1,720,972 research outputs found
Corporate Governance, Competition and Firm Performance: Evidence from India.
Get PDFThe aim of this paper is to show the interaction effect of product market competition and corporate governance variables on firm performance. While the linkage between internal governance mechanism and firm performance is well established in several studies, the interaction between internal and external governance mechanism has received scanty attention in emerging market economies. Here we have shown the independent and interaction effect of ownership and competition variable on firm productivity. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we document that competition has in reality become a discernible force in developing economies. The econometric modelling result shows while the standalone effect of ownership variable on productivity is mostly insignificant, there is a strong positive interaction effect with competition variables.
Evidence of the new economy at the macroeconomic level and implications for monetary policy
Get PDFThe notion of new economy was coined in the United States when there was increasing evidence that, as a result of the introduction of new technologies, the traditional behavior of macroeconomic variables might have changed. The expansion of the 1990s differed from its predecessors in three important respects: productivity, inflation, and cyclical variability. In the United States, labor productivity increased much faster in the 1990s than in the previous decades and, contrary to the usual pattern, accelerated with the duration of the expansion. The view that most of the productivity acceleration was only cyclical and therefore not sustainable over a longer period of time has proven overly pessimistic. Productivity growth has remained on its elevated since the economy peaked. In other large industrial countries, by contrast, productivity growth has continued to decline or has improved only very slightly at best. Differences in productivity trends between the United States and other large industrial countries can be explained partly by the fact that in the United States IT production is more important and IT implementation relatively advanced. In addition, the identification of IT-related productivity gains in Europe is complicated by the general trend towards deregulation in labor and product markets and moderate wage increases that contributed to a rise in labor intensity, which tends to lower advances in productivity. In contrast to productivity developments, the behavior of inflation is consistent with a new economy in all large industrial countries. The moderate inflation can, however, be explained by adequate monetary policies and cyclical influences. Similarly, the analysis of cyclical variability concludes that changes in economic policies are a more important factor in explaining the reduced fluctuations in U.S. GDP than the advent of IT. A technology shock which raises the permanent level of output and, at least temporarily, the growth rate of the production potential has implications for monetary policy. In a world with rational expectations and sticky prices, the optimal reaction of monetary policy to an acceleration of potential output growth is to raise interest rates. The reason is that the expectation of higher incomes in the future causes current spending to grow faster than potential output and thus leads to inflationary pressure. In reality the optimal response of monetary policy to a shift in production potential is difficult to assess given the uncertainty concerning the timing and magnitude of new economy effects on the real economy. Being too expansionary probably has more severe consequences than erring on the other side, because the positive real effects would work through anyway, while inflationary expectations, once triggered, are difficult to reduce. --
Euroland: recovery will slowly gain momentum
Get PDFEconomic activity in the euro area has weakened since last summer. In the second half of 2002, real GDP increased at an annualized rate of around 1 percent only. Economy-wide capacity utilization has further declined and the situation on labor markets has worsened. The increase in consumer prices has calmed down somewhat after an acceleration at the beginning of last year. Still, the inflation rate remains surprisingly high against the background of weak economic activity that has already lasted for two years. Monetary policy in the euro area is clearly expansionary. With only about 0.5 percent, the real interest rate is currently quite low by historical standards. Moreover, the nominal interest rate is well below the rate implied by the standard Taylor rule, even when low estimates of the current size of the output gap and the equilibrium real interest rate are employed in the calculation of the rule. Still, monetary policy is probably not too expansionary. According to theory, the equilibrium real interest rate may be substantially below the long-run average real interest rate in situations such as the current one with depressed income and profit expectations. However, these considerations also imply that the ECB should bring the real interest rate back towards the long-run average once the depressing factors will have vanished. The situation of public finances in the euro area deteriorated further in the course of last year, with the aggregated budget in the countries of the euro area approaching a deficit of 2.3 percent of GDP in 2002. The cyclically adjusted budget deficit in the euro area was as high as in 1998, the year immediately before the beginning of the third stage of the Economic and Monetary Union. Whereas most countries have in the meantime complied with the goal of the Stability and Growth Pact to at least balance the budget over the medium term, the budget deficit in Germany, France, Italy and Portugal remained high both in actual and in structural terms. The governments of the three largest countries of the euro area are not likely to switch towards a policy of fiscal consolidation based on cuts in primary spending in 2003 and 2004. Moderate wage settlements would be appropriate in the current cyclical situation. However, wage increases have not slowed down over the past year, and are not expected to do so to any meaningful extent this year and next, reflecting the judgment that labor market rigidities will remain significant over the forecast horizon. Nevertheless, as employment is likely to be slow in responding to a recovery in production, the rise in unit labor costs will decelerate considerably, improving the chances that inflation will fall persistently below 2 percent. The leading indicators suggest that economic activity in the euro area will remain weak in the first half of this year. Under the assumption that the war in the Gulf region is of short duration and that the global political situation calms down afterwards, dampening factors from the Iraq conflict are expected to wane. Impulses from expansionary monetary policy will then increasingly take effect and domestic driving forces will gain the upper hand. We expect real GDP to increase by 1.0 percent and by 2.6 percent in 2003 and 2004, respectively. The situation on the labor market will start to improve towards the end of this year only. Inflation will be moderate over the forecast horizon. In 2004, consumer prices will probably rise by 1.9 percent on average, after 2.2 percent this year. --
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Why economic growth has been weak in Arab countries: The role of exogenous shocks, economic policy failure and institutional deficiencies
Get PDFThe gap between the per capita income of most Arab countries and that of advanced industrial countries has widened since the early 1990s. The economic growth performance of the Arab world has been weak by developing country standards, too. Yet, the diversity of growth patterns within this group defies easy generalizations on the reasons underlying the disappointing performance. In some cases, country-specific shocks played a role, notably for relatively high growth in Sudan (discovery of oil) and the poor performance of Jordan (embargo on neighboring Iraq). On the whole, however, influences beyond the immediate control of Arab policymakers contribute surprisingly little to the explanation of growth patterns. The relation between terms-of-trade developments and economic growth turns out to be extremely weak. Moreover, the IMF and the World Bank are hardly to blame for imposing ineffective policy conditionality on Arab countries, if only because the leverage of international financial institutions has remained limited in the region. Economic policy failure in Arab countries appears to be a more important reason for poor growth. Even though the region has partly fallen into line with the Washington Consensus, various Arab countries lag behind other developing countries when it comes to trimming the interventionist role of the state and integrating themselves into the global division of labor through trade and foreign direct investment (FDI). Nevertheless, the relation between macroeconomic conditions, factor accumulation as well as trade and FDI liberalization on the one hand and economic growth on the other hand remains elusive. This may be because reforms have not gone far enough and have remained fragmentary even in Arab countries with a relatively favorable growth performance. It can neither be ruled out, however, that some elements of the Washington Consensus have been less effective than widely expected in promoting growth. For example, the enclave character of FDI in some Arab countries is rather unlikely to spur per capita income growth. This implies that country-specific conditions deserve close attention when designing economic policy reforms. In Arab countries with low per capita income, domestic resource mobilization appears to be more important than attracting FDI. Even in more advanced countries such as Egypt and Tunisia, continued efforts towards human capital formation are key to sustainable growth. Furthermore, policy-related variables and economic growth depend on more deeply rooted institutional deficiencies. Institutions in many Arab countries are less advanced than their income level would suggest. The experience of several oil exporters in the region supports the proposition that the abundance of oil encourages rent-seeking and exerts a negative impact on economic growth via its deleterious impact on institutional development. As a consequence, economic policy reforms along the lines of the Washington Consensus are not sufficient to improve the growth prospects of Arab countries. The call for institutional reforms mainly applies to resource-rich countries such as Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Sudan, notwithstanding their different growth performance in the past. It may prove difficult for these countries to overcome the natural resource curse, but the successful transformation of a country like Mexico from an oildependent to a highly diversified economy with more advanced institutions may show Arab countries the way. --
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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