A Note on Comparative Statics for a Labor-Managed Firm Engaged in Exporting

Information acquisition under uncertainty: The case of labor-managed and profit-maximizing firms coexist

Endangered Scholars Worldwide Ebby Abramson The information in this quarterly print report is current as of April 10, 2017. The situation of scholars and students around the world changes on a daily basis. For the most up-to-date information and ways in which you can be involved in calling for the freedom of endangered scholars and students, please visit www.endangeredscholarsworldwide.net or follow us at www.facebook.com/endangeredscholars. In these pages we simply introduce new cases that have come to our attention in the past three months and provide basic information about continuing cases—a description of charges and potential or actual reported sentences. If you are aware of a scholar or student whose case you believe we should investigate, please contact us at esw@newschool.edu. Endangered Scholars Worldwide Urges Hungary to Rethink Closure of Central European University On Monday, April 10, 2017, Hungary's president signed a law that could lead to the closure of Central European University (CEU). The Hungarian Parliament voted in favor of the bill submitted to Parliament on March 28, 2017, by Zoltán Balog, Minister of Human Resources. The bill claimed "irregularities" were found in the operation of foreign-based universities. While no universities are specifically named, it has been widely noted that the legislation seems to target CEU. A total of 123 MPs voted for the bill, widely referred to as Lex CEU, and 38 opposition MPs voted against it. Starting January 1, 2018, CEU will no longer be permitted to enroll new students in any programs unless an agreement is reached by September 2017 between the United States government, the State [End Page v] of New York, and the Hungarian government. In addition, the legislation will force CEU to open a campus in New York State (where it is also accredited) and change its name. It would also eliminate a waiver that allows academic staff from non-EU nations to work at the university without a work permit. Endangered Scholars Worldwide strongly deplores and condemns the legislation as part of a power play by Prime Minister Viktor Orban against liberal values. The new law is a flagrant and unjust violation of the freedom, autonomy, security, and safety of a prominent European university and its more than 2200 faculty members, students, and academic staff. We urge all European governments, international organizations, university presidents, the US Department of State, academic and professional associations, student groups and individuals devoted to the promotion and defense of human rights to speak up and defend academic freedom and autonomy, and strongly protest and condemn this injudicious law, to call for immediate withdrawal of the law that directly and deliberately threatens the existence of an accomplished and internationally acclaimed university in the country. We urge the officials of the Hungarian government to respect, guarantee, and implement the provisions and principles of autonomy of higher education as specified in international conventions and treaties to which Hungary has long been a signatory. Please send appeals to: Prime Minister Viktor Orbán 1357 Budapest, Pf. 6. Hungary E-mail: miniszterelnok@me.gov.hu Zoltán Kovács International Spokesperson Tel: +36 1 896 1905 Fax: +36 1 795 0410 Email: intcomm@mk.gov.hu CC: István Mikola Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade Bem rakpart 47 1027 Budapest Hungary Phone: +36 1 458 1000 Fax: +36 1 212 5918 [End Page vi] Rex W. Tillerson United States Secretary of State Office of Foreign Missions U.S. Department of State 2201 C Street NW Washington, DC 20520 USA Email: OFMInfo@state.gov Nikki Haley U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations U.S. Permanent Mission to the United Nations 799 United Nations Plaza New York, NY 10017 USA Kishore Singh United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education Palais des Nations CH-1211 Geneva 10 Switzerland Email: sreducation@ohchr.org David Kaye United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression Palais des Nations CH-1211 Geneva 10 Switzerland Fax: +41 22 917 9006 Email: freedex@ohchr.org Federica Mogherini High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy European Commission Rue de la Loi...

Do controls on capital flows persistently isolate domestic markets from international markets? Or is the insulation they provide just ephemeral?

This chapter investigates the ways in which the post-2010 Fidesz government under Viktor Orbán used antisemitic tropes to configure George Soros—once hailed as a champion of market reform, freedom, and democracy—as an ontological threat to the Hungarian nation that should therefore be expunged from the country, together with “his networks,” including the Open Society Institute and Central European University. To show the government’s communication strategy in action, we combined an analysis of antisemitic discourse on the far right with a media content analysis of Sorosozás in government-backed online news portals from 2015 to 2020. We show that, from 2010, Orbán and his media allies discursively interpellated specific individuals and states as “financiers” and “global powers” as cogs in a global “Soros network.” In doing so, they drew upon well-established fifth-column narratives originally constructed and refined by ideologists from the Kádár era who employed a latent antisemitic code in their writing. At one time vehemently rejecting such discourse, Orbán and his government allies have become its chief articulators with devastating effects for one of his targets—the Central European University in Budapest.

Event Abstract Back to Event Studying infant cognition by EEG and ERP Gergely Csibra1* 1 Central European University, Hungary One can measure the functional brain activation of babies for several purposes. First, variations of neural activation measured in controlled situations may reveal how the infant brain works, and when these results are compared across development or with those of adults, they allow insights into early functional development of the cerebral cortex. Second, correlating neural activations with behavioral performance across individuals can generate hypotheses about the neural mechanisms that underlie overt behavior, and may lead to a better understanding of individual differences or developmental disorders. Finally, functional brain activations in infants can be used to test, support, or falsify theories of infant cognitive development—as long as such activations could be plausibly identified as neural 'signatures' of certain kinds of representations or computations. In this talk, I will illustrate this third, most modest, usage of neuroscientific approach to infant cognition by four examples. First, we used event-related potentials to test whether 5-month-old infants are subject to the audio-visual McGurk illusion - a question that would be particularly difficult to answer by purely behavioral methods. Second, event-related gamma-band oscillations revealed that 4-month-olds interpret certain dynamic facial expressions (such as direct gaze and eye-brow raise) as communicative signals. This finding was also supported by near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), which measures haemodynamic changes in the infant brain. Third, similar gamma-band oscillatory responses indicated that learning object labels modify the visual processing of the associated objects in the infant brain. Finally, a recent finding demonstrates how measurements of motor activation during action perception by the attenuation of the sensorimotor alpha waves could be used for disambiguating behavioral findings concerning action interpretation in infants. Electrophysiological techniques provide an excellent tool to study the cognitive development in young infants. Conference: MMN 09 Fifth Conference on Mismatch Negativity (MMN) and its Clinical and Scientific Applications, Budapest, Hungary, 4 Apr - 7 Apr, 2009. Presentation Type: Oral Presentation Topic: Invited Talk Citation: Csibra G (2009). Studying infant cognition by EEG and ERP. Conference Abstract: MMN 09 Fifth Conference on Mismatch Negativity (MMN) and its Clinical and Scientific Applications. doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.09.2009.05.004 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 19 Mar 2009; Published Online: 19 Mar 2009. * Correspondence: Gergely Csibra, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary, csibrag@ceu.hu Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Gergely Csibra Google Gergely Csibra Google Scholar Gergely Csibra PubMed Gergely Csibra Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

A theory of entry into and exit from export markets

Carbon markets devolve governance to external institutions and displace power from sovereign states. Major producers in these markets, notably China, have expressed concern about the adverse implications for national interests and sovereignty associated with selling off the rights to emit carbon emissions abroad. This article suggests that such concern has shaped the discursive context in which emission trading schemes have gained popularity in the country. Our discourse analysis shows that notions of market power are made manifest as a powerful storyline. In the Chinese language, “power,” “sovereignty,” and “rights” all use the same character. The storyline captures all these expressions and allows for a positive view about active engagement in carbon trading as a way to protect development rights and redeem carbon sovereignty. Thus, the contested policy of emissions trading becomes embedded in the more appealing narrative of national development and made politically attractive, despite unfavorable realities against it.

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN LABELING: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE MANITOBA HOG INDUSTRY

Purpose Although earlier research suggests a positive relationship exists between engaging in entrepreneurial marketing activities and firm performance, there may be contingent issues that impact the association. This investigation unpacks the relationship between entrepreneurial marketing behaviour and firm performance under the moderating role of coopetition, in an immediate post-COVID-19 period.Design/methodology/approach A resource-based theoretical lens, alongside an outside-in perspective, underpins this study. Following 20 field interviews, survey responses via an online survey were obtained from 306 small, passive exporting wine producers with a domestic market focus in the United States. The data passed all major robustness checks.Findings The statistical findings indicated that entrepreneurial marketing activities positively and significantly influenced firm performance, while coopetition provided a non-significant moderation effect. Field interviews suggested that entrepreneurs’ attemps to scale up from passive to more active export activities in an immediate post-pandemic period helped explain the findings. Owner-managers rejoined trustworthy and complementary pre-pandemic coopetition partners in the immediate aftermath of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) for domestic market activities. In contrast, they had to minimise risks from dark-side/opportunistic behaviour when joining coopetition networks with partners while attempting to scale up export market activities.Originality/value Unique insights emerge to unpack the entrepreneurial marketing–performance relationship via the moderation effect of coopetition, namely, with the temporal setting of an immediate post-COVID-19 period. Firstly, new support arises regarding the likely performance-enhancing impact of owner-managers’ engagement in entrepreneurial marketing practices. Secondly, novel findings emerge in respect of the contrasting role of coopetition in both domestic and export market activities. Thirdly, new evidence arises in relation to a resource-based theoretical lens alongside an outside-in perspective, whereby, strategic flexibility in pivoting facets of a firm’s business model needs effective management following a crisis.

This paper examines the production and hedging decisions of an exporting firm under exchange rate uncertainty. The firm is export flexible in that it can distribute its output to either the domestic market or a foreign market, after observing the realized spot exchange rate. The firm is a monopoly in the domestic market but a price-taker in the foreign market. It is shown that the separation theorem holds if selling exclusively in the domestic market is suboptimal even under the most unfavorable sport exchange rate. Otherwise, the firm's optimal output depends on its preference and on the underlying exchange rate uncertainty. Furthermore, the export-flexible firm underhedges its exchange rate risk exposure in a currency forward market wherein the forward exchange rate contains a non-positive risk premium. [D21, F31]

Cooperative and noncooperative R&D with spillovers: The case of labor-managed firms

Risk Assessment Model for Human Infection with the Cestode Taenia saginata

The manufacturing sector in Taiwan has a market structure composed of large numbers of small firms, a heavy focus on less capital-intensive industries, and a dense network of firms specializing in subcontracting and trading services. It has been argued that these features lower the start-up costs of new manufacturing firms. Recent theoretical models of market evolution emphasize that low sunk entry and exit costs act to speed firm turnover by facilitating entry and increasing the pressure on inefficient firms to exit. As a result, low cost entry and exit may contribute to aggregate productivity improvements by facilitating the rapid transfer of resources from less to more efficient producers within an industry. Using comprehensive firm-level panel data from the Taiwanese Census of Manufactures for 1981, 1986, and 1991, we measure differences in total factor productivity among entering, exiting, and continuing firms, and quantify the contribution of firm turnover to industry productivity improvements. We find significant differences in productivity across manufacturing firms that are reflected in turnover patterns in both the domestic and export market. Cohorts of new firms have lower average productivity than incumbents but are themselves a heterogeneous group. The more productive members of the group, on average, survive and, in many cases, their productivity converges to the productivity level of incumbents. Exiting firms are less productive than survivors. Exporters, including firms that recently exited the export market, are more productive than nonexporters. These patterns are consistent with the view that both the domestic and export market sort out high productivity from low productivity firms and that the export market is a tougher screen. The productivity differential between entering and exiting firms is an important source of industry-level productivity growth in Taiwanese manufacturing, accounting for as much as one-half of industry improvement in some industries and time periods.

In the literature on labor-managed firms, competitive or monopolistic or oligopolistic firms are assumed to produce only one homogeneous good. Therefore, the firms try to maximize the surplus per worker net of the competitively determined wage by adjusting output levels, and the sum of the firms' equilibrium outputs determines uniquely the equilibrium market price of the product through the market demand function. If product differentiation exists as is universally observed in modern economies, the labormanaged oligopolistic firms can maximize the surplus per worker by optimally adjusting either output levels ?r prices of their products. In the profit maximizing oligopoly with product differentiation, different sets of equilibrium prices emerge depending on whether firms choose outputs or prices as their strategic variables. Take a simple example of duopoly where two firms have the following demand functions.

This paper contributes to the literature on firms’ productivity and exporting decisions by analysing the role played by organisational choice aspects. Rather than setting up a vertically integrated structure, manufacturers may act as subcontractors in both domestic and foreign markets, and produce to satisfy the requirements of other firms. The predictions that the most productive firms self‐select into exporting, whereas the least productive ones work as subcontractors serving the domestic market only, are tested on a sample of Italian firms observed during the 1998–2003 period. The results of our estimates highlight a ranking of firms consistent with a priori expectations, and provide a clear indication that passive exporters (i.e. those using subcontracting in foreign markets) display lower total factor productivity (TFP) values when compared with direct exporters. Moreover, only the latter category exhibits higher pre‐entry productivity levels and growth rates as well as higher post‐entry TFP growth rates. Such findings are consistent with both the self‐selection hypothesis and the learning‐by‐exporting explanation.