optimal incentive schemes with many agents the grossman hart principal agent model of moral hazard is extended to the multiple agent case to explore the use of relative performance in optimal incentive contracting under the assumption that the principal chooses incentive schemes to implement agent actions as nash equilibria necessary and sufficient conditions are derived for the optimality of independent contracts of rank order tournaments and for attainability of the first best in this context the relation of the principal s welfare to the correlation between the underlying randomness in outputs of different agents is also investigated finally some problems with the nash equilibrium implementation assumption are discussed in this paper we extend the grossman hart analysis of the principal agent problem to a multiple agent setting in this version of the problem a risk neutral principal is assumed to observe the output or a performance index for each risk averse agent the output of any agent depends on a privately observable action chosen by the agent and an exogenous random variable the realization of which is not observed either by the principal or by the agent before choosing its action we especially focus attention on the role of relative performance evaluation in optimal incentive contracts and the way this depends on properties of the underlying production technology and the joint distribution of the random variables affecting the outputs of different agents in section 2 of the paper we consider the principal s problem of finding an optimal incentive scheme and an action tuple for agents subject to the constraint that the latter be implemented as a nash equilibrium between agents by the chosen incentive scheme where agents must attain at least their reservation utilities a characterization of optimal incentive schemes is derived analogous to the grossman hart characterization for the single agent problem this characterization is then utilized to find sufficient and generically necessary conditions for a optimal contracts for any agent to be independent of the performance of other agents and b optimality of rank order tournaments where payments depend solely on ordinal comparisons of output across agents we then describe a necessary and sufficient condition for the principal to extract maximum advantage from relative performance clauses i e achieve the first best level of expected utility in the multiagent situation an implication of this result is that under fairly weak conditions perfect correlation in the underlying production uncertainties for different agents enables the principal to attain the first best if and only if sufficiently heavy penalties can be inflicted on agents we then enquire what happens in intermediate cases of non perfect correlation it turns out that while in general the principal s welfare is a continuous function of the correlation coefficient it is not always nondecreasing in the latter because the correlation coefficient is not a general measure of association between two random variables but rather a measure of linear association between them

the nature of diversified business groups a research design and two case studies diversified business groups dominate the private sectors of most of the world s economies several of these economies have undergone sudden policy changes that significantly increase domestic competitive intensity the authors demonstrate how the changes in corporate scope that accompany such competitive shocks can be used to weigh the importance of different explanations for the existence of diversified business groups the authors illustrate their reasoning by studying the restructuring of two of india s largest business groups following a comprehensive post 1991 package of policy reforms the case studies also elucidate aspects of the restructuring process that should inform larger sample empirical analyses copyright 1998 by blackwell publishing ltd

cost reduction competition and industry performance in many markets firms compete over time by expending resources with the purpose of reducing their costs sometimes the cost reducing investments operate directly on costs in many instances they take the form of developing new products that deliver what customers need more cheaply therefore product development can have the same ultimate effect as direct cost reduction in fact if one thinks of the product as the services it delivers to the customer in the way that lancaster pioneered then product development often is just cost reduction

aggregate income shocks and infant mortality in the developing world health and income are strongly correlated both within and across countries yet the extent to which improvements in income have a causal effect on health status remains controversial the authors investigate whether short term fluctuations in aggregate income affect infant mortality using an unusually large data set of 1 7 million births in 59 developing countries the authors show a large negative association between per capita gdp and infant mortality female infant mortality is more sensitive than male infant mortality to negative economic shocks suggesting that policies that protect the health status of female infants may be especially important during economic downturns

the impact of maize price shocks on household food security panel evidence from tanzania abstract using three waves 2008 09 2010 11 2012 13 of the tanzanian national panel survey this study investigates the impact of maize price shocks on household food security between 2008 09 and 2012 13 calorie intake stagnated for urban households yet sharply deteriorated for rural households the latter was driven by a significant decline in the consumption of the major staple maize which showed strongest price hikes among all major food items fixed effects regressions indicate a clear negative relationship between maize prices and average household energy intake almost all population groups were found to be negatively affected by maize price shocks with rural landless households being the most vulnerable group in particular a 50 percent rise in maize prices decreases caloric intake for rural urban households on average by 4 4 5 4 percent and for rural landless households by 12 6 percent results further indicate that subsistence agriculture can act as an effective strategy to insure against food price volatility

the impact of the 2005 2010 rice price increase on consumption in rural bangladesh this article studies the impact of the rice price increase between 2005 and 2010 on consumption in rural bangladesh using the household income and expenditure survey hies data we compare net rice buyers and sellers to self sufficient households to identify the effect of rice price changes on household consumption of rice nonrice food and nonfood items we employ a difference in differences did technique our findings indicate that the surge in domestic rice prices between 2005 and 2010 reduced the nonrice food consumption of net rice buyer households by 7 compared to the households who are self sufficient in rice production however it did neither affect their rice nor their nonfood consumption in contrast while we find no significant effect of rice price increases on the rice consumption of net rice sellers we observe a 9 increase in their nonrice food consumption in such situation a subsidy on low quality rice may be effective in fulfilling the nutritional requirement of low income households

does government r d policy mainly benefit scientists and engineers conventional wisdom holds that the social rate of return to r d significantly exceeds the private rate of return and therefore r d should be subsidized in the u s the government has directly funded a large fraction of total r d spending this paper shows that there is a serious problem with such government efforts to increase inventive activity the majority of r d spending is actually just salary payments for r d workers their labor supply however is quite inelastic so when the government funds r d a significant fraction of the increased spending goes directly into higher wages using cps data on wages of scientific personnel this paper shows that government r d spending raises wages significantly particularly for scientists related to defense such as physicists and aeronautical engineers because of the higher wages conventional estimates of the effectiveness of r d policy may be 30 to 50 too high the results also imply that by altering the wages of scientists and engineers even for firms not receiving federal support government funding directly crowds out private inventive activity this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

gendered impacts of the 2007 2008 food price crisis evidence using panel data from rural ethiopia abstract this paper provides empirical evidence on the gendered impact of the 2007 2008 food price crisis using panel data on 1400 households from rural ethiopia that were initially surveyed before the onset of the crisis in 1994 1995 1997 and 2004 and after food prices spiked in 2009 it investigates whether female headed households are more likely to report experiencing a food price shock and whether female headed households experiencing a shock are more or less likely to adopt certain coping strategies controlling for individual household and community characteristics our findings suggest that female headed households are more vulnerable to food price changes and are more likely to have experienced a food price shock in 2007 2008 because female headed households are also resource poor and have a larger food gap compared with male headed households they cope by cutting back on the number of meals they provide their households during good months and eating less preferred foods in general a combination of short term measures to protect diet diversity and micronutrient consumption of vulnerable groups and longer term measures to promote investment in sustainable agriculture such as strengthening women s property rights may increase the ability of poor and vulnerable households to cope better with food price increases

the market for knowledge brokers a widely used policy to diminish the market failure on the market for innovations is the provision of rd ii obtaining research proposals iii monitoring the research efforts and iv disseminating the research results it can be expected that creation of such a market yields a better match between demand and supply on the market for r d yields a higher quality research product for a given price and that it increases the dissemination of research results

is public r d a complement or substitute for private r d a review of the econometric evidence is public r d spending complementary and thus additional to private r d spending or does it substitute for and tend to crowd out private r d conflicting answers are given to this question we survey the body of available econometric evidence accumulated over the past 35 years a framework for analysis of the problem is developed to help organize and summarize the findings of econometric studies based on time series and cross section data from various levels of aggregation laboratory firm industry country the findings overall are ambivalent and the existing literature as a whole is subject to the criticism that the nature of the experiment s that the investigators envisage is not adequately specified we conclude by offering suggestions for improving future empirical research on this issue

asymmetric non separation and rural labor markets abstract this paper develops and implements a test that provides insight into the state of rural labor markets the test is based on a theoretical link between a shortage or surplus in the labor market and asymmetric responses to changes in household composition we develop auxiliary tests to distinguish other market imperfections from labor market imperfections and provide evidence that most changes in household composition are exogenous to local labor market conditions we implement the test using data from ethiopia malawi tanzania and uganda the overall pattern is one of excess labor supply in rural areas with heterogeneity across cultivation phases genders and agro ecological zones surplus labor is most evident during low intensity cultivation phases in ethiopia there is suggestive evidence that credit constraints create a de facto labor shortage for poorer households there is also evidence of partial gender segmentation in rural labor markets

equity ownership in international joint ventures the impact of source country factors this study examines the impact of four source country factors on the equity ownership in international joint ventures ijvs these factors are exchange rate cost of borrowing export capability and management orientation based on a sample of 8 078 ijvs in china this study shows that equity ownership tends to be higher for parent firms from a source country with strong currency low cost of borrowing strong export capability and high uncertainty avoidance

changes needed in agricultural policy for female headed farm families in tropical africa abstract the decline in per capita agricultural production has been reversed somewhat in tropical africa by the structural adjustment programs which have increased producer prices liberalized marketing and devalued currencies but the 30 of smallholder farm households which are female headed will not be assisted much due to their special constraints of shortages of labor and credit lack of extension visits and appropriate labor saving technologies for these households the authors argue improved extension services credit for agricultural inputs small ruminant animals and poultry labor saving devices and craft inputs will be necessary to increase their incomes and levels of living

financing renewable energy in africa key challenge of the sustainable development goals abstract given the challenge of offering a development perspective to a rapidly growing population it might be tempting for africa to pursue a strategy of fueling growth with the cheapest source of energy available and take care of the environment later such an approach however would disregard the social cost of fossil fuels which the population would have to bear using the sustainable development goals as a benchmark for inclusive and sustainable growth we identify the synergy effects provided by renewable energy already substantial efforts of financing the additional cost of re are under way an analysis of possible leverage points available instruments and involved actors shows that there remains a large additional potential

coase revisited business groups in the modern economy ronald coase s celebrated query as to why economic actors typically aggregate into entities called firms rather than transacting as individuals in a market has engendered a vigorous stream of research this paper asks a parallel question why is it that in all modern economies firms themselves aggregate into larger entities often more stable than any literature predicts which are here referred to as business groups after establishing some working definitions and discussing the curious conjunction of empirical importance and analytical invisibility of business groups an attempt is made to establish the most significant dimensions along which such groups vary we end with some speculations on the role of these groups in economic development copyright 1995 by oxford university press

the role of acquisition of foreign technology in taiwanese growth this article argues that one source of taiwan s exceptionally rapid growth rate in value added per worker in manufacturing was its ability to tap the accumulated technology of more advanced industrial nations the impact of technology embodied in new equipment is quantified the role of knowledge transfers from purchasers of exports consultants technology licensing agreements returning taiwanese nationals educated abroad and foreign direct investment is documented it is argued that considerable local effort was expended to assimilate successfully the transferred technology copyright 2001 by oxford university press

mode of international entry an isomorphism perspective the determination of entry modes is examined using an institutional theory framework two sources of isomorphic pressures affect a strategic business unit s sbu entry mode choice 1 host country institutional environment and 2 internal institutional environment the parent organization sbus were hypothesized to adopt similar organizational forms structures policies and practices thus becoming isomorphic based on felt pressures to conform to behavioral norms within the environments the results indicated that sbus using wholly owned entry modes demonstrated high levels of internal parent isomorphism those using exporting joint ventures or licensing agreements demonstrated external isomorphism and those using multiple or mixed entry mode demonstrated low levels of isomorphic pressures

japanese investors choice of joint ventures versus wholly owned subsidiaries in the us the role of market barriers and firm capabilities this study analyzes how market barriers and firm capabilities affect multinationals choice of joint ventures versus wholly owned subsidiaries abroad in the study we compile a vector of variables that distinguish between industry specific barriers and firm specific capabilities to analyze japanese investors ownership decisions in the us our results in general support the hypothesis that japanese investors facing high market barriers in the target industry are more likely to choose joint ventures while those possessing strong competitive capabilities are more likely to set up wholly owned subsidiaries specifically marketing variables are more influential than technological factors in determining the choice of partial versus full ownership these findings however vary across sub samples that represent low versus high tech industries and consumer versus industrial products

matching demand and supply in the agricultural knowledge infrastructure experiences with innovation intermediaries abstract the privatization of agricultural research and extension establishments worldwide has led to the development of a market for services designed to support agricultural innovation however due to market and systemic failures both supply side and demand side parties in this market have experienced constraints in effecting transactions and establishing the necessary relationships to engage in demand driven innovation processes to mitigate these constraints a field of intermediary organizations has emerged to assist agricultural entrepreneurs to articulate demand forge linkages with those that can provide innovation support services and manage innovation processes this article aims to give an overview of the different kinds of the so called innovation intermediaries that have emerged in the netherlands and to report on their contributions and the tensions that are being experienced with regard to their functioning the article concludes with a discussion in which it is argued that the state should play a role as a market facilitator by funding such innovation intermediaries

the ownership structure contingency in the sequential international entry mode decision process family owners and institutional investors in family dominant versus family influenced firms extending our understanding of family firms and international business research with respect to entry mode decisions this study explains how entry mode choice is the product of a sequential decision making process with an important ownership structure contingency we propose that firms with a dominant family owner family dominant firms prefer low equity ownership as their entry mode for the purpose of preserving their socioemotional wealth their preference is persistent even when the institutional investors are the dominant shareholders in the firm family influenced firms this nuanced examination of the role family values play in the entry mode decision extends our understanding of how family firms enter international markets

impacts of structural adjustment programs on african women farmers and female headed households the structural adjustment programs saps initiated by the international monetary fund imf and the world bank and supported by donors are stimulating many tropical african economies through an infusion of foreign exchange increased agricultural prices devaluation of overvalued currencies improved marketing policies trade liberalization and increased competition from the private sector recently however debates about the pros and cons of saps have ensued

estimating the performance effects of business groups in emerging markets business groups confederations of legally independent firms are ubiquitous in emerging economies yet very little is known about their effects on the performance of affiliated firms we conceive of business groups as responses to market failures and high transaction costs in doing so we develop hypotheses about the effects of group affiliation on firm profitability affiliation could either boost or depress firm profitability and members of a group are likely to earn rates of return similar to other members of the same group using a unique data set compiled largely from local sources we test for these effects in 14 emerging markets argentina brazil chile india indonesia israel mexico peru the philippines south africa south korea taiwan thailand and turkey we find evidence that business groups indeed affect the broad patterns of economic performance in 12 of the markets we examine group affiliation appears to have as profound an effect on profitability as does industry membership yet strategy scholars have a much clearer grasp of industries than of groups moreover membership in a group raises the profitability of the average group member in several of the markets we examine this runs contrary to the wisdom conventional in advanced economies that unrelated diversification depresses profitability overall our findings suggest that the roots of sustained differences in profitability may vary across institutional contexts conclusions drawn in one context may well not apply to another copyright 2001 john wiley sons ltd

the effect of national culture on the choice of entry mode characteristics of national cultures have frequently been claimed to influence the selection of entry modes this article investigates this claim by developing a theoretical argument for why culture should influence the choice of entry two hypotheses are derived which relate culture to entry mode choice one focusing on the cultural distance between countries the other on attitudes towards uncertainty avoidance using a multinomial logit model and controlling for other effects the hypotheses are tested by analysing data on 228 entries into the united states market by acquisition wholly owned greenfield and joint venture empirical support for the effect of national culture on entry choice is found

anatomy of a crisis the causes and consequences of surging food prices although the potential causes and consequences of recent rising international food prices have attracted widespread attention many existing appraisals are superficial and or piecemeal this article attempts to provide a more comprehensive review of these issues based on the best and most recent research as well as on fresh theoretical and empirical analysis we first analyze the causes of the current crisis by considering how well standard explanations hold up against relevant economic theory and important stylized facts some explanations turn out to hold up much better than others especially rising oil prices the depreciation of the u s dollar biofuels demand and some commodity specific explanations we then provide an appraisal of the likely macro and microeconomic impacts of the crisis on developing countries we observe a large gap between macro and micro factors which when identifying the most vulnerable countries often point in different directions we conclude with a brief discussion of what ought to be learned from this crisis

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

the social construction of market value institutionalization and learning perspectives on stock market reactions this study advances a social constructionist view of financial market behavior the paper suggests that the market s reaction to particular corporate practices such as stock repurchase plans are not as financial economists contend simply a function of the inherent efficiency of such practices rather stock market reactions are also influenced by the prevailing institutional logic and the degree of institutionalization of the practice the theory first predicts that the emergence of the agency perspective on corporate governance in the mid 1980s represented a powerful new institutional logic that would lead the market to reverse its prior aggregate reaction to stock repurchase plans in the united states the paper then considers the potential for institutional decoupling of repurchase plans and develops competing hypotheses about how the market value of these policies might have changed as more firms formally adopted but did not implement the plans over time in contrast to a financial economic pers

transactions cost economics and the multinational enterprise an assessment abstract this paper applies transactions cost principles to the multinational enterprise in order to ascertain its distinctive properties as a mode of economic organization the analysis helps identify just when and where contractual alternatives to the multinational firm are likely to be viable this turns out to depend upon the nature of the technology the regime of appropriability within which the firm operates and the characteristics of the markets in question transactions cost analysis is also extended to the multinational enterprise host country relationship implications for management and public policy are derived

legal origins corporate governance and environmental outcomes environmental governance has emerged as a recent perspective to explain the link between corporate governance mechanisms and environmental performance such as pollution reduction we extend current models by incorporating the crucial role of the underlying institutional logics in terms of an a priori focus on either shareholder rights or stakeholder inclusion which in turn can be traced back to the legal origin of a specific country using data on a sample of common and civil law countries we find support for our predictions that a shareholder focused common law legal origin is associated with significantly higher emissions of co2 and also that international environmental agreements like the kyoto protocol seem to have a more pronounced effect in shareholder centric economies than thus far assumed

cross cultural differences and joint venture longevity in this paper we test whether national cross cultural differences between joint venture jv parents affect jv longevity by comparing that of two categories of jvs placed in the same environment those between two or more japanese parents on one hand and those between japanese and american parents on the other carefully controlling for other factors that may affect jv longevity we find that the longevity of japanese american jvs is lower than that of japanese japanese jvs such effects however appear only for dissolutions that result from the sale of the venture to one of the partners not for those due to liquidation or sale to a third party

the impact of food price increases on caloric intake in china world food prices have increased dramatically in recent years we use panel data from 2006 to examine the impact of these increases on the consumption and nutrition of poor households in two chinese provinces we find that households in hunan suffered no nutrition declines households in gansu experienced a small decline in calories though the decline is on par with usual seasonal effects the overall nutritional impact of the world price increase was small because households were able to substitute to cheaper foods and because the domestic prices of staple foods remained low due to government intervention in grain markets

how do corporate governance model differences affect foreign direct investment in emerging economies this study examines the impact of national corporate governance models on inward foreign direct investment fdi in emerging economies we consider three potential mechanisms and conduct an empirical test of how family ownership and control in large group affiliated firms in taiwan affect joint venture investment from us and japanese firms during the period 1988 1998 results support the neo institutional perspective of fdi developed in this study the home country corporate governance models are likely to shape foreign firms choice of local partners

is a turnaround in africa possible without helping african women to farm a turnaround in africa is not possible in the short run of at least 1 decade without helping women farmers with hand hoes gain equal access to basic agricultural inputs and resources this is so because women are such active participants in farming it is estimated that for 82 countries women constitute 46 of the agricultural labor force in sub saharan africa and 31 of the force in north africa and the middle east in the long run however a turnaround is possible without helping women to farm because women farmers will be displaced as agricultural intensification occurs but because the intensification process will be extremely uneven both within and between african countries the displacement of women farmers will also be uneven thus their displacement will be blocked or slowed down in regions with sufficient land resources and land extensive family systems extensive male out migration lack of control of animal diseases or the presence of gender neutral incentives to produce in conclusion women farmers in these regions will still be the norm while those in other regions will be displaced as intensification required by a turnaround proceeds to insure that women farmers are not displaced policy planners at international national and local levels should communicate with technical experts and extension specialists about the need to incorporate women as agricultural producers with full access to yield increasing inputs in development projects

aspects of r d subsidization it is well known that the market fails to provide the socially optimal level of r d expenditure because of the public properties of information see arrow 1963 and usher 1964 in the frictionless perfectly competitive market with no barriers to the use of information the market will provide no r d investment one widely used policy approach to deal with this appropriability problem is patent protection which temporarily assigns the property right to the patented information for some period of time investment in r d can be further stimulated through subsidization though issues in patent protection have been extensively discussed in the literature see nordhaus 1967 1972 scherer 1972 stiglitz 1969 and romano forthcoming the economics of r d subsidization have been largely ignored in spite of its frequent use as a policy tool 1 the purpose of this paper is to explore the usefulness of r d subsidization in markets where patent protection is available with the opportunity to secure a patent firms will have an incentive to invest in r d however only in exceptional circumstances will the market produce the socially optimal r d outlay subsidization can be a useful supplemental policy tool the usefulness of r d subsidization depends on a number of variables including the length of the patent life the character of competition for the patent and on the extent of any excess burdens associated with subsidization our focus is on how optimal subsidization is affected by these variables it is shown that when there is monopoly in the research market the optimal subsidy is always positive no matter how long is the finite patent life or how high is any finite excess burden associated with subsidization in contrast when there are no barriers to entering the research market the optimal subsidy is zero if the patent life is long or the excess burden is high moreover

do countries matter for voluntary disclosure evidence from cross listed firms in the us this paper explores the likelihood and consequences of voluntary disclosure proxied by management earnings forecasts for a sample of 1005 cross listed firms in the us from 40 countries over the period 1996 2005 our study is grounded in a three tiered conceptual framework that relies on insights from and implications of institutional theory agency theory and bonding theory to explain the costs and benefits associated with voluntary disclosure consistent with institutional theory and agency theory our results indicate that disclosure likelihood increases with the strength of cross listed firms home country legal institutions and is also influenced by us listing type product market internationalization and ownership structure further our results show that voluntarily committing to us disclosure practice is associated with lower information asymmetry which supports reputational bonding theory overall our study provides a costs and benefits framework to understand voluntary disclosure practices in an international context our work also presents evidence that home country institutions still matter when foreign firms migrate into the us financial market which highlights the importance of country level institution development

rising food prices and coping strategies household level evidence from afghanistan this paper investigates the impact of rising wheat prices on household food security in afghanistan exploiting a unique nationally representative household survey the authors find evidence of large declines in the real value of per capita food consumption smaller price elasticities with respect to calories than with respect to food consumption suggest that households trade off quality for quantity as they move away from nutrient rich foods such as meat and vegetables toward staple foods the authors work improves upon country level simulation studies by providing estimates of actual household food security during a price shock in one of the world s poorest most food insecure countries

optimal incentive contracts with multiple agents abstract a setting in which a single principal contracts with two agents who possess perfect private information about their own productivity is considered with correlated productivities each agent s private information also provides a signal about the other agent s productivity in contrast to the setting in which there is only one agent it is shown that such private information may be of no value to the agents it is only if the agents are risk averse that their private information may allow them to command rents moreover when the agents are constrained only to reveal their private information truthfully as a nash equilibrium the pareto optimal incentive scheme may induce the agents to adopt strategies other than truth telling this leads to the consideration of truth telling equilibria that are not pareto dominated in the subgame played by the agents among all such equilibria the one preferred by the principal restricts one agent to tell the truth as a dominant strategy and the other as a nash response to truth

a clash of capitalisms foreign shareholders and corporate restructuring in 1990s japan this article examines the clash between stakeholder and shareholder based business systems resulting from an increase in foreign portfolio investment in the japanese economy during the 1990s an analysis of 1 108 firms between 1991 and 2000 shows that as foreign institutional investors who were more interested in investment returns than in long term relationships replaced domestic shareholders one fundamental pillar of japan s stakeholder capitalism began to crack japanese firms began to adopt downsizing and asset divestiture practices more characteristic of anglo american shareholder economies the influence of foreigners however was weaker in firms more deeply embedded in the local system through close ties to domestic financial institutions and corporate groups thus foreign investors were influential primarily in firms less embedded in the existing stakeholder system this research contributes to debates on globalization and convergence of business systems institutional change and corporate

the impact of food inflation on urban poverty and its monetary cost some back of the envelope calculations this paper uses a sample of 73 developing countries to estimate the change in the cost of alleviating urban poverty brought about by the recent increase in food prices this cost is approximated by the change in the poverty deficit that is the variation in financial resources required to eliminate poverty under perfect targeting the results show that for most countries the cost represents less than 0 1 percent of gross domestic product however in the most severely affected it may exceed 3 percent in all countries the change in the poverty deficit is mostly due to the negative real income effect of those households that were poor before the price shock while the cost attributable to new households falling into poverty is negligible thus in countries where transfer mechanisms with effective targeting already exist the most cost effective strategy would be to scale up such programs rather than designing tools to identify the new poor

the determinants of mne subsidiaries political strategies evidence of institutional duality in this study we develop and test a model of the determinants of political strategies used by foreign subsidiaries of multinational enterprises mnes using recent theoretical advances in institutional theory that recognize that mne subsidiaries are confronted with pressures for isomorphism within the corporation internal legitimacy and within the host country external legitimacy we integrate international business and political strategy literatures to create a multilevel model of subsidiary host country and parent determinants of political strategy our hypotheses are tested using survey and archival data from western european subsidiaries of us mnes

the gender dimensions of economic adjustment policies potential interactions and evidence to date abstract many developing countries have implemented stabilization and structural adjustment programs over the last 20 years the success of these programs depends critically on individual level responses to changing economic incentives access to control of and an ability to move productive economic resources between sectors is determined in part by gender if an individual s gender impedes their ability to fully participate in the economic adjustment process by inhibiting resource access control or movement adjustment will be impaired this paper discusses the potential gender dimensions of structural adjustment policies and examines the evidence to dale

dared to care organizational vulnerability institutional logics and mncs social responsiveness in emerging markets a significant gap exists in our understanding of what explains the varying responses of multinational corporations mncs to social issues in emerging markets arguably in a setting where both market institutions and regulations and norms of corporate social responsibility are underdeveloped it is more difficult for corporations to take actions beyond those that serve their immediate economic interests proposing a social movement perspective on mncs responsiveness to social issues in emerging markets we identify the mechanisms by which online activists grab firms attention and force them to become more socially responsive a perception of organizational vulnerability and a home country institutional logic that is consistent with the demands of the online campaign provide political opportunity structures that hasten the corporate response but affect the magnitude of firm response differently we test our framework in the empirical context of corporate philanthropic action following the 2008 earthquake in sichuan province in china which triggered an online campaign that questioned mncs donations to the disaster relief effort our study contributes to the literature on heterogeneous organizational responses to social movements a better understanding of the antecedents for mncs social responsiveness in emerging markets and research on mncs

household level consumption in urban ethiopia the effects of a large food price shock summary we use survey data to investigate how urban households in ethiopia coped with the food price shock in 2008 qualitative data indicate that the high food price inflation was by far the most adverse economic shock between 2004 and 2008 and that a significant proportion of households had to adjust food consumption in response regression results indicate that households with low asset levels and casual workers were particularly adversely affected by high food prices we interpret the results as pointing to the importance of growth in the formal sector so as to generate more well paid and stable jobs

the formation of japanese and u s equity joint ventures in china this study examines the characteristics of japanese and u s equity joint ventures ejvs in china over a 15 year period these ejvs were announced between 1979 and the end of 1993 substantial differences are found with respect to six key characteristics they are selection of the chinese partner selection of the second foreign partner when more than one foreign partner is involved foreign equity ownership foreign capital contribution ejv business scope and the ejv location tentative explanations for these differences are offered from the perspectives of risk orientation cultural similarities and the impact of political events in china 1997 by john wiley sons ltd

implications of higher global food prices for poverty in low income countries in many poor countries the recent increases in prices of staple foods raise the real incomes of those selling food many of whom are relatively poor while hurting net food consumers many of whom are also relatively poor the impacts on poverty will certainly be very diverse but the average impact on poverty depends upon the balance between these two effects and can only be determined by looking at real world data results using household data for ten observations on nine low income countries show that the short run impacts of higher staple food prices on poverty differ considerably by commodity and by country but that poverty increases are much more frequent and larger than poverty reductions the recent large increases in food prices appear likely to raise overall poverty in low income countries substantially

are remittances and foreign aid a hedge against food price shocks in developing countries this paper explores the role of remittances and foreign aid inflows during food price shocks the results yield four findings first low income countries and the sub saharan african region are the most vulnerable to food price shocks second remittance and aid inflows dampen the effect of positive food price shock and food price instability on household consumption in vulnerable countries third negative food price shock episodes are associated with a significant increase in household consumption in vulnerable countries fourth a lower remittance to gdp ratio is required in order to fully absorb the effects of food price shocks

price hike of staple food nutritional impact and consumption adjustment evidence from the 2005 2010 rice price increase in rural bangladesh this paper studies the nutritional impact of the rice price increase between 2005 and 2010 on households in rural bangladesh and their resulting adjustment in consumption of rice non rice food and

governance infrastructure and us foreign direct investment this paper examines the statistical importance of governance infrastructure as a determinant of us foreign direct investment fdi in broad terms governance infrastructure represents attributes of legislation regulation and legal systems that condition freedom of transacting security of property rights and transparency of government and legal processes our econometric analysis uses a two stage estimation procedure in the first stage the probability that a country is an fdi recipient is estimated the results indicate that countries that fail to achieve a minimum threshold of effective governance are unlikely to receive any us fdi countries that receive no us fdi are typically countries that do not promote free and transparent markets that have ineffective governments and that often have legal systems that are not rooted in english common law in the second stage the analysis is restricted to those countries that did receive fdi flows the estimated equations focus on the determinants of the amount of fdi received given that a country is a recipient of us fdi governance infrastructure including the nature of the legal system is an important determinant of the amount received

gender inequalities in ownership and control of land in africa myth and reality lack of clarity behind measurement and interpretation of statistics on gender and land leads to an inability to clearly articulate a policy response to the potential inequalities faced by women and men this article sets out to explore conceptually and empirically the levels and relative inequalities in land rights between women and men in african countries the first section of the article engages in a conceptual discussion of how to measure gendered land outcomes what ownership and control mean in different contexts and why attention to these factors is important for the development of gender and land statistics the second section of the article systematically reviews existing evidence from microlevel large sample studies to summarize recent trends in land access ownership and control by sex the third section presents new statistics from a variety of nationally representative and large scale unpublished data on gender and land in africa results provide not only a nuanced understanding of the importance of measuring land indicators for gendered development in africa and globally but also new statistics on a variety of land outcomes to aid stakeholders in the discussion of gender land inequalities

gender wage inequality and export led growth in south korea this article investigates the relationship between gender wage inequality and export led growth in south korea the persistent gender wage gap in korea s manufacturing sector is found to be linked to women s segregation in the country s major export industries where real wage growth has lagged productivity growth despite favorable market conditions that might drive up women s wages relative to those of men the interaction of state and firm level hiring training and promotion practices that structure women s and men s employment opportunities differently appear to have resulted in a relatively weaker fall back position for women in labour markets econometric results are consistent with the hypothesis that women s weaker fall back position limits their ability to bargain for wage increases commensurate with productivity growth further evidence is presented which links gender wage inequality to the growth of korean exports

public policy towards r d in oligopolistic industries the importance of determining optimal policy towards r d cannot be exaggerated given the worldwide interest in fostering r d and given the significant differences between european and u s policies towards interfirm cooperation on r d moreover the problem is an inherently difficult one because of the complex nature of the r d process since r d is a component of fixed costs industries where it is important tend to be concentrated hence r d policy must go hand in hand with competition policy at the same time r d is like any form of investment in that it precedes the production stage hence issues of time consistency and strategic commitment inevitably arise in considering the choice of r d policy finally r d by one firm typically leads to spillovers wbich benefit other firms so that r d exhibits many of the character department of economics university college dublin belfield dublin 4 ireiatid for helpful discussions and comments we are grateful to two anonymous referees to pedro bartos steve martin massimo motta and damien neven and to participants at seminars in birmingham st andrew s and warwick at a cepr workshop on r d spillovers in lausanne at erwit 94 in caslel gandolfo eea 95 in prague the 1996 conference on industrial economics at universidad carlos iii de madrid and a meeting of the dublin economics workshop this paper was produced as part of the international economic performance programme of the centre for economic performance london school of economics supported by the u k esrc an earlier version was circulated as cepr discussion paper no 1243 see alexis jacquemin 1988 and stephen martin 1996 istics of a public good albeit one that is mostly privately produced tbe degree to which such spillovers occur and can be internalized is another crucial influence on the desirable pattem of intervention