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This paper explores the role of profit distribution in the restructuring of the Swedish paper and pulp (P&P) industry between 1945 and 1977. In addressing this issue, we will draw on the life-cycle theory and market imperfection arguments to examine whether the less profitable firms shared more of their profits as dividends, or remained on the market longer by reinvesting the majority of the profits. Our study shows that an increasing share of the profits was distributed to owners over time, and thus less profit was reinvested in industrial renewal. We find that the observed general upward trend in dividends can be attributed to the decline in profit and firm legacy, as firms in the Swedish P&P industry kept dividends up while reducing reinvestment as their profit margins decreased over time. Our study shows that the market imperfections related to capital taxation and investment funds increased rather than decreased dividends. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To enable you to remain competitive in future, you must already start to focus your company on the task of meeting the challenges that are emerging from development trends stretching back over several years and which are becoming more apparent all the time. These trends are leading to increasing levels of complexity, dynamism and uncertainty in the corporate environment. This paper is an attempt to highlight these technological and structural developments, frequently referred to as megatrends: changes of a fundamental nature with far-reaching implications for the economy and society with attendant opportunities and threats to industry. One focal point of this paper will therefore be the fundamental developments in the microelectronics sector and their wider implications, which will necessarily lead to a consideration of the technologies of IT and telecommunications. Another aspect receiving attention here will be the problems facing industry in the wake of structural change of this magnitude as well as the key measures adopted to enable industry to cope with these problems successfully. This will demonstrate that structural change is not due solely to the increasing level of globalization of world business. Indeed, it will be shown that other significant influencing factors are to be found in the trend moving us from an information society to a knowledge society, and in the transition from an industrial society to one based on services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including human capital in Great Britain, industry renewal and restructuring in Sweden during the post-war era, and profit distribution in the restructuring of the Swedish pulp and paper industry.

The author highlights the Academy of Marketing Conference 2015: The Magic in Market (AM2015) which explored the dimensions of marketing that are magical ranging from the cabbalistic to the fantastical and from the astonishing to the preternatural. He presents the final 11 papers for the special conference issue of the "Journal of Marketing Management" whose topics include an assessment of the roles of fantastical themes in the stories of marketing practitioners.

The article announces that Denis Stijepic and Helmut Wagner have won the Best Paper prize for 2018 for the paper "Impacts of intermediate trade on sector structures."

In this paper, we devise a framework for obtaining the optimal ordering policy in a single location, continuous-review inventory system with arbitrary inter-demand times. We show that it is optimal to order at demand arrival epochs only if the inter-demand time has a constant or decreasing failure rate. When the inter-demand time has an increasing failure rate, we show that the optimal policy is to delay the order. We then extend this policy to multi-echelon distribution systems consisting of one supplier and many retailers. Both decentralized and centralized systems are considered. We derive expressions and procedures for the evaluation of the total cost and the computation of optimal delay in all the considered settings. More importantly, we study the impact of our delay policy in all the settings. The numerical results indicate that for the single-location model, the optimal delay can significantly reduce the total cost. Results from the single-location model can be applied to the decentralized multi-echelon system, where the upstream supplier acts as a single-location system. The supplier order delay can also have a significant impact (either positive or negative) on the retailers' total cost as well as the system's total costs. Finally, the impact of supplier order delay is minimal in the centralized multi-echelon setting. We offer an intuitive explanation for this observation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A general review is presented of the roles of QSARs and mass balance models as tools for assessing the environmental fate and effects of chemicals of commerce. It is argued that all such chemicals must be assessed using a consistent and transparent methodology that uses chemical property data derived from QSARs, or experimental determinations when possible and applies evaluative or region-specific environmental models. These data and models enable an assessment to be made of the key chemical features of persistence, bioaccumulation, potential for long-range transport and toxicity. The other key feature is quantity used or discharged to the environment. A taxonomy of environmental models is presented in which it is suggested that rather than develop a single comprehensive model, the aim should be to establish a set of coordinated and consistent models treating evaluative and real environmental systems at a variety of scales from local to global and including food web models, organism-specific models and human exposure and pharmacokinetic models. The concentrations derived from these models can then be compared with levels judged to be of toxic significance. A brief account is given of perceived QSAR needs in terms of partitioning, reactivity, transport and toxicity data to support these models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigates the validity of the degree of Intra-Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) trade pattern in the pulp and paper trade between Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Ways of solving the raw material problem in the pulp industry; Share of Soviet wood in pulpwood requirements; Analysis of trade flows in the paper trade exports; Statistical data on paper production and consumption of Eastern Europe.

The article announces a call for papers for a special issue of the periodical concerning "Human Resource Management (HRM) in the Middle East: toward a greater understanding." Topics include the scarcity of HRM literature in the Middle East, and a request for papers addressing such topics as cross-cultural comparisons of HRM systems in the Middle East region, research investigating the impact of government intervention on staffing strategies, and diversity policies in the Middle East. Additional information about the periodical's paper review process is mentioned along with the submission deadline and notification dates.

This paper uncovers a hitherto unnoticed pattern of communal segregation among establishments located in some of Delhi's most important bazars. It demonstrates that this pattern, emerging between 1913 and 1932, was driven by structural features of the ways in which Delhi's trade and retail interacted with communal violence in the 1920s. Those features include the dislocating effects of communal violence on bazars. More strident political activity by merchants, however, was important fuel to this fire. Merchants did not, also, restrict themselves to repeating communal tropes developed elsewhere. Their self-organisation gave shape to a conception of 'Hindu' and 'Muslim' trades. Rather than see a communal 'pre-Partition' in the 1930s, this evidence suggests that communal segregation was already well on the rise in the 1920s. Business as usual, then, was a source of deepening communal antagonisms rather than, as is sometimes assumed, a source of everyday bonhomie. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Business entities do not often include terms in commercial agreements unless those terms are relevant and are designed to maximise the gains of the parties to the agreement. To realise their reasonable and legitimate expectations, they expect that contractual terms and promises would be respected by the parties and courts. There is a growing body of literature suggesting that Nigerian courts are not giving maximum effects to foreign jurisdiction clauses (FJC). What is largely missing from the scholarly contributions is that no one has worked out a principled solution to overcome this conundrum. This article significantly contributes to the existing literature through an empirical analysis of Nigerian appellate court decisions on FJCs with a view to gaining deeper insights into the attitude of Nigerian courts to FJCs. Compared to the US where the national average of enforcement is 74%, a 40% rate for Nigeria does not project Nigeria as a pro-business forum. This outlook can potentially disincentivise cross-border trade and commerce between Nigeria and the rest of the world. To address this problem, the paper proceeds by presenting a normative framework, built principally on economic and contract theories, for enforcing FJCs. As most of the cases are B2B transactions, the paper invites the courts to treat FJCs and arbitration clauses equally and to replace forum non conveniens considerations with a more principled approach which limits non-enforcement to overriding policy, and a strong cause that is defined by reasonableness and foreseeability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper, building upon the papers included in this special section ofAccounting in EuropeonCorporate reporting in CEE countriesand on our knowledge of the region, is to broaden out and open up dialogue and debate about how local institutions are evolving and impact the corporate reporting practices in this under-researched region. We begin by discussing the institutional context for conducting research on corporate reporting by entities in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), within the broader context of emerging, transitional economies. We also reflect on how research conducted on CEE countries can make a relevant contribution to the international literature, and exemplify by summarizing the research questions and findings of the papers included in the special section. A future research agenda emerges, given the gaps in the international literature and the future research implications suggested in the papers constituting the special section. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Starting a newspaper in the nineteenth century was a risky business, and this was especially true in the Civil War South where invading armies, spiraling inflation, and conscription laws were constant threats to physical facilities, financial success, and manpower Despite this, North Carolina Governor Zebulon B. Vance and the state's Conservative political party found the money and the will to establish a new daily to support the his re-election bid in 1864. Campaign papers were common in the 1800s, but while most shut down following an election, the Conservative continued to publish after Vance won. Records and archives document how it was financed, equipped, and staffed, providing an unprecedented glimpse into what it took to start a newspaper not only in the nineteenth century but during America's bloodiest war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides commerce PhD students with advice on how to structure research proposals. In particular, the paper addresses the question: How should a PhD candidate in entrepreneurship (or another commerce discipline) present a research proposal? The paper guides students through the various stages of proposal writing. Firstly, the fundamental aspects of business research and their implications on postgraduate research proposals are discussed. Secondly, the focus of the paper turns to presenting some common proposal evaluation criteria used. Thirdly, the structure and components of a proposal are explained and specific guidance on how to present each component of the proposal is provided. The paper concludes by discussing technical aspects of academic writing including language, references and plagiarism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shareholder value ideology and the rise of executive pay are widely acknowledged but only partly explored aspects of financialization. This paper adds to the empirical evidence on the extent to which stock-based pay incentivizes and rewards corporate executives, demonstrating that CEO pay, and hence pay inequality, is substantially under-stated in Europe. It shows that the actual realized gains (that is, take-home compensation) from stock-based pay of CEOs in the largest European companies are underestimated by the use of 'fair value' measures, in the case of some countries dramatically. We base our work on a sample of 301 large, publicly-traded companies listed in the S&P Europe 350 index from 11 EU countries. We document that on average half of the total compensation of the European CEOs in our sample is stock-based, measured by actual realized gains, with differences among countries. Based on our work, we argue that realized gains measures of CEO pay should be the standard for assessing the incentives and rewards of senior corporate executives in Europe. We consider this to be a preliminary step to question shareholder value-based corporate strategies in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Christianisation, commerce and civilisation (3Cs) as strategies of European imperialist movements and considers the impact such endeavour made on Nigeria's enslavement. Using the historical method, the paper argues that the methods of the 3Cs adopted by the colonial imperialist, though with some positive impacts, eroded Nigeria's socio-cultural and politico-economic heritage and consequently breeds the foundation for socio-cultural and politico-economic slavery in contemporary Nigerian society. Specifically, the paper interrogates how the 3Cs fuel some forms of slavery in contemporary Nigeria. By so doing, this paper will contribute to African postcolonial studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extant studies on the relationship between 'domestic institutions, comparative advantage, and international specialization' have primarily focused on formal institutions. This paper contributes to this literature by focusing on domestic informal contracting institutions vis-á-vis generalized trust as a source of comparative advantage. Employing a bilateral industry trade data, the paper finds robust evidence that countries with high generalized trust level export relatively more in industries that are prone to contractual frictions. Results on export margins further suggest that countries with a high generalized trust level enter more markets, ship more products to each destination, and have higher export per product and export intensities in those industries. On the one hand, the results reemphasize the importance of trust for improved economic performance. On the other hand, the results explain why a country endowed with weak formal domestic contracting institutions may still have a comparative cost advantage in contract intensive industries due to having strong domestic informal institutions such as generalized trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing evidence emphasizes the important role of network effects on bilateral trade. This paper proposes a new factor – dialect difference, which decreases social network across regions, may increase transaction costs and thus shape interregional trade pattern. Taking China as an example, we use a gravity model considering network effects and provincial data from 1997 to 2009 to examine the effect of dialect difference on intra-national trade. We find that dialect difference has a significantly negative effect on interprovincial trade. Moreover, this paper explores the time dimension of the effect of dialect difference. We find that the negative effects of dialect difference on trade have been diminishing over time. Migration and the promotion of Mandarin have increased interregional cultural connections and thus mitigated the negative effects of dialect difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing openness contributes to economic growth in developing countries, but the endogeneity problem impedes drawing this conclusion. This paper uses the constructed trade share to circumvent the effects of endogeneity according to a method proposed by Frankel and Romer. The results demonstrate that increasing openness has a positive impact on provinces' GDP and GDP per capita. In addition, an increase in lagged openness is beneficial for present economic growth, and even openness gained many years ago, which is measured by the number of treaty ports, makes a difference in present economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editor discusses an article on retailing in Europe by Steve Burt, the article by Ray Serpkenci on retailing trends in North America, and an article by Guillermo D'Andrea on retail modernisation in Latin America.

Although the empirical findings on the impact of exchange rate volatility on trade is diverse, the growing consensus in the literature appears to suggest that for developing economies, the theoretically expected negative relationship almost always exists. The paper takes a different approach to empirically assess this relationship by analysing the impact of exchange rate volatility independently on total trade, imports and exports. The intuition behind this approach is to assess exactly how exporters and importers are incentivised (differently or similarly) by exchange rate volatility costs. Whereas adequately risk-aversed Ghanaian exporters in the presence of higher exchange rate volatility and the absence of hedging facilities effectively compensated against exchange rate risk by increasing volume of exports, import decisions were to some extent (although not effectively) negatively affected by exchange rate volatility. The different responses by Ghanaian exporters and importers to higher exchange rate volatility costs are reflected in the relationship between volatility and total trade. The useful policy lessons and the challenges that the empirical evidence present are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the optimal production decisions of a self-pricing manufacturer and the optimal cap-setting decisions of a regulator under the cap-and-trade regulation. The objectives of the manufacturer and the regulator are to maximize profit and to maximize social welfare, respectively. We first derive the optimal production decisions and the corresponding total emissions of the manufacturer, with given parameters of the cap-and-trade regulation. Based on these results, we then solve the optimal cap-setting problem of the regulator. Furthermore, through sensitive analyses, we show that as the emissions intensity (i.e., the emissions generated from one unit of product) increases, both the optimal total emissions and the optimal cap first increase and then decrease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to understand why the United States treated Japan and Korea differently in the revisions of bilateral nuclear cooperation agreements. On the sensitive issue of grating its allies the rights of developing enrichment and reprocessing (ENR), the United States did so for Japan in the 1977 and 1987 revisions, but did not for Korea during the 2015 revision. For the great power as a supplier state, there are two factors affecting the decision: policy-makers’ concern about alliance management prior to the calculation of security outcome, and firms’ commercial interests. In order to avoid damage to the US–Japan alliance and to maintain Japan's complementation for the US nuclear industry, Washington granted the rights of ENR to Tokyo. In contrast, because of its confidence of managing the US–Korea alliance and partly because of incompatibility of commercial interests between the two, Washington did not grant the rights to Seoul at the 2015 revision. Based on the comparison of the two cases, this paper underscores a need to alter the power projection theory regarding nuclear proliferation by explicating the alliance management as the ex ante element of power projection and by accounting for commercial interests such as fuel sale and technological partnership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper measures the impact of South African minimum wages on small and large firm employment in a sector that is exposed to international competition (agriculture) and one that is not (retail). Small farm employment is most vulnerable to minimum wage legislation. In contrast, large farm employment was shielded from employment losses. While this shift represents a short-run response to minimum wages, it may intensify the long-run movement towards fewer, larger, and more capital-intensive farms. Retail employment experienced no changes in employment, regardless of firm size. These results are in line with the idea that firms exposed to international markets cannot easily increase prices when their employees' wages increase while non-tradable sectors can more readily shift the burden of higher labour costs onto consumers by increasing prices. Implementation of a uniform national minimum wage ignores this type of heterogeneity, and could lead to intra-industry changes in concentration and inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature has suggested formulas for trade restrictiveness index of tariffs based on second-order approximation. This paper shows that in a special case of the constant-elasticity-of-substitution (CES) preference the trade restrictiveness index of non-tariff barriers can be derived explicitly without using approximation and is simply the weighted (σ − 1) th-power average of non-tariff barriers, where σ is the elasticity of substitution and the weights are the observed expenditure shares of imported goods. Numerical simulations show that the proposed index accurately measures the aggregate of non-tariff barriers while other indices have persistent measurement errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Cap and trade" is one of the most innovative policy options developed by environmental economists. By placing a cap on a social bad and allowing firms to buy and sell the right to generate it, policymakers combine government intervention with market-based incentives to improve welfare and internalize the externality. Such programs represent a great opportunity for instructors to show students how economic theory is used in the real world. Students can learn several important tenets of economics by playing an in-class game based on musical chairs, which creates a market for pollution using a mobile app or paper-based interaction. This active learning method engages students and improves comprehension of price formation, gains from trade, voluntary response to incentives, and an important environmental policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few papers have investigated the trade effects of multi-memberships of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs), but none has done this in an Africa-wide manner. This paper investigates the supplementary trade effects of multi-memberships of RTAs after controlling for single-membership for all African RTAs. We use (1) overall number of RTAs by country pair; (2) dummies of number of RTAs; and (3) number of RTA memberships by countries within each RTA grouping, in a panel of 53 African countries from 1995 to 2014. The gravity models are estimated with the Eicker-White robust covariance Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood (PPML) which is superior to previous ones. All the estimates concur that multi-memberships have significant additional intra-Africa trade benefits which increase with the number of memberships. The implication is that although RTAs enhance trade in Africa, it is only a second-best to a complete integration of the African continent. A complete dismantling of politically induced trade barriers and even inter-RTA boundaries within Africa will yield significant intra-Africa trade benefits. The results support the ongoing efforts in Africa in pursuing a "one Africa" vision. Such efforts have to transcend regional integration and pursue the ideal of an integrated Africa for the full trade benefits to be realized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment (CPFR) programmes seek to improve the ability to anticipate and satisfy future demand by enhancing collaboration among companies within the supply network. Despite the existence of a detailed and comprehensive process model—published by the Voluntary Interindustry Commerce Standards Committee—in practice CPFR can take a number of different forms. This paper aims to investigate differences in CPFR implementation as to the type of inter-company collaboration put into practice, and the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and coordination mechanisms adopted to perform CPFR. Moreover, it seeks to analyse the relationships between these dimensions in order to comprehend and explain the rationale behind the managerial choices that lead companies to implement different CPFR configurations. The multiple-case study method is adopted to investigate the research questions. In particular, the implementation of CPFR in seven supply networks is examined. This research identifies six types of collaboration that can be performed to implement CPFR. Then, using this taxonomy as its starting point, it accounts for differences in the adoption of the ICTs and coordination mechanisms necessary to support CPFR. The paper's conclusions summarize the research's main theoretical and managerial contributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents several papers related developments in economics as realist social theory. According to the author, social theory expressly committed to work out the nature of social being, and, or how people access social reality is going through something of a revival in economics. The papers presented, provide numerous results, arguments, conjectures, and critiques have been produced in recent years, and aim to take some of these specific developments further. Context of the papers and basic ideas and results are presented.

The purpose of this paper is to study how clustering affects the results of operations of small and medium hospitality enterprises (SMHEs) in Croatia and to support SMHEs tend to cluster, forming critical masses in one place, to take advantage of synergies such as increased productivity, a higher pace of innovation and in essence the possibility of becoming more competitive. What are clusters and in what way do they increase business performance and the competitiveness are frequently asked questions. The paper presents the results of the impact of clustering in SMHEs in the Republic of Croatia on business performance. The special focus is given to financial and non-financial indicators that are significant for measuring business performance in SMHEs. The methodology of research includes a literature search of clustering in hospitality enterprises research, collection of data directly from managers of SMHEs and from the Croatian Bureau of Statistics, analysis of the financial and non-financial data of 72 SMHEs in the Republic of Croatia. The research takes a longitudinal approach, examining SMHEs that are in clusters in Croatia over a two-year period as well as a control group of non-clustered SMHEs for comparison. The emphasis is on seeking to establish the impact of clustering on business performance. In this paper, the impact of clustering of 72 SMHEs involved in the study is discussed. The research has shown that the advantages of clustering in SMHEs have not been utilised in Croatia. The originality of this research is based on the fact that it refers to an area that has not been explored enough in the Republic of Croatia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the attempts of Japanese business groups to destabilize the discursive hegemony of Japanese-style management and replace it with a new neoliberal order advantageous to management interests. Japanese-style management (Nihon-teki keiei) can be seen as a key element of Japanese social identity, which interpellates both workers and management into performing particular institutional practices. Altering these practices requires not only deregulatory reforms to the labor market but also a powerful discursive intervention to undermine and replace sedimented positions. Through an analysis of public policy documents, this paper shows how Japanese business groups have been carrying out such an intervention through the articulation of two keywords - "diversity" (tayōsei) and "independent-style employee" (jiritsugata jinzai) - which are used ambiguously to structure a controversial deregulatory agenda into existing discourses of globalization, creativity and social values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Treaty of Yandabo (1826) marked the colonial conquest of the Brahmaputra valley. Following two decades witnessed calculations and speculations about the prospect of the region as a part of the British colonial empire. Discovery of tea plants and the existence of tradable commodities such as cotton, silks and salt made the region look promising for the East India Company. The early-colonial rulers introduced policy changes in the1820 s and the 1830 s. Existing historiography on wasteland rules has clarified that these regulations were aimed at making land available for tea plantations. At the same time monetization of the region with one uniform currency was undertaken. This paper argues that in the face of these developments, commerce remained an important part of the economy, as before. Creation of a land market by wasteland regulations and uniform coinage facilitated the Empire's trade and made the region a part of the colonial commerce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses and tests the importance of institutions, geography, and terms of trade in Latin America during the Washington Consensus (WC) reform years. The paper argues that the WC overlooked these three important factors of growth, known as the "deep determinants of growth." The paper discusses the history and failures of the WC and creates an empirical test to determine the importance of the omitted growth factors. The empirical section uses a large panel data set and employs the Hausman-Taylor (1981) estimator to account for time-variant and time-invariant variables. The data includes several measures of institutions, geography, and terms of trade to provide broad evidence. Our results are consistent with the previous literature, showing that institutions are important to growth. Once institutions are controlled for, measures of geography have statistically weak direct effects on income per capita. The paper shows that both openness to trade and an overvalued real exchange rate are detrimental to growth in Latin America. These results provide evidence that institutions and terms of trade are vitally important to Latin American growth, and should not have been ignored by WC policy advisers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The country house has long been seen as a space of luxury consumption. Large houses are characterised as enclaves of the London, spending all their money in capital, rather than buying goods locally. They sapped wealth from the local area rather than stimulating economic activity This paper analyses data from highly detailed account books which record the kitchen expenditure at Chatsworth and Hardwick Hall in the years 1658-1660 to understand how the kitchens of the Earls of Devonshire were supplied. In discussing the ways in which the household sourced foodstuffs and how much they spent doing so, this paper challenges the prevailing idea that houses are economic leeches on the local area. The Devonshires spent a vast sum of money on food locally; helping to create communities of commerce in the local area and to fuel a vibrant and various grocery trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current China–US trade war that started in early 2018 has been the largest of this kind in the global market in the past half century, if not longer. Many speculations about the reasons for and progress and potential implications of the trade war emerge. Countries must understand the reasons for the war to avoid future trade wars. Predicting what will happen in the near future and the related economic consequences are even more important for people (including businessmen and government policymakers) to prepare for them and make corresponding decisions. However, endeavouring to predict is a tough job. This paper tries to provide an unbiased analysis through the lens of the trade literature. That is, we want to ask how much we can understand the current trade war on the basis of the accumulated knowledge we can obtain from our profession. Related theories include imperfect competition, increasing returns, terms of trade argument, distributional effects and political economy argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have shown that mergers and acquisitions (M&A) raise firms' productivity. Few researches investigate whether exporters can enhance export performance after M&A through higher levels of efficiency. Based on detailed information on M&A activities of Chinese firms, China's customs trade data and National Bureau of Statistics surveys, we investigate the causal effect of M&A on trade performance. In particular, the value and the volume of firm exports, product quality, product scope and the number of export destinations have been examined. We find positive and significant effects of M&A on all the examined indicators of export performance. These findings are generally robust to a variety of robustness checks. We further observe that state-owned firms are the least likely to benefit from M&A. We also obtain evidence that firms benefit more from M&A deals if they are targets or merge with foreign firms. Overall, this paper is to our knowledge the first study that uses micro-level data in multiple industries to examine the relationship between M&A and exports of heterogeneous firms. Our results deepen our understanding of the consequences of M&A by suggesting another potential benefit, and hence provide policy implications for merger regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Added value is a concept which is commonly used in marketing teaching and practice, yet a student seeking clarification of the concept and term, cannot easily find it by looking it up in the index of marketing textbooks. Of 80 texts surveyed, only 5 percent defined the term. However 100 percent of the sample of texts, used the concept of added value. Several issues emerged from the survey. First, there were variations in the use in marketing textbooks, of the term added value. Second, where the term was used, often it was not defined. Finally, textbooks used the underlying concept (for which there is also some variation) of added value without necessarily using the term. This paper reviews the various approaches to the concept of added value, and draws together some key themes in the form of a working model. The model developed recognizes the accounting origins of the concept of added value, but arguments are developed within a marketing framework. A key principle of the model developed, is the quantifiable nature of added value. This is viewed as being important, though difficult, where a sales transaction has not taken place. From a marketing perspective, it is recognized that products which have yet to be sold, have potential added value which marketing activity can help to realize. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The choice of the game 'Paper Scissors Stone' as the guiding title of this year's BILETA conference was an interesting one. Particularly, when connected to the consideration of politics, business law and changing modes of commerce. The game is one where an arbitrary set of rules has predetermined either a draw or more often a victory between otherwise unrelated items. Why should 'paper covers stone' result in the triumph of paper? Similarly if we follow this line of thought into the arena of virtual communities why should the increasingly commercial atmosphere of the Internet alter the formation and maintenance of online communities? Thus, we must be wary of assumptions imbedded in the language we use to describe and discuss phenomena, after all Chomsky has taught us that our thought processes are constrained by our language; that our conceptualisations are limited to those that we have the language to express.1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a novel database of regional trade flows between 267 European regions for 2013, this paper examines how government quality affects trade between European Union (EU) regions. The results of a structural gravity cross-sectional analysis of trade show that trade across EU regions is highly influenced by differences in regional government quality. This influence varies by both sector of economic activity and the level of economic development of the region. The results indicate that if the less developed regions of the EU want to engage in greater interregional trade, improving their institutional quality is a must. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the Turkish economy within a comparative historical framework. In light of a thorough discussion of Turkish economic crises in the post-1980 period, the paper explores Turkey's contemporary strengths and weaknesses in the global economic arena by comparing it with its peers and developed nations. The paper also highlights Turkey's extant economic vulnerabilities, especially its current account deficit, volatile international capital flows and ongoing banking sector problems. Along with other policy recommendations regarding these vulnerabilities, the paper proposes the introduction of capital controls to enhance economic institutions and cope with future hardships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies in Atlantic studies three fundamental “oceanic” motions and their attendant conditions of possibility that seem useful for further developing the notion of the transpacific as both a feature of and a theater for the rise of global modernity: circulation/commerce; displacement/diaspora; and expansion/empire. To demonstrate their utility, this paper shows how these dyads help bring into focus the deep transpacific currents informing the narrative substance and logic of Carlos Bulosan’s renowned autobiographical narrative, America is in the Heart. In doing so, it puts forth the notion of the “ethnic picaresque” as a way to further develop a transpacific theorization of literary and cultural production by people of Asian descent in the United States and elsewhere that moves expressly beyond the conceptual boundaries of the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the relative sophistication of the Korean export products in manufacturing industry both across and within products between 1989 and 2012 using the very detailed United States import data. I first compare Korea's export performance in the US market in terms of market share, product penetration and export similarity to those of its rival countries. Next, I propose far more extensive estimates of difference in export quality between Korea and its trading rivals. The estimated quality difference reveals substantial heterogeneity across products and countries. In particular, this paper shows that the current greatest competitor of Korea is still Japan in the US market, but China is steadily climbing up the quality ladder and is chasing after Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has received massive foreign capital inflows after experiencing capital flight earlier in the last decade. The present paper offers estimates of capital inflows into China through the misinvoicing of trade after having outlined a model describing how trade prices could be manipulated by firms. In fact, the widely perceived undervalued Yuan has fueled expectations of a future revaluation of the Chinese currency. In a panel gravity modeling framework, we show that, China's export and import prices for some commodities are sensitive to the non-deliverable forward exchange rate for the RMB in Hong Kong. In light of the evolution of this rate, which has rather systemically reflected anticipated revaluation of the Chinese currency, it is contended that the persistent Chinese trade imbalances may actually camouflage hidden 'hot money' inflows. Our findings provide evidence for export over-invoicing and import under-invoicing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unquestionable achievement of J. G. A. Pocock's The Machiavellian Moment was to describe the retention of pre-modern values in a modern society. Pocock was notoriously accused of decentring Locke and side-lining the Liberal Tradition. A more pertinent critique had it that he failed to articulate how civic humanism in the context of increasingly commercial societies produced more than Jeremiahs or Cassandras. This article explains how Pocock responded to his various critics by inventing the term "commercial humanism" in an effort to clarify the way in which classical virtue was modified in modern commercial contexts, especially by natural jurists and republicans. Commercial humanism proved controversial but stimulated one of the most original scholars working in the history of political thought, István Hont, to undertake a prolonged engagement with Pocock's revisionist ideas, which ultimately allowed him to answer Pocock's critics better than Pocock, whose voice remained too in tune with those whose view of modern political thought he had rejected. For Hont, Pocock's labours in the history of political thought remained less relevant to present politics than they might become, once the depth of eighteenth-century analyses of the relationship between wealth and virtue was recovered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An international contract calls for the identification of the law that would govern the transaction in the event of a dispute on the matter between the parties. Indian private international law adopts the doctrine of "the proper law of contract" to identify the legal system that will regulate an international contract. In the absence of any codification, the interpretation of the doctrine has been left to the courts. The judiciary adopts the common law tripartite hierarchy, viz., the "express choice", "implied choice" and "the closest and most real connection" test to determine the proper law. However, the existing case law demonstrates the diverse interpretations given to each of these factors in India in the post-colonial era. The paper examines the manner in which the blind adoption of the decisions of the English courts has considerably hindered the development of Indian private international law. In this regard, the author suggests some plausible solutions to render India more amenable to international trade and commerce – such as the adoption of mechanisms similar to those formulated by its continental counterpart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smart contracts have the potential to improve many existing transactions and to enable entirely new business models. However, the technology supporting this new method of transacting is complex and the legal framework applying to it is somewhat unclear. Though theorised several decades ago, it was not until the advent of the distributed ledger technology known as blockchain that smart contracts were able to be practically implemented. This paper summarises the concept of smart contracts while providing the background and context of its development. It then distinguishes those smart contracts which are considered legally binding within the scope of US laws from those that may not have legal effect. Next, it provides an in-depth example of an exploitation of smart contracts and explores how the legal reaction to it is inadequate. To reduce the likelihood of future smart contract exploitations and to improve confidence for contracting parties, this article suggests adding explicit smart contract cybersecurity provisions to existing US legal frameworks. Specifically, I propose adapting several of the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Federal Information Processing Standards to create minimum cybersecurity requirements for all legally binding smart contracts. I also examine the shortcomings of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act while identifying it as a piece of legislation ripe for reform which, if done adequately, may provide a legal deterrent to would-be cyber hackers of smart contracts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research in construction labour productivity (CLP) has paid little attention to the social and behavioural aspects of onsite, physical, construction trade crews. The mainstream organisational and management literature provides an alternative line of inquiry where trade crews can be conceptualised as teams. By taking this perspective, the behaviours and interdependencies among crew members can be more readily understood in terms of influences on CLP. Using a structured review methodology, a conceptual framework is developed in stages by merging the concepts of teamwork and CLP. The framework begins with a broad scaffolding that draws together two established models: the input-mediators-output model and the big five framework. The more detailed and explanatory contribution uses these from the literature to identify a set of task-focussed and relationship-focussed team processes. A key benefit of the framework is that crew teamwork can be used as a means of mediating what was previously many separate CLP variables. Importantly, the proposed framework views teamwork in the context of trade crews as against viewing teamwork as a professional or managerially focussed phenomenon. To this end, this paper advances three research propositions and methodological possibilities which in future research could be tested to tailor the framework for best fit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on four years of fieldwork in Ethiopia and Uganda, this paper addresses gaps in knowledge about the mechanisms linking agricultural exports with poverty reduction, the functioning of rural labour markets, and the relevance to the lives of the poorest people of Fairtrade. Statistical analysis of survey evidence, complemented by qualitative research, highlights the relatively poor payment and non-pay working conditions of those employed in research sites dominated by Fairtrade producer organisations. We conclude that Fairtrade is not an effective way to improve the welfare of the poorest rural people. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]