keeping up with the jones decentralization policy imitation and industrial development in china abstract decentralization is often hailed as a means of improving economic policy because it improves the flexibility of policy making this article explains why arguments in favor of decentralization and in particular theories of market preserving federalism may be overstated in this respect although economic decentralization may change the incentives of local officials overnight the impact of local center relations on the political and economic institutions of a locality is cumulative the article uses the chinese auto sector to demonstrate how local institutional arrangements hinder policy change despite decentralization local obstacles to change were only overcome by increased international competition

overcoming the liability of outsidership for emerging market mnes a capability building perspective this paper develops and discusses a model describing how multinational enterprises from emerging economies emnes overcome the liability of outsidership in their internationalization from a capability building perspective our aim is to celebrate the important intellectual contribution of johanson and vahlne j int bus stud 40 9 1411 1431 2009 who introduced the liability of outsidership concept we first discuss learning from the local environment that can reduce outsidership and then explain how greater absorptive capacity can translate into better performance internationally finally we elaborate on how the institutional environment further conditions the process and the outcomes of learning we conclude with some suggestions for future research from five theoretical perspectives learning social network theory institutional theory resource dependence theory and mne structure and design

competitive position managerial ties and profitability of foreign firms in china an interactive perspective despite the prominence of the competitive strategy perspective it remains unclear whether foreign firms entering china can still adopt a differentiation or low cost position to achieve superior performance given the unique market and institutional environments in china alternatively should foreign firms follow conventional wisdom and actively build managerial ties with government officials and business community to enhance their performance this study develops and tests an interactive perspective that highlights the moderating effects of managerial ties on competitive position performance relationships the results indicate that though both differentiation and low cost positions foster foreign firm profitability the benefit of a differentiation position is conditional on political and business ties in different directions political ties impede and business ties strengthen the positive effect of a differentiation position on foreign firms profitability moreover foreign firms benefit from their use of business ties but their profitability suffers when they rely increasingly on the heavy use of political ties

national business ideology and employees prosocial values employees prosocial values have been shown to foster helping cooperating and volunteering behaviors which in turn increase firm performance however despite the importance of prosocial values there is a general neglect of this area in the international arena as more trade occurs globally interest in cross cultural prosocial values is growing we therefore build on socialization theory and introduce national business ideology as a country level determinant of employees prosocial values we thus argue that transformational leadership and professional altruism are key elements of a national business ideology s stimulation of employees prosocial values while corporate corruption is considered to be an impediment based on 19 026 individuals from 17 countries our cross level analyses point to the national business ideology explaining national level variances above and beyond cultural aspects results support our hypothesis that national business ideology including transformational leadership and professional altruism is positively related to employees prosocial values the hypothesis on corporate corruption however was not supported instead results indicate that employees apply rationalization strategies to justify corruption with prosocial values being important for organizational performance as well as social welfare in general we thus draw attention to socialization processes in national corporate work contexts

adjustment costs durables and aggregate consumption abstract previous tests of the permanent income hypothesis pih have focused on either non durables or durables expenditures in isolation this paper studies consumer purchases of non durables and durables as the outcome of a single optimization problem it is shown that with non separability in utility the presence of adjustment costs of changing durables stocks may affect the time series properties of both components of expenditure an econometric test of the pih based on the model developed in the paper is both more efficient and less prone to bias than those in some previous studies however this test confirms earlier rejections of the pih in aggregate quarterly data

progress in behavioral game theory i s game theory meant to describe actual choices by people and institutions or not it is remarkable how much game theory has been done while largely ignoring this question the seminal book by von neumann and morgenstern the theory of games and economic behavior was clearly about how rational players would play against others they knew were rational in more recent work game theorists are not always explicit about what they aim to describe or advise at one extreme highly mathematical analyses have proposed rationality requirements that people and firms are probably not smart enough to satisfy in everyday decisions at the other extreme adaptive and evolutionary approaches use very simple modelsmostly developed to describe nonhuman animals in which players may not realize they are playing a game at all when game theory does aim to describe behavior it often proceeds with a disturbingly low ratio of careful observation to theorizing this paper describes an approach called behavioral game theory which aims to describe actual behavior is driven by empirical observation mostly experiments and charts a middle course between over rational equilibrium analyses and under rational adaptive analyses the recipe for behavioral game theory i will describe has three steps start with a game or naturally occurring situation in which standard game theory makes a bold prediction based on one or two crucial principles if behavior differs from interested readers familiar with game theory should read crawford 1997 whose approach is more eclectic than mine he concludes p 236 that most strategic behavior can be understood via a synthesis that combines elements from each of the leading theoretical frameworks traditional game theory evolutionary game theory and adaptive learning with a modicum of empirical information about behavior behavioral game theory adds psychological interpretations to this synthesis

credits and non interest rate determinants of loan demand a spanish case study this article uses bivariate probit analysis to model the potential relationship between the condition of being credit unconstrained and holding loans as well as to ascertain determinants of a household being credit unconstrained and likely holding consumer and real estate loans it documents that family size education permanent and transitory incomes among others affect spanish households desire and capacity to hold loans furthermore these factors were found to affect demands for real estate and consumer loans differently in general the above and other results from this research provide insights that would interest credit consumers credit suppliers and policy makers in spain

varieties in state capitalism outward fdi strategies of central and local state owned enterprises from emerging economy countries institutional diversity characterizing state owned enterprises soes from emerging economies holds critical but under examined implications for their internationalization activities different types of soes can exhibit distinct motivations strategic resources and adaptive capabilities for penetrating foreign markets to understand how such idiosyncratic differences emerge we conceptualize the heterogeneity of soes as an outcome of multiple institutional reform processes administrative and fiscal decentralization industrial restructuring and market liberalization which create diversity between soes affiliated with central and local levels of government building on the idea of institutions as configurations we elucidate how such reforms reconfigure soes constellation of resources capabilities and priorities which shape the parameters of their ability to negotiate for home and host country institutional legitimacy specifically we propose that the restructuring of central soes into national champions exposes them to stronger institutional pressures from home and host country governments while local soes which have fewer obligations to serve national strategic prerogatives display greater managerial autonomy and market orientation but lower levels of monopolistic behavior we discuss how such contrasting attributes contribute to variations in soes international business diversification patterns foreign subsidiary establishment and ownership modes and overseas location preferences recognition of soes organizational diversity holds important implications for theories on state owned multinationals

regional institutional development political connections and entrepreneurial performance in china s transition economy while previous research emphasizes the role of political connections in facilitating entrepreneurial performance during china s early reform period 1978 1999 this study argues that regional institutions were increasingly conducive to entrepreneurial activities and thus also played a key role in china s entrepreneurial success during that period the purpose of this study is twofold first it aims to demonstrate how regional institutional development facilitated entrepreneurial performance in china second it aims to understand how formal institutional development among chinese regions affected the role of political connections using a two level hierarchical dataset on chinese private enterprises this study finds that not only legal protection of property rights but also the development of market systems mattered for entrepreneurial performance in addition it shows that political connections played a diminishing role during regional institutional development in china

current wealth constraints on the housing demand of young owners in addition to generating housing services owner occupied housing units constitute a lumpy risky asset in household portfolios analysis of these dual consumption investment roles suggests the permanent wealth budget constraint in housing demand models should be decomposed into permanent returns from human capital and current net worth for young owners current net worth is hypothesized to be the dominant wealth component determining the quantity of housing demanded using a canadian microdata base evidence is found that net worth does provide both greater explanatory power and higher elasticities than labor earnings copyright 1990 by mit press

uncovering the complex relationships between political risk and mne firm legitimacy insights from libya using the before after natural experiment occasioned by the arab spring in libya we explore how market and non market activity affect foreign firm legitimacy in times of political turmoil although all mnes in libya had to cultivate strong ties to qadhafi to succeed during his 40 years of rule we found that those that also invested in social benefit projects and in social ties with families with few ties to the qadhafi family earned a broad based legitimacy that helped them survive qadhafi s overthrow our findings contribute to the political risk and political behavior literature the notion that the pursuit of firm legitimacy in general and especially in the eyes of social sector actors is an effective hedge against political risk more theoretically our findings support the addition of a social sector based path to firm legitimacy in the host country that complements and may at times substitute for the government based path to foreign firm legitimacy practically our findings suggest that mnes facing severe political risk can improve their prospects for survival by investing in relationships with influential social groups and by offering goods or services that are perceived as socially valuable

the uppsala internationalization process model revisited from liability of foreignness to liability of outsidership the uppsala internationalization process model is revisited in the light of changes in business practices and theoretical advances that have been made since 1977 now the business environment is viewed as a web of relationships a network rather than as a neoclassical market with many independent suppliers and customers outsidership in relation to the relevant network more than psychic distance is the root of uncertainty the change mechanisms in the revised model are essentially the same as those in the original version although we add trust building and knowledge creation the latter to recognize the fact that new knowledge is developed in relationships

multinational enterprises and climate change exploring institutional failures and embeddedness this paper explores how climate change affects multinational enterprises mnes focusing on the challenges they face in overcoming liabilities and filling institutional voids related to the issue climate change is characterized by institutional failures because there is neither an enforceable global agreement nor a market morality climate change is also a distinctive international business issue as its institutional failures materialize differently in different countries as governments are still highly involved mnes need to consider carefully their strategies to cope with non market forces including their embeddedness in multiple institutional settings using some illustrative examples of mne responses to climate related components in stimulus packages we explore mnes balancing act concerning their institutional embeddedness or lack thereof in home host and supranational contexts as input for further research on the dynamics of mne activities in relation to climate change

the dynamic value of mne political embeddedness the case of the chinese automobile industry this paper examines the complex relationship between the embeddedness of multinational enterprises mnes in host country political networks and their long run competitive positions in host emerging markets we report the findings of a longitudinal study of the chinese automobile sector from the early 1980s to the mid 2000s using data from 142 interviews over 11 years and a wide range of secondary sources we explore the process through which the value of political embeddedness changed over time in the face of profound and rapid changes in host country business environments on the basis of this longitudinal study the paper unravels the underlying mechanisms that lead to the declining and even negative value of deep political embeddedness by mnes in a politically stable emerging economy

labor income uncertainty skewness and homeownership a panel data study for germany and spain abstract in this paper we empirically investigate the effect of labor income uncertainty on the probability of homeownership in germany and spain this study is motivated by two facts firstly theoretical models tend to provide ambiguous results on this issue secondly previous empirical evidence focuses exclusively on the us housing market to carry out our analysis we propose more precise income uncertainty measures based on panel data labor income equations we observe that households facing high levels of income uncertainty display a preference for renting while those located in more positively skewed income distributions show a greater propensity for homeownership

the mortgage interest deduction and its impact on homeownership decisions abstract this paper examines the impact of the combined u s state and federal mortgage interest deduction mid on homeownership attainment using data from 1984 to 2007 and exploiting variation in the subsidy arising from changes in the mid within and across states over time we test whether capitalization of the mid into house prices offsets the positive effect on homeownership we find that the mid boosts homeownership attainment only of higher income households in less tightly regulated housing markets in more restrictive places an adverse effect exists the mid is an ineffective policy to promote homeownership and improve social welfare

permanent income liquidity and expenditure on automobiles evidence from panel data several recent papers have tested the permanent income cum rational expectations hypothesis using data on nondurable or semidurable consumption we show how this approach can be extended to the case of durables an application to panel data on automobile expenditures reveals no evidence against the permanent income hypothesis this result is unchanged in subsamples segregated by family holdings of liquid assets

task success based on contingency fit of managerial culture and embeddedness the article extends research on the contingency of fit in international management at the level of managerial tasks foreign firms managerial tasks are embedded in two environments with different profiles and different managerial cultures fit them to ensure task success study 1 analyzes 18 critical incidents summarizes chinese and japanese managerial cultures and identifies three types of managerial tasks we hypothesize that task success depends on the fit between task type and the chosen managerial culture such that foreign firms can have their operational local and people tasks successfully completed using home host or integrated managerial cultures respectively study 2 tests our hypotheses using 112 critical incidents the fit pattern at the level of managerial tasks advances the contingency perspective in international management and equips managers with cultural agility to confront international challenges

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

national capital city location and subsidiary portfolio expansion the negative effect of geographic distance to the capital city at inception on the speed of subsequent investments a multinational enterprise develops its subsidiary portfolio by investing in new foreign markets and subsequently pursuing further investments within these host countries we find that firms which locate their first equity investment closer to the national capital city can subsequently expand their subsidiary portfolio within the host country at a higher speed this effect is particularly strong in emerging economies further analyses of various contingencies support the robustness of our findings we discuss different theoretical mechanisms which could cause these effects in particular face to face interactions with governmental actors and opportunities to develop political connections our research contributes to the literature on internationalization processes by analyzing how the initial location choice affects the development of the subsidiary portfolio

is the state led industrial restructuring effective in transition china evidence from the steel sector during the reform era the chinese government has been carrying out strategic industrial policies modelled on those in post war japan and south korea in the hope of transforming its highly fragmented manufacturing sector into one that comprises a small number of internationally competitive big businesses using the evolution of the chinese steel industry structure from the late 1980s to the early 2000s as a case in point this paper finds that the chinese government s consolidation attempts have by and large not been very successful the disappointing policy outcome is interpreted by a detailed examination of the industry policy mechanism in china it is concluded that the institutional framework of the chinese state differs from its counterparts in korea and japan in some fundamental aspects among these the fragmented and uncoordinated chinese bureaucracy contributes significantly to the inefficacy of policy implementation

estimating bounded rationality and pricing performance uncertainty abstract this paper estimates bounded rationality in two outcome strictly competitive extensive form games of perfect information without chance moves in the baseline sessions the average subject can reason effectively to about rank 6 twelve percent of these subjects have a perfect bound on their ability to achieve the substantively rational outcome they win all simpler games and they lose all games more complicated than the estimated rationality bound most subjects do not have accurate expectations about their performance against a procedurally rational opponent usually they value the games at more than they are likely to earn if they actually play them

the sensitivity of consumption to transitory income estimates from panel data on households we investigate the stochastic relation between income and consumption specifically consumption of food within a panel of about 2 000 households our major findings are 1 consumption responds much more strongly to permanent than to transitory movements of income 2 the response to transitory income is nonetheless clearly positive 3 a simple test independent of our model of consumption rejects a central implication of the pure life cycle permanent income hypothesis the observed covariation of income and consumption is compatible with pure life cycle permanent income behavior on the part of80 percent of families and simple proportionality of consumption and income among the remaining 20 percent as a general matter our findings support the view that families respond differently to different sources of income variations in particular temporary income tax policies have smaller effects on consumption than do other more permanent changes in income of the same magnitude this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

does investment risk affect the housing decisions of families i introduction the purpose of this article is to investigate the effect of heightened price volatility in housing markets on homeownership and housing demand the literature on housing markets has recognized that buying a home involves consumption and investment motives as in ranney 1981 henderson and ioannides 1983 and fu 1995 purchasing a home requires a concentrated investment in housing stock that for most families is not easily diversified caplin et al 1997 indeed in 1995 the typical american household had most of its gross assets in real estate and held no corporate equity and only households in the top 10 of the wealth distribution held portfolios that were diversified tracy et al 1999 in 1998 despite strong stock market gains home equity was a dominant investment for most households although roughly two thirds owned their homes less than half of all households held stock of those households owning both stocks and homes 60 had more wealth in home equity than in stocks di 2001 nominal house prices in u s cities have generally risen over time with some cities experiencing periods of steep house price appreciation however homeowners in many cities have been exposed to considerable downside risk according to repeat sales price indexes published by the federal home loan mortgage corporation freddie mac significant one year declines in home prices are not uncommon for example nominal declines of 15 5 and 9 occurred in san antonio in 1985 denver in 1987 and boston in 1990 respectively sustained house price declines have occurred in texas california and the eastern states for example in the long beach los angeles metropolitan area the nominal price of single family homes declined 22 from 1990 to 1996 1 furthermore there is evidence that losses at the time of sale are surprisingly common 2 what is not clearly understood is the extent to which families are responsive to such house price risk the investment literature has demonstrated that risk averse households prefer to hold less risk at a given expected rate of return when house prices are uncertain homeownership and demand relationships depend on the distribution of the random price variable 3 fu 1991 characterizes the price distribution by its first and second moments and shows that the likelihood of homeownersbip and the demand for owner occupied housing are increasing in the expected rate of house price appreciation and decreasing in house price volatility these results do not hold however for liquidity constrained households when households cannot borrow against the expected future gains of housing investment for current consumption the theoretical effects on housing choices of the expected rate of return and house price uncertainty are ambiguous fu 1995 thus the effect of price volatility on housing choices remains to be determined empirically the empirical research on housing markets includes a number of micro level econometric studies on the determinants of homeownership and housing demand these studies provide a framework for the present study and have shown that a household s after tax relative cost of homeownership permanent and transitory income and family composition are important in explaining housing decisions e g see rosen 1979 dynarski and sheffrin 1985 henderson and ioannides 1987 1989 in addition homeownership is negatively impacted by income uncertainty haurin 1991 and by an inability to generate savings for a down payment as in henderson and ioannides 1987 linneman and wachter 1989 haurin et al 1994 and gyourko et al 1999 nevertheless despite the importance of owner occupied housing in the portfolios of homeowners surprisingly little empirical work exists on the housing choices of families in the presence of house price uncertainty rosen et al 1984 provide some empirical evidence on the question of housing choices and risk

impact of historical conflict on fdi location and performance japanese investment in china historical relations between countries bring important explanatory power for foreign direct investment fdi decisions yet little is known on whether a home host country relation exhibits heterogeneous effects on fdi across the country s subnational regions in this study we examine the long term impact of historical conflict on fdi location choices and performance using a sample of 8 646 japanese fdi in china we show that civilian casualties in different provinces of china during the second sino japanese war exert deterring effects on japanese fdi location choices furthermore we demonstrate that civilian casualties negatively affect japanese fdi performance and political capital accumulation strategies in the forms of excessive tax payment and local employment can reduce this negative effect this study contributes to the discussion on how within country differences of historical factors affect fdi location decisions and performance the findings on firms political capital accumulation strategies also provide important implications for fdi operation in an environment characterized by historical animosity

a boundedly rational decision algorithm cognition requires scarce inputs including time and concentration since cognition is costly sophisticated decision makers should use mental shortcuts or heuristics to reduce cognitive burdens a model is proposed and tested that is motivated by these principles it is believed this model achieves four goals first the model makes quantitative behavioral predictions and hence provides a precise alternative to the rational actor hypothesis second the model is psychologically plausible because it is based on the actual decisions algorithms that subjects claim to use third the model is empirically testable such a test is provided in this paper fourth the model is broadly applicable because it can be used to analyze decision problems that can be represented in tree form

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

partnering with leviathan the politics of innovation in foreign host state joint ventures forming international joint ventures ijvs with political institutions in emerging economies involves both benefits and risks for multinational enterprises mnes while political partners can provide ijvs with various resources their political status equips them with a strong position to appropriate rents in ijvs we address this tension by examining how host state ownership affects both innovation inputs and outputs in china based ijvs over 2008 2013 despite the potential government opportunism we find more r d investment innovation inputs made in ijvs with state partners than in those with private ones thus r d investment can be politically motivated and symbolically managed to ensure continued resource exchanges with the host state this political pressure is mitigated when foreign parents directly transfer home country based technology to ijvs when the host market dependence of ijv is weak and when ijvs are located in a deregulated region moreover we find foreign host state jvs deliver fewer innovation outputs measured by patent data than foreign private jvs which implies the failure of state partners to adequately absorb foreign technologies these findings highlight both the state partners powerfulness to boost ijv innovation investment and their limits in shaping ijv innovation outcomes and bear rich implications for the management of mne host government relationships

life cycle and housing decisions a comparison by age cohorts the use of decomposition methodologies when the involved variable is continuous is not common in the literature this article uses this methodology together with other decomposition methodologies to explain how age can influence on housing decisions in particular we use spanish data to study whether the age of the householder plays a significant role in influencing household decisions with respect to housing tenure and demand from the comparison of housing decisions between different groups of households classified by the age of the householders we conclude that age plays the primary role in explaining the gap between households regarding tenure choice while it shares its importance with other covariates of the model in the housing demand decision

toward a cooperative view of mnc host government relations building blocks and performance implications this study examines cooperation based relations between mncs and host governments we theorize that resource commitment personal relations political accommodation and organizational credibility are four building blocks for improving an mnc s cooperative relationships with governments analysis of 131 mncs in china validates the importance of these blocks in shaping mnc government relations and the importance of these relations in shaping the performance of mnc subsidiaries

consumption and unemployment this paper examines consumption changes of workers following experiences of unemployment in different stochastic environments the model developed in the paper predicts that consumption changes following unemployment spells should be small for workers the higher are their layoff and recall probabilities these predictions are confirmed in estimates with panel data

unbundling institutional determinants of multinational investments abstractprevious studies often examined how a broad based institution affects foreign direct investment fdi flows across countries however analysis of differential impacts of two or more constituent institutions within a broad based institution appears to be more useful for policy decision making there is a paucity of studies on how constituent institutions within a broad measure of institution affect fdi across countries our article constitutes the first attempt in bridging this gap in this article we examine the relative effects of property rights institution pi and contracting institution ci on investment flows our results show that pi is much more important than ci in determining the cross border flows of fdi and affiliate sales moreover pi is found to be more important for fdi than for affiliate sales indicating that final goods are less of a concern for being expropriated by governments and powerful elites than capital goods through unbundling a broad based institution and examining

timing is everything curvilinear effects of age at entry on new firm growth and survival and the moderating effect of ipo performance abstract theory suggests that an earlier age at international entry results in improved growth but also decreased survival chances empirical studies tell a different story providing mixed and equivocal results that challenge the tenets of extant theory to begin to bridge the gap between theory and results we develop theoretical explanations for curvilinear inverted u shaped relationships between age at entry and both firm growth and firm survival as well as the moderating impact of resource providing initial public offering ipo on the resource intensive internationalization process our findings support the inverted u shaped relationships and that ipo performance steepens the growth curve and flattens the survival curve taken together our study enhances understanding of the effects of age at entry bridges the ipo and international entrepreneurship literatures and offers avenues for extending the micro foundations of the development of capabilities for new foreign market entry in doing so we advance knowledge about the conditions under which earlier or later internationalization leads some firms to thrive while others fail

housing purchases and transitory income a study with panel data in this paper we explore the role of transitory income in the housing purchase decision because of moral hazard considerations banks typically require downpayments to be financed internally hence transitory income is potentially important in overcoming the downpayment constraint using a novel approach to the measurement of permanent and transitory income we estimate a two stage model in which households decide whether to purchase housing in the first stage and the quantity to be purchased in the second the results indicate a significant role for transitory income in both decision stages

the demand for housing in spain an endogenous switching regression analysis housing demand in spain has been studied by using data disaggregated into primary and secondary housing demands it is found that demand for both types of housing area indeed related and that they are both considered necessities thus suggesting that their consumption ought to be modelled as a joint decision moreover it is found that traditional determinants of housing demand affect primary and secondary home demands differently these differences are attributable to the following economic rationales need for asset holdings diversifications relative high cost of home ownership versus rental in choice locations and differences in land demand intensity across regions in sum the findings suggest that policy makers in spain contrary to popular beliefs must consider secondary homes an integral part of households accommodation need