long run water demand estimation habits adjustment dynamics and structural breaks this article examines a water demand equation for milan for the second half of the 20th century 1950 2001 we focus mainly on the effects of price and habits but also account for other factors in the demand for water such as climate income and productive activity allowing for trend break stationarity or nonlinear trend stationarity we find evidence against the unit root hypothesis for many time series based on this result standard cointegration analysis would not be appropriate therefore we adopt an alternative estimation and testing procedure we focus in particular on the so called bounds testing approach which can be applied irrespective of the level of integration of the variables and which can be a useful modelling strategy given that dynamics are important when estimating a water demand equation the main results are that long run price elasticity is higher than short run elasticity and that consumption habits are relevant we also find that both climate sectoral and technological modif

how much does water consumption drop when each household takes charge of its own consumption the case of the city of seville making individuals take charge of their own domestic water consumption is one of the measures used to reduce the growing demand for this resource and to achieve sustainable consumption compatible with the goal of equity the use of individual meters instead of communal meters and fixing tariffs by inhabitant rather than by household are two measures aimed at achieving these objectives this article assesses the measures put in place in the seville metropolitan area during the last 20 years with an unobserved component model set up in a state space framework estimated using maximum likelihood water consumption elasticity to individual meters has changed from 0 307 to 1 317 with the introduction of per inhabitant tariffs which demonstrates that there are water saving synergies when the two measures are implemented together the reductions in water consumption achieved with these measures are also longer lasting than the changes in consumption habits during the frequent droughts in seville

privately operated water utilities municipal price negotiation and estimation of residential water demand the case of france this paper addresses the issue of price negotiation between a municipality and a private water utility operator and its implications for residential water demand estimation we use appropriate econometric procedures to estimate a water demand equation on a panel of french municipalities we find evidence that negotiated water price depends on municipality s characteristics causing endogeneity of price in the demand equation the impact of average household income housing and system features such as metering is investigated both on municipal consumption and price estimated price and income elasticities are significant and close to previous household level studies

legitimacy and multi level institutional environments implications for foreign subsidiary ownership structure in this study we examine from an institutional perspective the legitimacy rationale behind the choice of subsidiary ownership structure among multinational corporations mncs we suggest that when under a strong pressure to conform at the host country and local industry levels of their institutional environment mncs are likely to take a lower ownership stake in exchange for external legitimacy in the host country or local industry that their foreign subsidiaries are entering we also suggest that mncs are likely to take a higher ownership stake in response to strong internal pressure to sustain their internal legitimacy at the corporate level of their institutional environment we also propose that mncs are more likely to exchange ownership for legitimacy in local industries than in host countries and in local markets with a high level of political instability than in those with a low level of political instability these propositions are generally supported by our analysis of 4451 subsidiaries established by 898 japanese mncs that operated in 39 countries across 52 industries two digit sic between 1988 and 1999

do droughts have long term effects on water consumption evidence from the urban area of barcelona this article examines the long term effects of droughts on water consumption using data of municipalities of the urban area of barcelona two important characteristics of the sample of municipalities are the relatively low water consumption in the pre drought period and the fact that indoor uses are clearly predominant controlling for prices income and various socio demographic factors we find a reduction in water consumption not only during the drought episode but also in subsequent periods these permanent reductions in water use may be explained by household behavioural changes technological changes or structural water policy changes

let the good times roll the economic expectations of u s voters increasingly the concept of expectation is utilized to explain political choices with voters being depicted as prospective rather than retrospective in their orientations this paper tests competing theories of economic expectations forecasts with data from consumer surveys 1960 91 forecasts of inflation confirm the hypothesis of adaptive expectations but forecasts of general economic conditions do not nor do those forecasts conform to rational expectations instead voter forecasts of economic conditions are prone to a significant asymmetry while good economic times tend to foster optimism in an adaptive fashion bad times do not similarly feed pessimism instead they trigger a reverse forecast we explore this remarkable behavior in the light of psychological economics

density dependence of entrepreneurial dynamics competition opportunity cost or minimum efficient scale this paper reports on a new examination of the well established negative effect of localized density on survival in established industries we attempt to discriminate between three competing but not necessarily mutually exclusive explanations resource competition variations in the opportunity costs of entrepreneurship and geographic variations in minimum efficient scale mes we construct a model of firm growth and survival in which each of these potential causes of density dependence has a transparent parametric effect and we derive six predictions that collectively allow for discriminating empirical tests empirical results using confidential geocoded data from the national longitudinal survey of youth consistently favor the opportunity cost mechanism this paper was accepted by toby stuart entrepreneurship and innovation

the founding of specialist firms in a global fragmenting industry the study examines what drives the founding of specialist firms two theoretical explanations are tested for the founding of specialists density dependence and resource partitioning the study finds that specialists foundings are dependent on the population s density at the global level but not at the united states level the evidence from a fragmented industry does not support the resource partitioning hypothesis either at the global level or the united states national level the study shows how multi level analyses can suggest if an industry is multi domestic or globally integrated

how optimal distinctiveness affects new ventures failure risk a contingency perspective abstract in this article we apply the concept of optimal distinctiveness to test whether category spanning has a nonlinear effect on new ventures risk to fail we argue that by being optimally distinct i e by attaining a level of category spanning that allows new ventures to benefit from balancing the competing needs of conformity with and differentiation from competitors new ventures can improve their survival chances in addition we argue that the relevance of optimal distinctiveness varies with a venture s age and a category s density we tested our hypotheses using data from 1668 metal bands that were founded in the united kingdom between 1967 and 2005 the results indicate that optimal distinctiveness is relevant to new ventures failure risk moreover we show that venture age attenuates the relevance of optimal distinctiveness whereas category density strengthens that factor s relevance

a critical exploration of sponsorship infrastructure and new organizations this research focuses on the effects of public sponsorship and regional infrastructure on the emergence and survival of new organizations propositions are tested regarding the joint effects of sponsorship and infrastructure on industrial development in a randomly selected sample of fourteen regions the data include six measures of infrastructure sponsorship as measured by the total dollars spent for economic development and their individual and joint effects on the number of firms and employees in high technology industries for the years 1965 1970 1975 1980 and 1984 this preliminary analysis suggests that variation in the infrastructure and level of sponsorship within a region is related to the birth and survival of new organizations

voters information heterogeneity and the dynamics of aggregate economic expectations theory it is argued here that previous studies analyzing the formation of voters economic expectations overlook important subtleties found in a differentiated heterogeneous electorate since different segments of the electorate possess varying information capabilities it is asserted that they will form their prospective economic evaluations differently from one another hypotheses the impact of expectational electoral cycles news coverage of the economy reported by voters retrospective economic evaluations and personal financial expectations are hypothesized to have a differential impact on their economic expectations based on varying levels of information education among subsets of the electorate methods time series multiple regression analysis is conducted for the monthly period between january 1978 and december 1990 the empirical analysis involves testing for the properties of the statistical time series i e integration and cointegration as well as specification of an error correction mechanism ecm that captures long run statistical relationships in appropriate circumstances results these findings uncover electoral heterogeneity based on information education differences with respect to voters prospective economic evaluations specifically the information capabilities of voters is inversely related to their reliance on past retrospective sources of information when forming both egocentric and sociotropic economic expectations the main implication of this research is that the assumption of electoral homogeneity contained in previous longitudinal analyses of aggregate economic opinion formation provides misleading results that either overlook intra electoral variations introduce aggregation bias or possibly both

estimating residential water demand in the presence of free allowances the main aim of this paper is to quantify the impact of a rate structure which includes a free allowance on residential water consumption the analysis here differs from most previous research in that it explicitly recognizes that water consumption above the free allowance being sensitive to price responds less to social and climatic factors than consumption below the free allowance while the model specification and estimation procedures used here should be of interest to those interested in the demand for water the results using data for adelaide south australia on the determinants of water consumption should be of interest to water authorities

the ecology of organizational mortality american labor unions 1836 1985 this research analyzes the disbanding rates of the full population of american national labor unions for the period 1836 1985 it tests the hypothesis drawn from population ecology theory that di

analysis of the effectiveness of the first european pollutant emission register eper abstract the aim of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of the first european pollution emissions register eper a regulatory instrument based on the publication of the environmental performance of firms exceeding specified pollution limits the multivariate regression model mvrm is applied to capture the disciplinary effect of the eper so we first perform an analysis to determine whether the publication of the eper has a negative effect on the market value of the listed firms secondly we consider the possibility of the publication of the eper affecting the market value of firms which could be included in the eper but are not because their emissions do not exceed the specified pollution limits finally we prepare an index to compare the environmental results of the firms and analyse whether the consequences of publishing the eper are worse for firms with high relative pollution records

firm survival and industry evolution in vertically related populations this paper examines how the density and governance of vertically related populations affect the life chances of organizations we integrate the literatures on organizational ecology and vertical integration to develop a theory of how 1 specialized upstream industries affect downstream survival rates 2 the prevalence of different governance forms among upstream and downstream organizations moderates this relationship and 3 different forms of governance exert differential competitive pressures on focal organizations we find evidence supporting our hypotheses in an empirical examination of the downstream laser printer industry and upstream laser engine industry this paper was accepted by jesper sorensen organizations

organisational ecology in the danish restaurant sector abstract the article demonstrates the high rates of organisational turmoil in the restaurant sector the intensity of natural selection depends mainly on the age and size of the enterprise affiliation with other enterprises increases the chances of survival but only if there is a substantial number of units co operating in a group surprisingly the level of staff competence and managerial capacity measured in quantitative terms cannot explain the level of success or failure in the restaurant business to any significant degree organisational ecology which constitutes the theoretical and methodological base of this article is a promising research approach to tourism issues the article which focuses on explanations for the occurrence of life events in the restaurant sector calls for more careful policy considerations than are often the case in particular human resource and labour market related actions should be critically reassessed

what drives the swing voter in africa what makes african voters up for grabs existing approaches to the swing voter have several liabilities this article introduces a new measure enabling a more comprehensive assessment of swing voting including the differentiation between clientelistic and collective goods motivations the issue of swing voting is then brought to an environment where voters are rarely considered persuadable africa using a count model estimation technique and original survey data from ghana s critical 2008 elections the analysis challenges the near consensus in african politics on clientelism as the only electoral strategy when voters perceive politicians as providing collective developmental goods the efficacy of clientelism as a tool to win over voters is reduced many persuadable voters can also be won over by both clientelistic and collective goods thus contradicting the literature presenting these as mutually exclusive finally the analysis shows that incumbents do better when they provide collective goods even in highly clientelistic environments

what price accountability the lucas island model and the politics of monetary policy this paper develops a model of an electoral cycle in inflation and output based on rational inflation expectations and rational retrospective voting voters are heterogeneous and partially informed about aggregate macroeconomic variables they observe precisely how monetary policy stimulates their local economies but their observations of economic activity in other sectors are imprecise voters extract information about the incumbent policymaker s economic competence from cross sectoral spillover effects the incumbent has incentives to generate preelection monetary surprises that stimulate the local economies and generate cross sectoral spillover effects he thereby creates an impression of economic competence and furthers his reelection prospects his policy manipulations are the price of political accountability on a positive note the incumbent is more likely to survive voter scrutiny if he is more competent than the average political candidate

a community level analysis of sources and rates of technological variation in the microprocessor market this research sought to identify the sources and rates of technological variation in an industry using a community level framework using data on all merchant producers of microprocessors from 1971

animal spirits the effect of economic expectations on economic output the public is characterized as able forecasters of future economic performance they engage in rational expectations empirical evidence exists to bolster the claim this article considers the possibility that the public does more than predict economic output they may engage in a self fulfilling prophecy where belief about the future economy translates into personal financial behaviour e g consumption and investment that actually drives economic performance after controlling for rational expectations with elite forecasts leading indicators and past economic performance it is shown that between 5 and one third of the variance in economic output can be explained by prospective economic sentiment this result has broad implications for electoral behaviour research

the big bug the legitimation of the edible insect sector in the netherlands abstract this study analyzes the legitimation process of an emerging novel food sector in the european union eu current eu policies are cautious with regard to new food sources and new food technology and we aim to determine how the sector is addressing both this caution as well as a general public that may be skeptical of its products by utilizing a legitimacy strategy framework and conducting 19 semi structured interviews with actors and experts in the dutch edible insect sector we assess the sector s progress and limitations with regard to its legitimacy journey the findings show that sector focus has thus far been on organization intraindustry and interindustry legitimacy strategies and that additional emphasis on institutional strategies will be imperative to securing more accommodating legislation in addition the lack of a common vision a strategic communication plan and interfirm linkages may also be hindering sector legitimation the framework and conclusions presented here may prove useful to other sectors introducing novel foods

sustainable competitive advantage combining institutional and resource based views this article suggests that the context and process of resource selection have an important influence on firm heterogeneity and sustainable competitive advantage it is argued that a firm s sustainable advantage depends on its ability to manage the institutional context of its resource decisions a firm s institutional context includes its internal culture as well as broader influences from the state society and interfirm relations that define socially acceptable economic behavior a process model of firm heterogeneity is proposed that combines the insights of a resource based view with the institutional perspective from organization theory normative rationality institutional isolating mechanisms and institutional sources of firm homogeneity are proposed as determinants of rent potential that complement and extend resource based explanations of firm variation and sustainable competitive advantage the article suggests that both resource capital and institutional capital are indispensable to sustainable competitive advantage 1997 john wiley sons ltd

exaptation dynamics and entrepreneurial performance evidence from the internet video industry this paper explores entrepreneurial strategy by analyzing the internet video industry data on entrants to the chinese internet video industry from 2006 to 2011 reveal how those that adapt to shifts in the environment outperform less flexible firms the paper also shows how exaptive processes including strategic commitment to user communities increase resilience in start ups that face such shifts these findings introduce an expanded view of entrepreneurial strategy by directly linking strategic choice to venture performance and clarifying the role of exaptation in entrepreneurship

economic expectations and voting behavior in united states house and senate elections past individual level studies of economic voting 1 have incorrectly operationalized the model they employ by using past oriented rather than future oriented questions and 2 have failed to examine the level of economic voting in united states senate elections using the 1978 national election study we show that economic voting exists in senate but not house elections presumably due to the differences in electoral context even when economic voting occurs however there is no guarantee that the public will influence the direction of macroeconomic policy

the political and economic origins of consumer confidence economic conditions the story usually goes influence consumer confidence which in turn influences both political evaluations and votes but we have little sense of the origins of consumer confidence itself it is generally assumed that monthly reports of the nation s level of consumer confidence respond to objective economic conditions we argue that politics is important for understanding consumer sentiment beyond what we know from economic conditions specifically we demonstrate a direct effect of political evaluations of the president s management of the economy the party of the president extraordinary political events and monetary policy as well as an indirect effect of media coverage of the economy on consumer sentiment after controlling for economic conditions when news coverage is positive citizens give favorable evaluations leading to more positive sentiment our findings suggest that understanding the political economy requires an emphasis on the causal effect of politics as well as economics

a time to grow and a time to die growth and mortality of credit unions in new york city 1914 1990 one vision of organizational evolution suggests that old and large organizations become increasingly dominant over their environment a second suggests that as organizations age they become less able to respond to new challenges in this article the authors investigate which of these visions best characterizes the evolution of state chartered credit unions in new york city from 1914 through 1990 by analyzing the effects of organizational age size and population density on rates of organizational failure and growth the authors find evidence that old and small institutions are more likely to fail while young and small organizations have the highest growth rates

density dependence in the evolution of populations of newspaper organizations a model of density dependence is proposed to explain regularities in the growth and decline of organizational populations density the number of organizations is assumed to be a function of the social processes of legitimation and competition at low density the model predicts that the legitimation process will dominate and will lead to high organizational founding rates and low organizational mortality rates at high levels of density competition will dominate and consequently founding rates will decline and mortality rates will rise the model is tested with hazard function models using data from nine newspaper populations spanning the 19th and 20th centuries and covering over 5200 newspapers analysis offounding rates provides strong empirical support for the model analysis of mortality rates reveals that the model holds for large populations

appetite for destruction the impact of the september 11 attacks on business founding it is widely accepted that entrepreneurial creation affects destruction as new and better organizations technologies and transactions replace old ones this phenomenon is labeled creative destruction but it might more accurately be called destructive creation given the driving role of creation in the process we reverse the typical causal ordering and ask whether destruction may drive creation we argue that economic systems may get stuck in suboptimal equilibria due to path dependence and that destruction may sweep away this inertia and open the way for entrepreneurship to test this idea we need an exogenous destructive shock rather than destruction that is endogenous to the process of economic progress our identification strategy relies on the september 11 attacks as an exogenous destructive shock to the economic system centered on new york city consistent with our theoretical claim we find that 15months after the attacks the rate of business founding close to new york city exceeds the rate before the attacks even after controlling for the inflow of recovery funds furthermore the increase in the business founding rate after the attacks grows faster closer to manhattan than it does further away from the epicenter of destruction

to be different or to be the same it s a question and theory of strategic balance this paper addresses the performance consequences of firm level strategic similarity past research observed that firms face pressures to be different and to be the same by differentiating firms reduce competition by conforming firms demonstrate their legitimacy both reduced competition and legitimacy improve performance this paper begins building a theory of strategic balance by synthesizing the differentiation and conformity perspectives the theory directs attention to intermediate levels of strategic similarity where firms balance the pressures of competition and legitimation empirical support for the theory is found in a longitudinal study of commercial banks several suggestions for developing a theory of strategic balance conclude the paper the theory s major implication is that firms should be as different as legitimately possible copyright 1999 john wiley sons ltd

the population ecology of gucci gulch or the natural regulation of interest group numbers in the american states theory the theory of population ecology in contrast to economic theories of groups is used to predict the number of interest groups in the united states hypotheses interest group density is a function of potential constituents potential government goods and services the stability of the political system government age and government size methods regression analysis of u s state data for interest groups in construction agriculture manufacturing welfare the environment and local governments results interest group density conforms to the predictions based on population ecology constituents government goods and services and political stability but not those based on economic theories of group mobilization

crowding out the role of state companies and the dynamics of industrial competitiveness in india this article examines growth patterns of government companies in india whether their presence has crowded out private entrepreneurial activity and whether there has been a decline in the competitiveness of india s industry measured as relative productive efficiency for a 45 year period from 1957 1958 to 2001 2002 there was a significant growth in the number of government companies in india that effectively crowded out the entry and growth of private enterprise this took place from the mid to late 1950s to the late 1980s and early 1990s correspondingly the amount of private equity capital invested in firms declined until the late 1980s and early 1990s when there was an upsurge of private investment activity another feature was that a small number of government companies absorbed most of the corporate sector equity investment in india the growth in the share of government companies in india that crowded out the entry and growth of private enterprises has had a significantly negative effect on india s industrial competitiveness after the introduction of reforms in 1991 there has been a significant crowding in by private enterprises displacing the government companies from their key position as holders of a very large portion of equity capital and also reversing the trend in the decline of competitiveness of indian industry as a whole copyright 2009 oxford university press

mimetic and experiential effects in international marketing alliance formations of us pharmaceuticals firms an event history analysis alliances are recognized as an indispensable tool for managers operating in a global business environment and as a fundamental stage of the internationalization process of the firm drawing on a co evolutionary framework this article investigates the mimetic and experiential effects in international alliance formation we focus on a critical unresolved issue in the literature what is the role of mimetic behavior and previous alliance experience in mitigating the uncertainty associated with engaging in cross border operations an event history analysis of 792 international marketing alliance formations initiated by 317 firms in the us pharmaceutical industry is employed to test the hypotheses the findings of two different hazard rate models reveal significant complex effects of density and cross border alliance experience on the propensity to engage in new international marketing alliances

is all domestic water consumption sensitive to price control this paper presents a model of residential water demand based on the stone geary utility function which explicitly considers a threshold of water that is insensitive to price and a quantity that can adapt instantaneously to price changes first the threshold is assumed constant being then allowed to vary according to past levels of consumption a proxy for households water using equipment and habits a measure of the depreciation rate of habits is derived and the effectiveness of price and non price conservation measures are compared the results provide useful policy recommendations for the studied case of seville spain

density dependence versus population dynamics an ecological study of failings in the california wine industry in this ecological study we show that the particular curvilinear formulation of the relationship between density and the failing rate of organizations proposed by hannan and freeman does not hold for the california wine industry between 1940 and 1985 we demonstrate instead that an alternative model focusing on prior foundings and prior failings gives a superior account of the failing rate in this population we argue that hannan and freeman s density dependent model of organizational mortality systematically overstates the negative effects of illegitimacy on business organizations we argue further that their model underestimates business organizations ability to avoid elimination by migrating to neighboring niches and by enlarging their initial niche

the dynamics of rapid industrial growth evidence from sweden s information technology industry 1990 2004 sweden s information technology it industry expanded through an inflow of new entrants during the 1990s its evolution was analyzed using ecological models of organizational founding and disbanding controlling for the effects of economic conditions this study analyzed the effects of density dependence age imprinting rate dependence and the origin of new entrants on the industry the results indicate that the inflow was comprised of start ups that proved to be relatively short lived in contrast new entrants that originated as part of incumbent firms that were diversifying in it stabilized the industry by depressing its disbanding rate and facilitating the entry of new firms in explaining the dynamics of the industry the analysis supports the established models of density dependence age dependence imprinting and organizational origin copyright 2009 the author 2009 published by oxford university press on behalf of associazione icc all rights reserved oxford university press

interdependent behavior in foreign direct investment the multi level effects of prior entry and prior exit on foreign market entry this paper examines the interdependent foreign market entry decisions of multinational corporations mncs based on the argument that legitimacy and competition are two important forces in foreign market entry decisions we hypothesize that an mnc s market entry decisions are influenced by its own prior entry and prior exit decisions and those of other mncs we examine this general proposition at four levels of analysis the host country global industry an industry that spans host countries local industry an industry that is separately defined within each host country and parent firm level our analysis of a panel data of over 4000 market entry decisions that were made by japanese mncs shows that an mnc s market entry decision has a stronger inverted u shaped relationship with the prior entry and exit decisions of other mncs at the local industry level than the prior entry and exit decisions of other mncs at the host country and global industry levels we also find that both the prior entry and prior exit decisions of an mnc have a marginal influence on its own subsequent market entry decisions at the parent firm level

possible adverse effects of increasing block water tariffs in developing countries ture in which a commodity is priced at a low initial rate up to a specified volume of use block then at a higher or several increasingly higher rates for additional blocks used the ordinary household municipal water bill in developing countries is often calculated on some sort of ibt structure and donor organizations and consultants continue to recommend this practice for town and city water systems the majority of world bank sponsored water tariff studies conducted since 1970 for example have recommended the use of increasing block water tariffs there are two commonly accepted justifications for using ibts the first based on a rationale of equity is that ibts should assist low income households and ensure an equitable allocation of the costs of water production and distribution the argument in this case is that low income households use less water than high income households because they have fewer water using appliances and are less likely to have large lawns and gardens an ibt results in higher marginal prices to the customer and thus higher average prices for higher income households the price of water in the initial block may be set very low usually at a subsidized rate to ensure that the poor are not discouraged from using the amount of water considered essential for human needs typically estimated at 25 50 liters per capita per day the price of water in the initial block is thus sometimes termed the lifeline rate the second justification for ibt structures is that the higher prices charged beyond the initial block discourage extravagant water use and promote water conservation both these justifications for ibts assume that each household has

technological platforms and diversification as the invention of fundamental new sciences spawns subsequent research discovery and commercialization core technologies branch into new applications and markets some of them evolve over time into many derived technologies whereas others are essentially dead ends the pattern of evolution and branching is called a technological trajectory an intriguing question is whether some firms can ride the trajectory by developing proprietary experience in a platform technology because the knowledge is proprietary firms that originate in industrial fields based on a platform technology acquire the technological skills to diversify and to mimic the branching of the underlying technological trajectory the ability to compete in hypercompetitive markets depends on the acquisition of know how that is applicable to a wide set of market opportunities such capabilities serve as platforms into quickly evolving markets to respond rapidly to market changes a firm must have already acquired fundamental compet

the structure of competition how competition between one s rivals influences imitative market entry this paper investigates how the pattern of encounters between a firm s competitors affects the firm s inclination to follow its competitors into a new market we theorize that direct encounters between a firm s rivals lead to a herding effect making imitative market entry more likely past mutual forbearance between a firm s competitors resulting from asymmetric multimarket competition further strengthens this herding effect by enhancing the firm s expectations of market attractiveness in contrast aggressive past rivalry between the competitors resulting from symmetric multimarket contact dampens these expectations producing a competition effect that makes herding less probable we test our idea in two distinct contexts the chinese pharmaceutical industry and the taiwanese computer hardware industry and find consistent support in both settings we discuss how our analysis of what we call the structure of competition can be extended to research on other forms of firm behavior

getting to global an evolutionary perspective of brand expansion in international markets the globalization of brands is an evolutionary process that is determined by environmental and firm level factors including a brand s position in the firm s global brand architecture a framework is developed incorporating aspects of environmental uncertainty mimetic behavior and experiential learning as they relate to the globalization of brands global brand architecture is introduced as an important strategic consideration of a brand s position and stage of internationalization the hypotheses are tested within the context of the global automotive industry employing an event history analysis with time varying covariates the results reveal complex effects with respect to the role of market attractiveness experiential learning and mimetic behavior in globalization patterns overall this study suggests that firms can accelerate the process of creating global brands if they enter the three major continents in the early stages of international expansion

effect of price information on residential water demand microeconomic theory predicts that people decrease consumption when price increases the magnitude of the effect depending on price elasticity the law of demand however implicitly assumes that consumers know prices an assumption that is not always satisfied in markets with ex post billing when prices are not transparent elasticity estimates are potentially lower than their full information potential evidence of low price elasticity abounds in residential water demand studies limiting the effectiveness and desirability of using price signals as a conservation tool it is hypothesized that resident s sluggish response to price is partly due to the absence of price information on water bills differences in the informational content of bills are documented for the first time on the basis of sample bills collected from 383 utilities across the usa a standard aggregate water demand model is augmented with qualitative variables describing differences in billing information allowing such variables to a

analyzing unexpected density dependence effects on organizational births in new york s life insurance industry 1842 1904 organizational ecologists argue that numbers of firms density dependence significantly affect industrial development rising numbers of firms are thought to legitimize a young industry leading persons to launch new firms in the industry but in a more crowded older industry increasing numbers of companies are expected to intensify competition producing a decline in organizational births since this argument dominates ecological theory results that challenge it must be explained i identify six reasons for such results only a few of these explanations have been evaluated empirically and the ideas rarely have been assessed with respect to organizational births therefore i address these explanations in order to resolve unexpected density dependence effects on foundings in new york s life insurance industry from 1842 to 1904 measuring numbers of life insurance operators at both the state new york and national u s levels of analysis resolves the unexpected density dynamics in this study and produces a coherent pattern of density findings further numbers of mutual savings banks and numbers of small life insurers in new york created competitive pressures in the life insurance business leading persons to abandon carrier entrepreneurship entrepreneurship also suffered when the life insurance industry was dominated by a few large sellers more generally the evidence shows that new york was divided into two insurance submarkets and that carrier organizers reacted to legitimation and competition trends in the submarket occupied by domestic insurers i conclude that once we consider the reasons for unexpected density dynamics the core model of density dependence offers a cogent explanation for industrial evolution

analysing rationing policies drought and its effects on urban users welfare analysing rationing policies during drought the aim of this paper is to study the impact on consumers of rationing policies implemented during water shortages water scarcity gives rise to the need for rationing and various methods including supply cutoffs can be used a model is devised to quantify the welfare losses associated with qualitive and quantitive restrictions based on virtual prices and using the consumer surplus as a welfare measurement welfare variations for different users have been calculated to achieve the aim information relative to seville spain has been used analysing the drought period that took place in the first half of the 1990s it has been possible to observe the main source that led to welfare losses for each kind of user

industry competition and firm human capital this paper argues that objective and subjective human capital may have substantial impact upon organizational performance in a competitive context objective human capital pertains to such features as education and experience whereas subjective human capital relates to personality characteristics the argument is illustrated by presenting the results of two empirical studies 1 a cross section 1990 1991 analysis of about 50 incumbents in the flemish furniture industry concentrating on the impact of subjective human capital particularly the chief executive officer s ceo s locus of control personality on financial performance and 2 a longitudinal 1970 1992 analysis of a cohort of 100 entrants into the dutch audit industry focusing on the influence of objective human capital particularly education and experience on exit by merger and acquisition m a or diaspora both studies support the claim that objective and subjective human capital matters for example flemish furniture firms headed by a ceo with an internal locus of control trait reach higher levels of financial performance and dutch audit firms with a high proportion of personnel with business experience are more likely to exit the industry over the years as a result of diaspora finally the data of the flemish furniture and dutch audit industries are re analyzed so as to compare the impact of human capital variables on small firm performance in both industries this re analysis reveals that in both industries the impact of human capital variables is more pronounced in large firms compared to small businesses

decomposing uncertainty and its effects on imitation in firm exit decisions this study examines the effects of different uncertainty types on interorganizational imitation in firm exit decisions we draw on herding models to conceptualize exit decisions as being based on a firm s private information which the firm updates with information inferred from observing the actions of others we posit that different types of uncertainty differentially affect this observational learning process in particular we propose that certain uncertainty types attenuate rather than foster observational learning and subsequent imitation we test this theory using a 29 year panel data set on the exit of private venture capital firms our results indicate that observational learning does influence imitation in firm exit decisions and they also suggest that a common belief that uncertainty enhances imitation does not apply to all types of uncertainty specifically we find that uncertainty fosters imitation only when it is idiosyncratic to the firm uncertainties that are common to all firms in contrast actually reduce reliance on observational learning by decomposing uncertainty into different types and explicating their effects on imitation we demonstrate that this relationship is more nuanced than previously assumed and in addition highlight the role of deliberate information processing in imitation

new size measurements in population ecology in organizational ecology the analysis of the impact of competition between populations on vital ratios is relatively underdeveloped this paper addresses this issue by developing new competition measurements that focus on the importance of organizational size the application of these measurements in the case of competition between organizational subforms in a population and their impact on mortality rates demonstrate their usefulness for modelling competition specifically the results show how levels of competition between firms in a population can be more clearly analysed when the rival population mass or concentration indices are used

the red queen effect competitive actions and firm performance we investigate the red queen effect as a contest of competitive moves or actions among rivalrous firms the results from a multi industry study of over 4 700 actions confirms the existence of red q

dynamic capabilities and new product development in high technology ventures an empirical analysis of new biotechnology firms abstract in industries populated by entrepreneurial high technology firms the rapid development of new products is viewed as a key determinant of success developing a portfolio of new products is necessary to gain early cash flows external visibility and legitimacy early market share and increase the likelihood of survival schoonhoven eisenhardt and lymman 1990 in addition recent research has shown that new product development improves a firm s ability to raise money through an initial public offering deeds decarolis and coombs 1997 this paper develops a model of new product development which is tested on a sample of 94 pharmaceutical biotechnology companies we hypothesize that new product development capabilities are a function of a firm s scientific technological and managerial skills to test this relationship we develop several firm specific measures in an attempt to triangulate in on the core construct of firm specific new product development capabilities some important implications for entrepreneurs managers of high technology firms flow from our results first entrepreneur managers need to view the choice of geographic location as an important strategic decision which will impact their firm s access to the skilled technical personnel and the streams of knowledge our results indicate that a choice location has a significant concentration of similar firms but the level has not yet reached a point where competition for resources in the local environment offsets any advantages of the location in the case of biotechnology this would seem to indicate that the prime locations would be expanding areas such as san diego seattle and philadelphia rather then the established locations of silicon valley and boston second as scientific knowledge plays an ever more important role in a firm s success the quality of the firm s scientific team is a critical ingredient in a firm s new product development capability but how do you evaluate the quality of scientific personnel our results indicate that there is a strong positive relationship between the impact as measured by citations of a team s prior research in the academic community and the productivity of that team in a commercial research laboratory therefore the judgement of a scientific field captured by citations or perhaps expert judgement should prove to be a useful tool when evaluating personnel for a firm s research team third the results from our measures of ceo experience and the percentage of the top management team with a ph d are interesting as expected the prior experience of ceo in managing a commercial research facility enhances a firm s new product development capabilities however results for our top management team variable appears to indicate that the over reliance on technical personnel in the management of the organization detracts from the product development process taken together these results seem to imply that it is important that the leadership of the organization have knowledge of and experience in managing the new product development process but that diverting the firm s scientific personnel s energies away from the laboratory and into the management of the organization maybe counter productive therefore what a high technology venture appears to need is leadership that understands and has experience in the new product development process but which is separate and distinct from the scientific team this type of leadership keeps the scientific team focused on research and development and out of the boardroom

moderating effects of investor experience on the signaling value of private equity placements abstract we contend that young start up firms requiring external capital are able to differentiate themselves from competitors through their choices of investors and financing mechanisms private placements of equity convey efficient signals to markets for several reasons they are short term irreversible occur after a more rigorous analysis than public offerings provide contain governance mechanisms and are generally observable by outsiders the disclosure that investors possess a superior reputation for evaluative ability conveys an additional endorsing signal of the firm s prospects this proves especially valuable for younger firms less capitalized firms and firms that have more recently received private equity from an experienced investor using an event history analysis on a sample of 329 publicly held biotechnology firms we find firms that are perceived to be more uncertain and that disclose the presence of more prominent investors are better able to attract subsequent financing

economic voting and the symbolic politics argument a reinterpretation and synthesis economic voting is generally regarded as a straightforward political demand for the amelioration of economic grievances this assumption about motives underlies the implicit theories of politicians and the imputations of interests to voters in aggregate time series models several recent articles have argued that voting is not self interested but a manifestation of symbolic preferences at the level of the collectivity this article places the dispute between personal and collective decision referents into the broader perspective of a multi stage model of information processing and decision making personal and collective decision referents are shown to define the poles of a continuum and several hypotheses are derived to predict the relative weights assigned to each in the voter s calculus the model is used in analyses of both the public s evaluations of incumbent economic management and economic voting in different electoral arenas by varying issue publics designed to maximize comparability with aggregate studies this research includes both objective and subjective measures of economic conditions and indexes changes in personal conditions over time from panel data