The Cost of ownership in the governance of interfirm collaborations

This paper investigates the selection of governance forms in interfirm collaborations taking into account the predictions from transaction costs and property rights theories. Transaction costs arguments are often used to justify the introduction of hierarchical controls in collaborations, but the ownership dimension of going from “contracts” to “hierarchies” has been ignored in the past and with it the so called “costs of ownership”. The theoretical results, tested with a sample of collaborations in which participate Spanish firms, indicate that the cost of ownership may offset the benefits of hierarchical controls and therefore limit their diffusion. Evidence is also reported of possible complementarities between reputation effects and forms of ownership that go together with hierarchical controls (i.e. joint ventures), in contrast with the generally assumed substitutability between the two.

Un diàleg de sords: intentant donar sentit al debat sobre la publicació electrònica

Aquest article se centra en les implicacions de la difusió electrònica per al sistema de publicació de revistes basat en la revisió per parells [peer-reviewed]. Per donar sentit a un assumpte tan complex, és de molt ajut mirar-s'ho des de la perspectiva dels orígens del sistema i de les seves tres funcions nuclears: el rànquing en la recerca, facilitar la comunicació interactiva entre els estudiosos i crear un arxiu global del coneixement científic. Cadascuna d’aquestes funcions principals té requeriments diferents que, en certa mesura, se sobreposen però que també entren, d'alguna manera, en conflicte. Internet obre la possibilitat de desenvolupar una varietat de models distints de comunicació científica modulant la intensitat de cadascun d'aquests tres rols que les revistes en paper han desenvolupat i, possiblement, d'altres funcions que no eren ni tan sols imaginables abans del desenvolupament de les xarxes electròniques d'abast planetari. Les implicacions de la distribució electrònica per a la propietat i accés a la literatura científica són profundes i tendeixen a agreujar la ja seriosa crisi dels preus de les revistes que està frenant l'accés a la informació científica. La comunitat d'estudiosos, que és autora del material que aquestes publicacions contenen i, al mateix temps, n'és el principal consumidor, està en possessió de la clau per a solucionar aquesta crisi tot permetent a Internet ser un vehicle que faciliti la difusió d’una recerca finançada des del sector públic en comptes de crear una situació de propietat privada d'aquesta recerca.

Car ownership and access to jobs in Spain

This study analyses the impact that job accessibility in public transport has on car ownership. An ordered probit explaining the number of cars per household is estimated as a function of head of household characteristics, household characteristics and job accessibility. The data used in the analysis come from the Microcensus of year 2001 of the Spanish Institute of Statistics for the areas of Barcelona and Madrid. Our results show a significant effect of accessibility on car ownership. Additionally, we carried out simulation exercises in which the expected number of vehicles decreases as accessibility improves. For instance, in the case of households living outside the central city, an improvement of accessibility up to the average level of the central city would offset the effect of the number of working adults on the expected number of vehicles.

Cross-section data, disequilibrium situations and estimated coefficients: evidence from car ownership demand

The objective of this paper is to analyse to what extent the use of cross-section data will distort the estimated elasticities for car ownership demand when the observed variables do not correspond to a state equilibrium for some individuals in the sample. Our proposal consists of approximating the equilibrium values of the observed variables by constructing a pseudo-panel data set which entails averaging individuals observed at different points of time into cohorts. The results show that individual and aggregate data lead to almost the same value for income elasticity, whereas with respect to working adult elasticity the similarity is less pronounced.

Economic development and changes in car ownership patterns

The contributions of this paper are twofold: On the one hand, the paper analyses the factors determining the growth in car ownership in Spain over the last two decades, and, on the other, the paper provides empirical evidence for a controversial methodological issue. From a methodological point of view, the paper compares the two alternative decision mechanisms used for modelling car ownership: ordered-response versus unordered-response mechanisms. A discrete choice model is estimated at three points in time: 1980, 1990 and 2000. The study concludes that on the basis of forecasting performance, the multinomial logit model and the ordered probit model are almost undistinguishable. As for the empirical results, it can be emphasised that income elasticity is not constant and declines as car ownership increases. Besides, households living in rural areas are less sensitive than those living in urban areas. Car ownership is also sensitive to the quality of public transport for those living in the largest cities. The results also confirmed the existence of a generation effect, which will vanish around the year 2020, a weak life-cycle effect, and a positive effect of employment on the number of cars per household. Finally, the change in the estimated coefficients over time reflects an increase in mobility needs and, consequently, an increase in car ownership.

Agency cost of government ownership: a study of voluntary audit comitte formation in China

In this paper, we investigate the agency costs of government ownership and their impact on corporate governance and firm value. China is used as a laboratory because of the prevalent state shareholdings in exchange-listed firms. In this context, we specifically consider the trade-offs involved in the voluntary formation of an audit committee when the controlling shareholder is the state. The decision to improve corporate governance (in this case, introduce an audit committee) is shown to be value relevant and a function of existing agency relationships and non-trivial implementation costs. Our findings are robust to the level of pyramid groups, the ownership-control wedge, and financial leverage. The research adds to the debate regarding the effect of government shareholdings on corporate culture and performance - a topic that hastaken on renewed importance in recent times.

Stream Radio Community : comunitat web per la difusió de radio via streaming

Desenvolupament d'una aplicació web amb projecció a comunitat virtual d’usuaris, que també integra un sistema de transmissió de streaming. Mitjançant aquest sistema els usuaris són capaços d’emetre o d’escoltar un programa radiofònic en temps real o offline.

AgShare : Building Community and Content with Multiple Partners

Michigan State University and OER Africa are creating a win-win collaboration of existing organizations for African publishing, localizing, and sharing of teaching and learning materials that fill critical resource gaps in African MSc agriculture curriculum. By the end of the 18-month planning and pilot initiative, African agriculture universities, faculty, students, researchers, NGO leaders, extension staff, and farmers will participate in building AgShare by demonstrating its benefits and outcomes and by building momentum and support for growth.

The Quest for the Oracle Birds: Researching the Chinese Community in Colonial Mexico (1565-1700)

The Asian Diaspora in the Americas in the 16th and 17th has been neglected by scholars for a long time. This fact is baffling, not only for the great interest of this topic in of itself, but also because it could provide new knowledge of colonial Mexico, especially in terms of the interaction among the many groups that populated the colony. This early movement of people and ideas across the largest extension of water in the planet is characteristic of what has been called the ¿archaic globalization,¿ and thus research on these matters could contribute to the history of globalization.In this presentation, I seek to further elaborate on the themes outlined by Edward Slack in The Chinos in New Spain: A Corrective Lens for a Distorted Image, an article published in 2009 in the Journal of World History. Firstly, I would like to bring forth some evidence that indicates that Asian religious practices were present in Mexico in the 1600s. Furthermore, I will argue that the traces of these practices are still visible today, in the form of a popular fortune-telling tradition. Secondly, I intend to provide some information about the arrival, settlement and distribution of the Asian Diaspora. I will focus on their distribution within Mexico City. Thirdly, I will elaborate on their occupations, social status and daily life, as well as in the patterns in marriages and relations with other groups. And lastly, I will show how the guild of barbers served as an Asian immigrant reception network.

Social Determinants of Child Health in Colombia: Can Community Education Moderate the Effect of Family Characteristics?

Contextual effects on child health have been investigated extensively in previous research. However, few studies have considered the interplay between community characteristics and individual-level variables. This study examines the influence of community education and family socioeconomic characteristics on child health (as measured by height and weight-for-age Z-scores), as well as their interactions. We adapted the Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH) framework to the context of child health. Using data from the 2010 Colombian Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), weighted multilevel models are fitted since the data are not self-weighting. The results show a positive impact of the level of education of other women in the community on child health, even after controlling for individual and family socioeconomic characteristics. Different pathways through which community education can substitute for the effect of family characteristics on child nutrition are found. The interaction terms highlight the importance of community education as a moderator of the impact of the mother’s own education and autonomy, on child health. In addition, the results reveal differences between height and weight-for-age indicators in their responsiveness to individual and contextual factors. Our findings suggest that community intervention programmes may have differential effects on child health. Therefore, their identification can contribute to a better targeting of child care policies.

Diversity of the bacterial community in the surface soil of a pear orchard based on 16S rRNA gene analysis

A cultivation-independent approach based on polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-amplified partial small subunit rRNA genes was used to characterize bacterial populations in the surface soil of a commercial pear orchard consisting of different pear cultivars during two consecutive growing seasons. Pyrus communis L. cvs Blanquilla, Conference, and Williams are among the most widely cultivated cultivars in Europe and account for the majority of pear production in Northeastern Spain. To assess the heterogeneity of the community structure in response to environmental variables and tree phenology, bacterial populations were examined using PCR-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) followed by cluster analysis of the 16S ribosomal DNA profiles by means of the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic means. Similarity analysis of the band patterns failed to identify characteristic fingerprints associated with the pear cultivars. Both environmentally and biologically based principal-component analyses showed that the microbial communities changed significantly throughout the year depending on temperature and, to a lesser extent, on tree phenology and rainfall. Prominent DGGE bands were excised and sequenced to gain insight into the identities of the predominant bacterial populations. Most DGGE band sequences were related to bacterial phyla, such as Bacteroidetes, Cyanobacteria, Acidobacteria, Proteobacteria, Nitrospirae, and Gemmatimonadetes, previously associated with typical agronomic crop environments

How does ownership structure invfluence bank risk? Analyzing the role of managerial incentives

This paper analyzes how ownership concentration and managerial incentives influences bank risk for a large sample of US banks over the period 1997-2007. Using 2SLS simultaneous equations models, we show that ownership concentration has a positive total effect on bank risk. This is the result of a positive direct effect, which reflects monitoring and opportunistic behavior, and a negative indirect effect, which works through the design of managerial incentive contracts and reflects shareholder preferences toward risk. Large shareholders reduce bank risk by reducing the sensitivity of CEO wealth to stock volatility (Vega) and by increasing the CEO pay-performance sensitivity (Delta). In addition, we show that the direct and indirect effect of ownership concentration on bank risk depends on the type of the largest shareholder (a family, a bank, a corporation or an institutional investor), as well as, on the total shareholding held by each type as a group. Our results suggest that the positive relation between ownership concentration and risk is not the result of preferences towards more risk. Rather, they point at opportunistic behavior of large shareholders.

The interaction of ownership structure and customer satisfaction as determinants of brand equity

In this paper we study the interaction between ownership structure and customer satisfaction, and their impact on a firm's brand equity. We find that customer satisfaction has a positive direct effect on brand equity but an indirect negative one, through reductions in ownership concentration. This latter effect emerges when managers are focused mainly on satisfying customers. It gives out a warning signal that highlights the perverse effect of implementing policies focused excessively on satisfying customers at the expense of shareholders, on a firm's brand equity. We demonstrate our theoretical contention, empirically, making use of an incomplete panel data comprising 69 firms from 11 different nations for the period 2002-2005.