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Within the context of a theoretical model where an increase in the proportion of foreign-invested firms is interpreted as increase in foreign direct investment (FDI), this paper shows that, through its impact on firm capability and revenue, FDI can affect the quality of goods produced by domestic firms in host economies. We show that, in the presence of positive productivity spillovers, an increase in the proportion of foreign-invested firms lowers the cut-off capability of domestic firms, which allows some relatively inefficient domestic firms to enter the industry thereby contributing to a decrease in product quality. An increase in the proportion of foreign-invested firms affects firm revenue through two channels. On the one hand, an increase in the proportion of foreign-invested firms enhances productivity, which contributes to an increase in firm revenue. On the other hand, entry of new domestic firms also increases the level of competition within the industry, which puts a downward pressure on firm revenue. We conclude that, in the presence of positive productivity spillovers, an increase in FDI decreases the quality of goods produced by domestic firms in host economies only if its impact on firm revenue is sufficiently small (or negative). Using data from China’s beverage manufacturing industry, employing the nonlinear seemingly unrelated regression technique on firm level data and without explicitly measuring quality, we estimate the impact of an increase in the proportion of foreign-invested firms on the product quality of domestic firms. Our empirical analysis suggests that a 1% increase in the proportion of foreign-invested firms decreases the product quality of domestic firms by more than 0.6259%.

“Freemium” product strategies—where a free basic version of a product is offered alongside a full “premium” paid version—are often used by companies to attempt to increase the size of their user base and benefit from network effects. However, there is limited empirical evidence of how this strategy impacts company performance. We investigate empirically how the strengthening of network effects on the Apple App Store influenced the revenues generated by market leaders and followers, contrasting firms that use paid only versus freemium strategies. We find that stronger network effects did not on their own lead to greater revenue for market leaders w.r.t. followers. However, in settings where freemium strategies were used, network effects greatly amplified the advantage of leaders over followers.

Opaque selling, in which a seller offers a menu of opaque products from a collection of physical products, has been shown to be an effective strategy to segment a market and improve the seller's profit. We study opaque selling with stochastic demand and fixed initial inventory, where we consider two scenarios. In the exogenous fulfillment scenario, the assignment of physical products to fulfill customer demand is based on pre-announced probabilities. In the endogenous fulfillment scenario, the assignment is dynamically determined by the seller. In both settings, the seller dynamically controls the offering of opaque products over time to maximize the total expected revenue. The existing literature has well studied the mechanism of opaque selling and its benefits over other selling strategies. However, much of the literature considers only a single opaque product. This paper contributes to the literature by considering multiple opaque products and focusing on the practice implementation of opaque selling. We formulate the seller's problem as a stochastic dynamic program. Due to the well-known curse of dimensionality, we study the fluid control problem and develop decomposition heuristic for both scenarios based on the corresponding fluid solution. We show that the fluid control problem can provide a time-based fluid policy that is asymptotically optimal. In particular, we show that adopting a stationary probabilistic fulfillment strategy for the endogenous fulfillment scenario is asymptotically optimal. The numerical study shows that offering multiple opaque products can substantially improve the seller's revenue under certain conditions. Our results provide guidance for sellers on how to implement the opaque selling practically when they have finite inventories of multiple substitutable products.

Using a novel empirical approach and newly available administrative data on US tax filings, we estimate the corporate elasticity of taxable income and determine how such tax responsiveness varies depending on accounting method, firm size, and interest rate. In response to a 10 percent increase in the expected marginal tax rate, private US firms decrease taxable income by 9.1 percent, which indicates a discernibly more elastic response than prevailing estimates. This response reflects a decrease in taxable income of 3.0% arising from real economic adjustments to a firm's scale of operations and 6.0 percent arising from tax adjustments via (e.g.) revenue and cost timing. Responsiveness to the corporate tax rate is more elastic if a firm uses cash (9.9%) rather than accrual accounting (7.4%), if the firm is small (9.9%) rather than large (8.6%), and if the firm has relatively high-cost access to capital.

The Italian region Emilia-Romagna ranks first among the world’s most important cooperative districts. Using a unique dataset covering all firms registered in the region, we investigate the performance of active firms in the period 2010–18. By focusing on added value, employment and profits of cooperative firms as compared to conventional firms, we disentangle the differences between the average performance of the two types of companies and detect the presence of a “size effect” driving much of the difference between them. Moreover, our results strengthen previous empirical evidence about the behavior of cooperative firms: they seem to optimize a mixture of employment and profits, assigning a greater weight to the former during downturns and stagnation. Hence, as a type of firm, they look more resilient than conventional companies, at least as far as employment is concerned. Finally, we examine the regional logistics industry and compare also the productivity per employee in the two segments of the sector.

This study offers an empirical investigation of inventory and sales dynamics in a large-scale retail network setting. We infer the impact of product shortages on sales in neighboring outlets using unique data from a large fast fashion retailing chain. Since the product shortages do not occur at the same time, we conduct a novel Difference-in-Differences (DiD) methodology to align the stock-out periods across the stores in the network. In addition, we stratify data based on the periods in which stock-out is observed and apply pairwise DiD analyses to validate the robustness of our results. Our analysis reveals that sales for a particular item at a focal store increases when that same item experiences stock-outs in neighboring stores, especially so for neighboring stores that are physically closer to the focal store. These findings suggest that there is substitutability across stores, and that this substitutability is the strongest in the period when the stock-out is observed for the first time, and decreases in the time since the stock-out and dissipates with physical distance. In order to assess the value of considering the impact of stock-outs on inventory allocation, we develop an optimization model and calibrate it by using parameters estimated via DiD analysis. The simulation analysis confirms that revenues markedly improve on average by 2.2% when neighboring stock-out information is taken into account for sales forecasting when optimizing inventory allocations. Finally, we conduct sensitivity analysis to evaluate how this effect changes with problem parameters such as product price, and inventory.

A healthcare provider faces two decision problems. On the one hand, it chooses its organizational form: a hospital can be a for-profit institution providing compensated care only, or it can be a nonprofit organization whose mission is enhancing access to care for uninsured, low-income patients. On the other hand, the provider chooses which health professionals to hire, without observing their heterogeneous skills and their pro-social motivation. These decisions are related because an increase in the percentage of revenues, that the nonprofit hospital sacrifices for charity care, might enhance the motivation of its workers and induce some of them to donate their labor, that is, to volunteer. Accordingly, this article analyzes the provider's optimal screening contracts, which are contingent on workers' ability and satisfy limited liability, and relates them to the optimal choice of its mission-orientation. The results provide a new rationale for: (Formula presented.) the emergence of different organizational forms for hospitals, such as for-profits and nonprofits, which complement public hospitals in the provision of health care, (Formula presented.) the heterogeneity in the degree of charity care chosen by different nonprofit hospitals.

Background and Objective In Canada, the COVID‐19 pandemic was associated with significant morbidity and mortality in older adults, particularly those in long‐term care (LTC). Access to oral health services was limited during the pandemic due to public health restrictions. The aim of this paper was to describe the impact of the pandemic on the clinical education and service of the University of British Columbia (UBC) Geriatric Dentistry Program (GDP), which provides care to LTC residents. Methods Data were collected from UBC GDP AxiUm dental software records, including number of dental appointments in 2019 and 2020. Data on revenue in 2019 and 2020 based on clinical production were collected through financial summary reports. Data on the number of educational rotations were collected from summary reports from scheduling software. Results In 2020, significant reductions in clinical service, revenue, and productivity were observed in the UBC GDP relative to 2019. The number of GDP appointments for June‐December 2020 was lower by 68%. The clinical productivity reduced by 67% for the same period. Expenses were slightly reduced. The overall number of LTC clinical rotations for students were only slightly lower for undergraduate students in 2020 than in 2019, and it increased for graduate students. Conclusion The COVID‐19 pandemic and associated public health restrictions had a negative impact on the clinical service and productivity of the UBC GDP in 2020 relative to 2019. However, clinical educational rotations to LTC were slightly increased in 2020 relative to 2019. Dental care for LTC residents can be provided if rigorous administrative controls, engineering controls and personal protective equipment are employed.

The rise in global commitments to restore habitat underlines its importance to halt biodiversity loss and abate climate change. To effectively plan for landscape-scale restoration efforts, decision makers need to prioritise where restoration should occur and have a method to estimate its cost. Here, we describe a systematic approach to determine where cost-effective restoration actions should be located to achieve targeted levels of ecosystem coverage across Australia without compromising agricultural production. We find that spending approximately AU$2 billion (0.1% of Australia's 2019 Gross Domestic Product) annually for 30 years could restore 13 million ha of degraded land without affecting intensive agriculture and urban areas. This initiative would result in almost all (99.8%) of Australia's degraded terrestrial ecosystems reaching 30% vegetation coverage, enabling a trajectory to recover critical ecological functions, abate almost one billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent and produce AU$12–46 billion net present value in carbon offset revenue. The carbon market revenue is estimated to cover up to 111% of the investment required for the restoration. Our research shows that the recovery of degraded ecosystems in Australia is both attainable and affordable. Synthesis and applications. With growing international restoration commitments, governments and environmental organisations need methods to plan and budget their commitments. Here, we present a systematic approach to determine where restoration actions should be located in Australia to achieve targeted vegetation coverage and quantify the expected costs, carbon abatement and revenue. This study is an important advance that will aid governments and environmental organisations by providing financial and spatial planning methods to progress their restoration commitments.

This study investigates why auditors leave public accounting and the consequences of auditor departures, both of which have been of great concern for audit firms and regulators worldwide. Using data from China and controlling for demographics, we find that audit partners and managers, auditors who generate more revenue, and auditors who provide higher audit quality have a lower likelihood of departure, while non–Big 4 auditors have a higher likelihood of departing public accounting. We also find that an audit firm is likely to lose clients when an auditor departs. Clients who stay with the same firm pay lower audit fees but with no drop-off in audit quality after a signing auditor departs. In supplementary analyses, we also demonstrate that the determinants and consequences of auditor departures are different for auditors who leave the firm but not the profession (i.e., auditor turnover). Specifically, high audit quality is associated with a lower likelihood of auditor departure, but it increases auditor turnover. We also observe that audit quality is reduced for the clients who stay with an audit firm after highly skilled auditors depart for high visibility corporate positions. Our study provides insights that should be of interest to the audit profession, audit firms, and regulators.

The President of The University of Texas at Austin discusses UTIMCO's investment strategy with its Chief Investment Officer.As the administrator of a perpetual endowment for the University of Texas and Texas AM(2) the health of the leveraged loan market;and (3) the search for new and better exit opportunities. All agreed that deal pricing was a perennial challenge, and that PE firms must work to develop a special “edge” in an intensely competitive market, where some firms consider a thousand deals a year to close on just two or three.The founder of Benchmark Capital begins by mentioning his firm's almost exclusive focus on early‐stage ventures and preference for being “the first money in.” He also notes Benchmark's different ownership structure;perhaps unique among venture firms, it is an equal partnership in which all partners have “the same economics,” the new as well as the oldest.The main investment advice offered is that, with interest rates so low, and some public company stocks trading at 30 to 50 times revenue, investors should remain as liquid as possibleThe recent popularity of SPACs is viewed as a response by issuers to “a broken IPO system” whose main symptom is runaway IPO underpricing and wealthy bankers. Noting that the amount of first‐day underpricing of IPOs has risen from $2 billion in 2016 to $30 billion in 2020, Gurley predicts that direct IPO listings, or DLs, will become much more common in the future.As for the recent frenzy of retail trading and the rise of Robinhood, Gurley says of the new trading firm's CEO,He tells the world that he's democratizing investing, but I don't think this is about investing at all. I think he's gamifying speculation… and I strongly suspect that the success rate of retail investors in options is really crappy. It should also scare the Biden administration that a lot of the money in Robinhood accounts came from stimulus checks this summer.

This chapter presents resource provisioning mechanisms for several different resources in the Internet of things (IoT) ecosystem. The developed frameworks are applicable to a wide variety of application scenarios; however, the example of cloud computing systems is used as a motivation to introduce these mechanisms. Toward the end of the chapter, a more generic framework is presented for resource provisioning that includes spatial and temporal uncertainties and can be tailored for a range of urban and smart city applications.

This paper presents the Green Stormwater Infrastructure Social Spatial Adoption (G-SSA) model, a cellular automata agent-based model that simulates the behavior of private property owners responding to incentives to adopt on-site green stormwater infrastructure (GSI). Concepts such as small-world social networks, opinion dissemination, and diffusion of innovation are used to capture dynamic social, spatial, and temporal aspects of green stormwater infrastructure adoption. Demographic information, site constraints, GSI practice type and costs, and financial incentive information are integrated into modeling rules that influence adoption dynamics. A methodology is presented that describes how these concepts have been translated into an agent-based modeling platform that provides the opportunity to explore modeling dynamics and output. Model output confirms the viability of the methodology and produces results that inform future efforts to explore the G-SSA model. PRACTITIONER POINTS: Agent-based modeling (ABM) can evaluate the expected impact of market-based approaches for green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) adoption and O&M services. ABM can simulate years of implementation of GSI program incentives, which vary from stormwater fee reduction to subsidy payments to tradable credits revenues generated. Publicly available demographic data combined with behavioral economic relationships can build models to evaluate how municipalities can meet regulatory goals for urban retrofits using market-based approaches to encourage GSI adoption.

This study evaluates the potential impacts of the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area's (AfCFTA) tariff modalities on tax revenues, industrial production, trade flows, welfare and consumption for seven central African countries. Drawing on data from member states and the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) database, two methodologies are applied in the study. Computable general equilibrium (CGE) and partial equilibrium (PE) are used to evaluate the long‐ and short‐term effects respectively. The results show that the reduction in tariff barriers provided by the AfCFTA will lead to a decrease in tariff revenue in some Central African countries in the short term. However, in the long term, these losses remain largely offset by the socio‐economic benefit issues generated by the implementation of the agreement, particularly in terms of economic growth and the well‐being of the region's population. To cub these revenue deficits, this paper encourages Central African countries to ratify and implement the AfCFTA. Also, they should diligently adopt all necessary reforms that could help reap the potential long‐term gains.

Popular tariffs in the telecommunications market, such as three‐part tariffs and flat‐rate plans, specify an allowance below which customers enjoy a free and high‐quality service. When they consume beyond the allowance, customers either need to pay for the overage (under three‐part tariffs) or receive a degraded service (under flat‐rate plans), thus experiencing an overage disutility. Some network service providers have recently begun to allow data trading among their subscribers, who can now sell their allowances or buy up to meet their needs. We study whether and how allowing user trading can enhance a service provider's profitability. Considering a monopolistic firm, we find that allowing trading among users improves system‐wide consumption efficiency and reduces overage disutility at the expense of losing overage revenue. Overall, trading can be beneficial to the firm. Particularly, the profitability of the firm is critically driven by addressing customers’ overage disutility. Moreover, allowing trading always improves social welfare and can also improve consumer surplus. Finally, on a self‐operated platform, the firm may find it not profitable to charge a transaction fee but will regulate up the trading price.

Healthcare reform was launched in China in 2017 to reduce the financial burden on both patients and the government by terminating the 15% markup on drug prices at public hospitals. To evaluate this reform's impacts, we conduct a quantitative study based on the operational data from one of the top 10 hospitals in Liaoning, China. Specifically, we utilize log-linear and logistic regression models to examine the policy's impacts on patients' total healthcare expenditures and the hospital's adjustments of its offering list that consists of western medicine (WM), traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and non-medicine (NM). We find that the reform effectively alters the patients' spending structure and the hospital's profit model: (1) it decreases patients' average per-visit expenditure on WM and TCM while increases their average NM expenditure; (2) it differently affects patients from various socioeconomic groups and leaves space to target on groups that may demand extra financial and healthcare assistance; (3) it slows down the hospital's revenue increase and incentivizes the hospital to shift the WM revenue from margin-driven to volume-driven and to weigh more on NM revenue and (4) it encourages the hospital to keep WMs with steady price and drop WMs whose price keeps rising.

Based on theories of learning that suggest that repetition is important for knowledge retention and application, this article hypothesized that sending farmers reminders about cereal management information received during face‐to‐face training has impact on the adoption of recommended practices and related agricultural outcomes over and above what could be realized after receiving training alone. We provide a test of this hypothesis using a randomized controlled trial in Sikasso, Mali. Farmers in 99 villages received face‐to‐face training, after which 44 villages received mobile phone voice messages that reinforced the training recommendations. This setup allowed us to evaluate the impact of the voice SMS reminders on selected indicators. Our results show that the reminders significantly induced timely harvesting, reduced on‐farm cereal losses, increased uptake of improved grain storage technology, and increased the likelihood of pre‐harvest sales contracting. However, we found no overwhelming evidence that the reminders increased yields, and no evidence of impact on revenues were detected. We draw lessons for development policy and practice.

Online shopping revenues in the United States were $520 billion 2018, a more than threefold increase over a decade prior. Recent research on county‐level shares of consumer expenditures conducted online shows aggregate consumer gains but also considerable spatial variation, creating a new source of social inequality. Through the lens of classical retail location theory, this paper uses a novel approach to test the effects of marginalization, by both income and remoteness, on online shopping behavior. We find that increased shipping costs weaken demand for online goods across consumer groups. When the costs of shipping are controlled for, distance from a city most strongly motivates low‐income counties to engage in online shopping, reflecting sensitivity to cost reductions. However, variations in cost and cost/distance ratios have little effect for this group, because if shipping surcharges exist, which they almost always do at high levels, consumers in these counties will forego online shopping. Medium‐income counties are sensitive to variations in cost and cost/distance ratios. The highest‐income counties display no response to the marginal costs of remoteness. In sum, online shopping benefits consumers living in counties marginalized by either remoteness or low income but not both.

Using data on mobile Internet usage of thousands of individuals, we provide some of the first analyses linking mobile usage to key demographics such as income. We find a reverse‐U relationship between mobile Internet usage and income—notably different than the monotonically declining relationship found on home devices. This pattern suggests that data caps are particularly binding on low‐income users. We then construct a simple model of mobile Internet usage that incorporates demand features suggested by our empirical finding and prior empirical findings on device adoption and usage. After abstracting away from cost and two‐sided market considerations, we solve the model, and through comparative statics, identify demand conditions for which usage‐based pricing (via a data cap) is, or is not, revenue enhancing. Key insights from this analysis are: (1) the tendency toward demand‐driven price discrimination is hill‐shaped (increasing then decreasing) in the number of low‐income users and eventually declining in high‐income users, and (2) a relatively high (low) proportion of total value attained from relatively low usage levels by low‐income (high‐income) users increases the tendency toward demand‐driven price discrimination. Hence, to the extent that a market has a large number of low‐income users and/or high‐income users attain a higher proportion of their total value at the cap than low‐income users, the use of caps by providers is more likely driven by cost (or other non‐demand‐side) considerations than by revenue enhancement. Lastly, additional analysis shows a largely monotonically increasing relationship between income and usage intensity (measured as page views in a session), suggesting that, ceteris paribus, price discrimination strategies may be more effective if tied to usage intensity rather than duration.

In this article I investigate whether the round‐number heuristic affects investors' selection of trading time in the international market. I document the existence of round‐time biases, as evidenced by trading activities intensifying at second 0 of 1 min. Further examination suggests that the round‐time anomaly is likely driven by algorithmic trading from institutional investors. Consistent with this inference, I demonstrate that round‐time transactions carry value‐relevant information, have the predictive power for intraday‐level returns, and yield the positive daily trading revenue.

Can the optimal tariff be zero for a growing large country? To pursue the possibility, we extend the Rivera‐Batiz–Romer lab‐equipment model of endogenous technological change to include asymmetric countries, import tariffs, and either homogeneous or heterogeneous firms. Each country's domestic revenue share is a sufficient statistic for its long‐run growth rate, but it is not for its long‐run welfare. A unilateral tariff reduction by either country always increases the balanced growth rate. A zero tariff is locally optimal for a country under a mild condition, which is automatically satisfied at a symmetric balanced growth path with the zero tariff.

Since 2011, a wide range of unhealthy food and drink are subject to a specific excise tax in Hungary. We analyze how this tax affected the revenue, sales volume, personnel costs, and size of sweet food producers, and compare these results to estimated effects on household spending on sugary food. We base our analysis on administrative data sets of firm level indicators, and survey data on household spending. We apply the estimation method of difference‐in‐differences, where firms producing untaxed processed food (in the firm level analysis) and household spending on food categories directly not affected by the tax (in the household level analysis) serve as control groups. Our results suggest strong negative short‐run effects of the unhealthy food tax on firms’ inland sales volume, and moderate effects on inland sales revenue and personnel costs. These results correspond to the moderate estimated effects on household spending on sugary food. The reducing effects diminish in about 3 years after the introduction of the tax—overlapping with the recovery of the Hungarian economy from recession. Our findings suggest that the impacts of an unhealthy food tax strongly depend on the economic conditions.

Revenue, cost, tuition, and scholarship data at private liberal arts colleges from 2003–2013 are used to estimate how each college's net revenue per student varies with student enrollment. Our empirical specification assumes that colleges simultaneously pick their optimal net tuition and cost of instruction. The estimates allow us to identify the enrollment level that maximizes the return on the college's provision of educational services. Thirty‐seven percent of the colleges have enrollments within one standard deviation of their profit maximizing enrollment. Another 11% are more than one standard deviation above the profit maximizing level; they increase access to students but not revenue. Compared to the profit maximizing colleges, the institutions with enrollments beyond their profit maximum have stronger endowments and enroll more low‐income students. Although no schools were below their shut‐down enrollment, 13% were within one standard deviation of their minimum enrollment and may be vulnerable to tuition revenue shock.

According to the World Bank, the COVID-19 pandemic is going to exacerbate the situation of poverty. It predicts that the poverty rate could rise by 0.3 to 0.7 percentage points, to around 9% in 2020. This study aims at providing insights into poverty in Pakistan and analyzes the impact of fiscal decentralization on poverty alleviation. According to the Asian Development Bank, Pakistan houses roughly 210 million poor people. This study follows the data between 1975 and 2018, applying a unit root test to station this data. The statistical models are developed with a view to the autoregressive distributed lag co-integration technique for estimation. The findings of the study conclude that fiscal decentralization has a direct and indirect impact in eradicating poverty. We thus conclude that the government should provide autonomy to the provinces in Pakistan, as the central government alone cannot tackle and understand the local problems. Therefore, the government must adopt a fiscal decentralization policy. This study further suggests that the government should effectively utilize the progressive taxation strategy to maximize revenues and cater to poverty alleviation. © 2021 Policy Studies Organization.

Research Summary The well‐known study by Leiponen and Helfat (2010) examined how firms increased their odds of innovation success by pursuing multiple parallel innovation objectives and knowledge sources. We replicate their study across geographic and temporal contexts using three sets of data: from Finland (N = 884) in 2006–2008 and from other European countries in two different time periods (N = 36,480 in 2006–2008 and 24,326 in 2008–2010). Our results largely corroborate their core findings of the direct effects. We also find no evidence of diminishing returns to the breadth of innovation objectives, and we find at best slight evidence of diminishing returns to the breadth of knowledge sources. However, we find evidence of a significant negative interaction between knowledge sources and innovation objectives, contrary to Leiponen and Helfat's (2010) finding of a lack of evidence in a positive interaction. The new evidence of a negative interaction effect suggests that the positive effect of breadth in knowledge sources can also diminish contingent upon the breadth of innovation objectives. Managerial Summary Companies are increasingly searching for new sources of knowledge while simultaneously pursuing multiple strategic innovation objectives. The results of our analysis from two multicountry datasets show that increased number of knowledge sources and strategic objectives are likely to result in higher innovation performance, that is, increased revenue from new products or increased likelihood of new product introduction. However, simultaneously pursuing greater number of strategic objectives while seeking knowledge from a greater number of sources may not result in greater innovation success. Consequently, managers should either focus on a narrow set of objectives while increasing their search breadth or pursue a broader set of objectives while focusing on fewer sources of knowledge. There is evidence of slight reduction in the ability to introduce new products when firms pursue more than eight knowledge sources. Otherwise, there is no evidence of diminishing returns of knowledge sources on revenue from new products or diminishing returns of objectives on innovation performance.

Great Britain established the new colony of South Australia (SA) in 1834, and migration from Britain to the colony began in 1836. After seven turbulent years, the discovery of two large deposits of copper at Kapunda (1843–4) and Burra (1844–5) renewed the colony’s economic prospects. Over the 1845–50 period, SA supplied roughly 9 per cent of the world’s copper production. Immigration to SA from Britain soared, with the colony’s population more than tripling between 1844 and 1851. We use the Beine–Coulombe–Vermeulen model of an economy with a booming resource sector to frame our empirical investigation of the boom’s effects on the export of other traded goods and worker living standards. Using newly developed SA wage and price series for this period, we find that immigration mitigated and offset some Dutch disease effects: there were just modest increases in SA living standards, increases in the export of wool and wheat, and a larger share in production for non‐traded goods. Finally, we conclude that the decision by Governor Grey to force broad ownership of the ‘monster’ Burra mine and the use of revenues from land sales to subsidise immigration helped SA avoid the corruption and rent‐seeking associated with other resource booms.

As Timor‐Leste nears the end of its petroleum‐exporting era, the transition to a sustainable economy has become even more challenging due to partisan political competition, disastrous flooding and the pandemic. This article describes the current economic context, and deteriorating trends. After a brief discussion of the political situation and the impacts of COVID‐19, it explores expenditure and income trends in recent state budgets, with a particular focus on dependency on oil and gas revenues and their investments, which pay for 80% of state spending and may run out within a decade. It then assesses in detail revenue prospects from current and future oil and gas activities, including Greater Sunrise and the planned Tasi Mane petroleum infrastructure project. The analysis shows that it is highly likely that resource revenue will continue to decline. Diversification is not an option; it is the only way forward.

This article attempts to provide an exploratory review of policy reforms, trends, and determinants of fiscal deficits in Uganda, a low‐income country that has undertaken many successful economic reforms. Fiscal policy reforms initially sought to stabilize the economy in the post‐crisis period with structural adjustment and economic recovery programs. With the restoration of macroeconomic stability, fiscal objectives shifted to poverty eradication following the promulgation of the Poverty Eradication Action Plan. More recently, a key fiscal policy objective is to unlock key growth and competitiveness constraints with the rolling out of National Development Plans. These reforms achieved much success in the early years, especially in the areas of macroeconomic stabilization and growth because they received support and political goodwill from the highest echelons of government. However, fiscal slippages during more recent years have often threatened to reverse the hard‐earned gains from these reform programs. Consequently, fiscal outcomes have been characterized by revenue shortfalls, budget execution challenges, accumulation of arrears, and rising debt.

The choice of an appropriate e-commerce strategy for the listing in price comparison platforms (eBay, Amazon, price search engines) is crucial for the survival of online stores in B2C e-commerce business. We use a comprehensive data set from the Austrian price search engine geizhals.at to identify successful e-commerce strategies with regard to these listing decisions. An e-commerce strategy is a set of choices including listing, availability, and decisions on the price path and shipping cost. We apply cluster analysis to identify the different strategies that have been used by online retailers. Using various success measures such as revenue, clicks, market share, and the survival of firms we present causal evidence on the effectiveness of different e-commerce strategies.

There is an increasing interest in the impact assessment of management training programs. Among various types of training, this study focuses on those featuring Kaizen, a standard approach to production management and quality control whose name derives from the Japanese word meaning “improvement.” Previous studies of Kaizen training programs evaluate training impacts on management practices, business performance, and the willingness to pay for training, and do not pay attention to impacts on workers. Using the firm‐level data, this study attempts to assess the impacts of an onsite training program held at small and medium enterprises in eight Central American and Caribbean countries. Treated firms are compared with those firms that are selected by the sponsor organization according to the same criteria as the treated counterparts but not yet treated. Propensity score matching is employed to increase comparability between the two groups. This paper presents suggestive evidence that the training program improved work practices and the attitude of workers toward work. It also suggests that the treated firms weaken the linkage between sales revenues and wages, probably to induce workers to pay attention to activities that do not immediately increase sales, such as maintenance and coaching of other workers.

Operating inefficiency begets the opportunity for technology to provide cost‐effective fixes. That, in a nutshell, is the compelling case that vendors of terminal operating system (TOS) software are making to managers of marine terminals, a critical chokepoint in the transportation networks. A TOS is a digital system that can integrate communication across a marine terminal – from vessel to gate and enhance operational efficiency. TOS vendors have a receptive audience because competing terminal managers yearn for a cost‐effective “solution” to increase their efficiency, which should translate into increased revenue and profit. The challenge is magnified because cargo handling operations at the marine terminal address the overlapping and sometimes conflicting interests of a myriad of players: carriers, shippers, consignees, and their agents. This chapter puts into context the evolution of delay‐related challenges marine terminals face and how the niche market software can help mitigate them. The chapter also highlights key vendors, issues plaguing the adoption of a TOS, and the evolution of TOS in the Industry 4.0 era.

Objective To assess economic and social drivers of dispensing antibiotics without prescription by community pharmacies in Nepal. Method A survey was conducted among 111 pharmacy owners and managers in five districts. Information on demographic and economic characteristics of the pharmacies (e.g. revenue and profits from antibiotics) and their inclination to sell antibiotics without a physician's prescription under various scenarios (e.g. diarrhoea in a child) was collected. Univariate analysis was conducted to assess the demographic and economic characteristics. Bivariate analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between dispensing antibiotics without prescription and economic and social factors. Results Azithromycin and amoxicillin were the most commonly dispensed antibiotics. The proportions of pharmacies reporting that they would 'most likely' or 'likely' dispense antibiotics without prescription to adult patients ranged from 36.9% (sore throat) to 67.6% (cough). The proportions for paediatric patients ranged from 62.2% (sore throat) to 80.2% (cough or diarrhoea). There was no consistent relationship between the likelihood of dispensing antibiotics and revenues, profits or the number of patients. Instead, dispensing behaviour was influenced by the pressure from the patient; the respondents were more likely to dispense antibiotics when the patient specifically asked for 'an antibiotic' rather than for 'a medicine', and 68.5% respondents ranked 'customer satisfaction' as the most important factor motivating their work. Conclusions In Nepal, inappropriate sale of antibiotics by community pharmacists is high, particularly for paediatric patients. Additional research is needed to establish key drivers of this behaviour and to help design effective approaches to reducing AMR.

Demand reduction causes extremely low revenues in uniform‐price auctions, which can be interpreted as implicit collusion among bidders. We model a uniform‐price auction with a buyout option and investigate its potential for alleviating implicit collusion. We focus on the extreme case that yields a revenue of zero with no buyout option. Our main result is that the seller obtains a positive expected revenue unless the buyout price is high. Notably, a bidder will exercise a buyout option even though the bidder is risk neutral; that is, auction aversion is fully endogenous, in contradiction to the findings of previous work.

This paper addresses the calls for greater research on the antecedents of technological acquisitions by exploring a mechanism that drives both acquisition decision and target selection. Drawing from the RBV, this paper presents patent expiration as a driver behind pharmaceutical firms’ acquisition decisions and target selection. This paper argues that patent expiration constitutes a disruption to pharmaceutical firms’ pipelines and a threat to revenue and profit streams and that acquisitions represent a possible short‐term solution for firms to replenish their patent portfolios and to ensure a continuous flow of revenues. Using a sample of US pharmaceutical firms, this paper shows that pharmaceutical firms engage in acquisitions when they face large amounts of patent expiration and when they are unable to internally replenish their patent portfolios. The results also show that acquiring firms have a preference for targets with resources similar to their existing portfolio of patents, which is explained by firms’ desire to minimize post‐integration problems and possible disruptions derived from the difficulties in assimilation and commercial exploitation of distant knowledge. This is in contrast with previous studies indicating that acquiring firms benefit from knowledge bases that are more distant.

This paper makes a call for an urban political ecology (UPE) which engages more extensively with Earth’s geological formations. As a material at the centre of global urbanisation process, sand is offered as a geological entry point. The paper presents an analysis of the urbanisation of sand, or the ways in which sand is brought into the urban realm, grounding this reading in Accra—a growing city on Ghana’s Atlantic coast. Drawing from 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork, the paper charts the socio-natural politics through which sand is first unearthed from the edges of the city—an extractive processes otherwise known as “sand winning” in Ghana. By examining the forms of power which govern uneven revenue flows to communities, the displacement of farming groups, the widespread loss of farmland and a contested regime of governance, the analysis exposes the socio-natural politics through which the city’s geological baseline is first unearthed.

In this paper, we study the effectiveness of incentives on delivery service time slot choices. In particular, we focus on the use of green labels that specify time slots as environmentally friendly and that intrinsically motivate customers to choose a specific delivery time slot in lieu of price incentives based on extrinsic motivation. We argue that this is important since green labels’ intrinsic nature affects costumer choice in fundamentally different ways than price incentives. We conduct two experiments and two simulation studies to study the effects of using green labels. Our experimental findings suggest that: (i) green labels are an effective tool to steer shoppers toward a certain delivery option, (ii) green labels are more effective for people who are more eco-conscious, (iii) green labels remain effective in the presence of price incentives, while price incentives offer little added value beyond that of just green labels, and (iv) the effectiveness of green labels vs. price discounts remains high when time slots are less appealing (i.e., longer). Our simulation findings suggest that green slots, compared to price incentives or no incentives, offer providers a way to effectively steer consumer time slot choices to yield shorter routes, fewer delivery vehicles used, and more per-customer revenue. We thus conclude that steering individuals to select delivery time slots through intrinsic motivation via green labels may be a promising, no-cost direction for (online) retailers and an important topic for further research.