play a role but less support for cultural explanations based on emulation our main finding is that the diffusion of bits is associated with competitive economic pressures among developing countries to capture a share of foreign investment we are agnostic at this point about the benefits of this competition for development for useful comments on earlier drafts of this article we thank bill bernhard bear braumoeller frank dobbin robert franzese jeffry frieden geoffrey garrett tom ginsburg jude hays lisa martin bob pahre mark ramsayer steven ratner susan rose ackerman and john sides for research assistance we thank elizabeth burden raechel groom and alexander noonan

understanding the structural characteristics of a firm s whole buyer supplier network and its impact on international business performance building on the network theory and the concept of organizational ambidexterity we investigate the impact of structural characteristics of a firm s whole buyer supplier network network density betweenness centralization and average clustering coefficient on its international business ib performance we also explore the moderating roles of average path length and pagerank centrality using a manually collected dataset and a robust empirical methodology we find that while network density is negatively related betweenness centralization and average clustering coefficient have an inverted u shape and a u shaped relationship with ib performance respectively we also find significant moderation effects and in the process we show the economic importance of firms whole buyer supplier network to their ib performance we contribute to the international business and whole buyer supplier network literature

distributional effects of subsidy removal and implementation of carbon taxes in mexican households abstract this paper presents a microsimulation using data from the national households income and expenditure survey nhies from 1994 to 2010 to determine the distributional effects of the price changes arising from energy and environmental policies and their impact on mexican households we reported simulations of several changes in energy prices as a result of partial or total energy subsidy removal including carbon tax in order to examine whether the subsidy mechanism and carbon tax tend to be progressive or regressive we evaluated the households burden in different income levels these simulations respond to the need for an assessment of economic and environmental impacts of energy subsidies in mexico this is of great importance for mexico because of effort that has been taken in the development of energy policies and the rising interest of the mexican government in mitigating carbon dioxide co2 emissions and their concomitant environmental damage

the instability of governments and the instability of controls on funds transfers by multinational enterprises implications for political risk analysis this article represents a departure from previous empirical political risk studies it explicitly focuses on the association between specific governmental policy changes and other forms and political instability a cross national study of 115 countries finds positive but weak relationships between policy instability and other indicators of political instability the findings indicate the need to reconsider common assumptions about political risks

explaining the national cultural distance paradox past studies of the relationship between national cultural distance and entry mode choice have produced conflicting results some scholars find cultural distance associated with choosing wholly owned modes others find cultural distance linked to a preference for joint ventures in this paper we provide both theoretical and empirical evidence to explain the discrepant findings and thus help to resolve the national cultural distance paradox

underlying trends and seasonality in uk energy demand a sectoral analysis this paper demonstrates the importance for energy demand modelling of allowing for trends and seasonal effects that are stochastic in form inherent underlying trends may be non linear and reflect not only technical progress which usually produces greater energy efficiency but also other factors such as changes in consumer tastes and the economic structure that may be working in the opposite direction using quarterly unadjusted data for various sectors in the uk it is shown that unless energy demand models are formulated so as to allow for stochastic trends and seasonals estimates of price and income elasticities could be seriously biased

risk propensity in the foreign direct investment location decision of emerging multinationals a distinguishing feature of emerging economy multinationals is their apparent tolerance for host country institutional risk employing behavioral decision theory and quasi experimental data we find that managers domestic experience satisfaction increases their relative risk propensity regarding controllable risk legally protectable loss but decreases their tendency to accept noncontrollable risk e g political instability in contrast firms potential slack reduces relative risk propensity regarding controllable risk yet amplifies the tendency to take noncontrollable risk we suggest that these counterbalancing effects might help explain prior ambiguous findings on the relationship between experience slack and fdi decisions the study provides a new understanding of why firms exhibit heterogeneous responses to host country risks and the varying effects of institutions

wait and see strategy risk management in the internationalization process model we interpret the wait and see strategy as a decision to maintain unchanged the firm s commitments to its business network relationships to explain why firms choose a wait and see strategy we propose an extension to the relationship commitment decisions aspect of the uppsala internationalization process ip model with this development we explain that the wait and see strategy can result from a change in the levels of risk assumed in the firm and not only from the decision to adjust the risk that the firm encounters by changing commitments to its network relationships this development enhances the ability of the ip model to accommodate contextual influences on relationship commitment decisions and to explain a more complete suite of internationalization trajectories extending the theoretical core of the ip model further confirms its efficacy its application to international strategy and its potential to be developed as a general process model of strategic change

the credibility of a threat to nationalize abstract this paper empirically estimates the credibility of the african national congress s recent threat to nationalize south african mineral assets while south africa s financial press argued that the threat was negatively affecting mineral investment and asset values mining industry executives were confident that the threat was not credible using financial market data i estimate the annual probability of nationalization to have been relatively low at 1 4 although specific to the south african political environment this result can serve as a benchmark when including political risk in applied models of land and natural resource valuation investment timing and resource extraction

foreign investor reactions to risk and uncertainty in antitrust u s merger policy investigations and the deterrence of foreign acquirer presence motivated by the potential for antitrust and competition policies to be protectionist in effect we formulate the theoretical prior that merger policy deters foreign acquirer participation in local m a markets the policy risk and policy uncertainty characteristic of merger review may negatively affect foreign acquirers more so than domestic acquirers thereby disadvantaging foreign acquisitions of local firms and deterring future cross border investment activities we test this prior by employing sector level data on u s merger policy investigations and foreign acquirer presence in u s m a markets over the 2002 2017 period our panel data methodological approach indicates that the risk and uncertainty characteristic of u s merger policy disproportionately deters the acquisition activities of foreign investors the empirical results also suggest that the application of competition and merger policies in other national jurisdictions where there is less of a strong commitment to antitrust principles might also be effectively protectionist

incentive regulation of electricity distribution networks lessons of experience from britain this paper reviews the recent experience of the uk electricity distribution sector under incentive regulation the uk has a significant and transparent history in implementing incentive regulation in the period since 1990 we demonstrate the successes of this period in reducing costs prices and energy losses while maintaining quality of service we also draw out the lessons for other countries in implementing distribution sector reform we conclude by discussing the place of incentive regulation of networks within the wider reform context the required legislative framework the need for appropriate unbundling the importance of quality of service incentives the regulatory information requirements and the role of sector rationalisation

the state as strategist in international business research no matter what strategy managers choose cross national differences in states strategic capabilities and objectives affect multinational corporations capabilities to manage interdependent operations in this paper we develop four attribute dimensions along which states strategic economic capabilities vary we then apply these dimensions to show how they contribute to familiar international business models of managerial process mnc strategy and organizational structure and country competitiveness

the obsolescing bargaining model mnc host developing country relations revisited the traditional bargaining model of mnc host developing country relations has become obsolete today those relations are better understood as the result of a two tier multi party bargaining process tier 1 bargaining between the governments of host and home countries occurs bilaterally or through multilateral institutions it produces macro rules on fdi that affect micro negotiations in tier 2 per the traditional bargaining model the extent of fdi liberalization resulting from tier 1 bargaining varies predictably across home host country pairs and industries suggestions for testing the two tier bargaining model are also presented

residential electricity demand in taiwan this paper examines the residential demand for electricity in taiwan as a function of household disposable income population growth the price of electricity and the degree of urbanization short and long term effects are separated through the use of an error correction model in the long run the income elasticity is unit elastic the own price effect is negative and inelastic in an error correction framework the short run income and price effects are small and less than the long run effects cooling degree day effects have a positive impact on short run consumption we have used a proxy variable urbanization to capture economic development characteristics and changes in electricity using capital stocks not explained by income the variable provides significant explanatory power to the model both in the short and long run we interpret it as controlling for economic development factors not captured by the pure income effect and we think it holds promise for explaining residential electricity consumption in other developing countries

bilateral investment treaties and fdi does the sector matter summary developing and transition countries have increasingly engaged in the signing of bilateral investment treaties bits in order to attract fdi based on the widely shared view that fdi can contribute significantly to economic development and poverty reduction however the degree to which foreign investments can be expected to generate employment offer access to international technology and know how and ultimately create growth varies considerably depending on the type of investment it is therefore important to determine what type of fdi is attracted by bits by providing a legal commitment to the fair and equitable treatment of foreign investors bits aim to decrease investment risk and to attract foreign investors we argue that bits can be expected to be most effective in those sectors of the economy with a larger risk of expropriation i e sectors characterized by large sunk costs relatively low levels of firm specific know how and in sectors that are politically sensitive to foreign ownership this paper represents the first attempt to empirically study the heterogeneous effect that bits may have across different sectors of investments we analyze investments made in 13 countries in the former soviet union and central and eastern europe disaggregated over seven sectors we indeed find the effect of bits to differ considerably across sectors of investment using capital intensity as a proxy we confirm that fdi in those sectors with higher sunk costs responds more strongly to the signing of bits given the considerable differences in the development impact that can be expected from fdi in different sectors it remains to be shown whether bits are an effective tool to attract those types of investments that are most beneficial for the development of the host economy

a survey of corporate programs for managing terrorist threats this article reports on a survey of united states based multinational corporations mncs and the corporate programs they use to reduce the impact of terrorism it was found that less than 50 of the mncs surveyed had formal programs to deal with a terrorist attack most of the mncs that did have an anti terrorist program spent their money on security equipment and not on training executives and their families the training that did take place concentrated on handling weapons and avoiding being kidnapped respondents were also critical of the federal government s lack of assistance in dealing with terrorists

dodging bullets the heterogeneous effect of political violence on greenfield fdi the relationship between political violence and greenfield foreign direct investment is contingent on the type of violence characteristics of the investment receiving sector and extent to which the investing firm is geographically diversified this paper presents an analysis with a dynamic fixed effects model for a panel of 90 developing countries from 2003 to 2012 the analysis shows that nationwide political conflict is negatively associated with total and non resource related greenfield foreign direct investment but not with resource related greenfield foreign direct investment the insensitivity to political conflict of multinational firms in the resource sector is associated with the high profitability of natural resource extraction and the companies geographic constraints on location choice during the period of estimation in the non resource sector the less geographically diversified firms are most sensitive to the risk of conflict

rationing can backfire the day without a car in mexico city a ban restricting each car from driving on a specified weekday is found to have increased total driving in mexico city because of the ban cars effectively represent driving permits and some households have bought an additional car and increased their driving greater use of old cars congestion effects and increased weekend driving may also have contributed to the disappointing results the ban has high welfare costs and does not deliver the intended benefits of reduced driving quite the contrary the experience provides an interesting lesson in applied welfare economics theory indicates that this is a costly way of reducing traffic and pollution but the finding that the strategy is counterproductive could be made only with applied quantitative analysis in november 1989 the mexico city administration imposed a regulation banning each car from driving a specific day of the week called hoy no circula this one does not circulate today the day without a car regulation specifies that cars with license plate numbers ending with digits 0 or 1 do not drive on monday 2 or 3 do not drive on tuesday and so on restrictions do not apply on weekends the regulation applies to all cars except those of the fire department and thus to firms as well as households we use the term household for simplicity compliance is generally believed to be high the police are visible and fines are heavy the regulation has been both popular and controversial some people argue that it places a reasonable burden on car owners in order to alleviate congestion and pollution problems others argue that it is inefficient and unfair inefficient in the way most rationing devices are inefficient unfair because it is more easily avoided or accommodated by some than by others finally some people are arguing that the regulation is counterproductive actually increasing the levels of congestion and pollution because many households have purchased additional cars to circumvent the ban this article analyzes the policy pragmatically section i shows how the results of rationing can be compared with those that would be obtained using market

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

the power of the buckley and casson thesis the ability to manage institutional idiosyncrasies recent patterns of rapid internationalization in sectors characterized by strong public interest and both government and domestic capital constraints seem at first inconsistent with the drivers of internationalization identified by buckley and casson 1976 for manufacturing industries in the postwar era a more microanalytic perspective however identifies the ability to manage institutional idiosyncrasies as a firm level capability akin to research or advertising that can drive internalization across national borders and thereby internationalization these arguments are examined using evidence from the independent power production sector

elasticities in aids models in the literature a variety of approaches have been used to calculate demand elasticities in almost ideal demand system aids models of demand it is common to estimate the linear approximate almost ideal demand system la aids instead of the aids when the la aids is estimated all of the previously reported approaches to compute elasticities are theoretically incorrect this paper presents correct formulas for la aids elasticities and illustrates the potential errors from using incorrect computing the almost ideal demand system aids of deaton and muellbauer 1980a b has become popular in recent years anderson and blundell blanciforti and green 1983a b blanciforti green and king chalfant eales and unnevehr fujii khaled and mak fulponi heien and willett murray parsons ray a variety of approaches to computing elasticities has been used and some of the approaches may lead to significant errors this paper clarifies the differences between alternative approaches to estimating demand elasticities in aids models

how do mncs vote in developing country elections research on multinational corporations mncs and host government political risk in developing countries has largely ignored local electoral politics economic policies and the mnc investment ince

an empirical analysis of electricity consumption in cyprus abstract the paper presents the first empirical analysis of electricity consumption in cyprus using annual data from 1960 to 2004 we have examined electricity use in the residential and the services sectors which are the fastest growing electricity consumers in the island and its interaction with income prices and the weather the analysis was performed with the aid of time series analysis techniques such as unit root tests with and without a structural break in levels cointegration tests vector error correction models granger causality tests and impulse response functions results show long term elasticities of electricity use above unity for income and of the order of 0 3 to 0 4 for prices in the short term electricity consumption is rather inelastic mostly affected by weather fluctuations granger causality tests confirm exogeneity of electricity prices and bidirectional causality between residential electricity consumption and private income the commercial sector is less elastic and reverts faster to equilibrium than the residential sector despite the relatively small sample size results reported here are quite robust and can be used for forecasts and policy analyses

ethanol demand in brazil regional approach abstract successive studies attempting to clarify national aspects of ethanol demand have assisted policy makers and producers in defining strategies but little information is available on the dynamic of regional ethanol markets this study aims to analyze the characteristics of ethanol demand at the regional level taking into account the peculiarities of the developed center south and the developing north northeast regions regional ethanol demand is evaluated based on a set of market variables that include ethanol price consumer s income vehicle stock and prices of substitute fuels i e gasoline and natural gas a panel cointegration analysis with monthly observations from january 2003 to april 2010 is employed to estimate the long run demand elasticity the results reveal that the demand for ethanol in brazil differs between regions while in the center south region the price elasticity for both ethanol and alternative fuels is high consumption in the north northeast is more sensitive to changes in the stock of the ethanol powered fleet and income these among other evidences suggest that the pattern of ethanol demand in the center south region most closely resembles that in developed nations while the pattern of demand in the north northeast most closely resembles that in developing nations

sequencing the expansion of geographic scope and foreign operations by born global firms born global firms are not actually born global but rather internationalize rapidly from their inception by expanding their geographic scope and extent of foreign operations however it remains unclear whether such firms 1 simultaneously expand along both dimensions 2 focus on expanding along a single dimension at a given time and switch interchangeably between expanding geographic scope and extent of foreign operations in subsequent periods or 3 stick solely to a specific internationalization path over several subsequent periods this study theorizes and empirically demonstrates that born global firms stick to a dominant internationalization path over subsequent periods arguably this phenomenon reflects managerial efforts to reduce the perceived risk of internationalization and their preference to develop and leverage capabilities that are specific to either of the internationalization paths until the economies of further expanding this path are exhausted

estimating short and long term residential demand for electricity new evidence from sri lanka this study investigates the short run dynamics and long run equilibrium relationship between residential electricity demand and factors influencing demand per capita income price of electricity price of kerosene oil and price of liquefied petroleum gas using annual data for sri lanka for the period 1960 2007 the study uses unit root cointegration and error correction models the long run demand elasticities of income own price and price of kerosene oil substitute were estimated to be 0 78 0 62 and 0 14 respectively the short run elasticities for the same variables were estimated to be 032 0 16 and 0 10 respectively liquefied petroleum lp gas is a substitute for electricity only in the short run with an elasticity 0 09 the main findings of the paper support the following 1 increasing the price of electricity is not the most effective tool to reduce electricity consumption 2 existing subsidies on electricity consumption can be removed without reducing government revenue 3 the long run income elasticity of demand shows that any future increase in household incomes is likely to significantly increase the demand for electricity and 4 any power generation plans which consider only current per capita consumption and population growth should be revised taking into account the potential future income increases in order to avoid power shortages ill the country

the demise of expropriation as an instrument of ldc policy 1980 1992 this paper reports data collected on expropriation activity by developing countries from 1980 1992 extending previous work by kobrin 1984 kobrin s assumption that expropriation activity would continue to decrease over time and his reasons for this assumption are supported the paper introduces recent phenomena which further indicate that expropriation is unlikely to resurface in the near future as a source of multinational corporation developing country contention many developing countries now protect foreign direct investors from expropriation the broad scale movement in developing countries to privatize state owned enterprises also indicates that governments will not be eager to replace private sector activity with state ownership

management of foreign exchange risk a review article this paper reviews the literature on foreign exchange risk management ferm which has burgeoned during the last decade scholars and practioners emerging interest in foreign exchange risk management was spurred by the advent of fluctuating exchange rates in the early seventies as well as by the pronouncement of the infamous fasb statement no 8 in 1976 which laid down unambiguous guidelines for consolidating financial statements of multinational corporations a normative rather than a market view of foreign exchange risk management is taken and accordingly the author reviews first the two key informational inputs necessary for any foreign exchange risk management program forecasting exchange rates and measuring exposure to exchange risk available decision models for handling transaction and translation exposures are reviewed next a concluding section identifies gaps in the existing literature and suggests directions for future research

why are developing countries privatization this article tests alternative hypotheses about why developing countries are pursuing privatization a policy that gained considerable popularity in the 1980s univariate and multivariate analysis indicate that privatization was more likely to be pursued by countries with high budget deficits high foreign debt and high dependence on international agencies like the world bank and the imf in regions such as latin america and asia the trend was also more likely in countries a that seemed to have overused state enterprises in the past and b those in which the private sector had grown faster than average and was thus more ready to assume tasks once assigned to state enterprises in africa however the policy may have been imposed by external agencies on countries that were not necessarily ripe for privatization for multinational firms the international opportunities created by privatization are likely to be greater in the 1990s than in the 1980s