The impact of regulatory reforms on cost structure, ownership and competition in Indian banking

This paper evaluates the impact of financial sector reforms on the cost structure characteristics and on the ownership–cost efficiency relationship in Indian banking. It also examines the impact of reforms on the dynamics of competition in the lending market. We find evidence that deregulation improves banks performance and fosters competition in the lending market. Results suggest technological progress, once Indian commercial banks have adjusted to the new regulatory environment. This, however, does not translate in efficiency gains. There is also evidence of an ownership effect on the level and pattern of efficiency change. Finally, competition keeps building pace even in the re-regulation period and technological improvements are not hampered by the tightening of prudential norms

Do Loss Aversion and the Ownership Effect Bias Content Validation Procedures?

In making validity arguments, a central consideration is whether the instrument fairly and adequately covers intended content, and this is often evaluated by experts. While common procedures exist for quantitatively assessing this, the effect of loss aversion—a cognitive bias that would predict a tendency to retain items—on these procedures has not been investigated. For more novel constructs, experts are typically drawn from adjacent domains. In such cases, a related cognitive bias, the ownership effect, would predict that experts would be more loss averse when considering items closer to their domains. This study investigated whether loss aversion and the ownership effect are a concern in standard content validity evaluation procedures. In addition to including promising items to measure a relatively novel construct, framing agency, we included distractor items linked to other areas of our evaluators’ expertise. Experts evaluated all items following procedures outlined by Lawshe (1975). We found on average, experts were able to distinguish between the intended items and distractor items. Likewise, on average, experts were somewhat more likely to reject distractor items closer to their expertise. This suggests that loss aversion and the ownership effect are not likely to bias content validation procedures

Cross-Border Acquisitions, Multinationals and Wage Elasticities

The growing number of cross-border acquisitions has in many countries raised concerns about labor demand consequences. In this study, we use detailed firm level data to examine how increased internationalization and multinational activity affect the volatility of employment, or rather, the wage elasticity of labor demand. We analyze whether the wage elasticity of labor demand differs between multinational and non-multinational firms as well as between foreign-owned and domestic firms, and we are able to distinguish between different skill groups of employees. Moreover, we separate between an acquisition effect and a general ownership effect. Our results do not show any general difference in wage elasticities between different types of firms.FDI; Cross-Border Acquisitions; Multinational Enterprises; Foreign Ownership; Labor Demand; Skill Groups; GMM

Are Public Banks pro-Competitive? Evidence from Concentrated Local Markets in Brazil

We measure the competitive effect of public ownership of banks in concentrated local banking markets in Brazil by extending Bresnahan and Reiss’s [1991] framework to measure the effects of entry in concentrated markets. We use variation in market size, the number of competitors and their identity to infer how conduct is affected by the entry of a private vis-à-vis a public bank. We find that, while local markets whose structure is private bank duopoly are 100% larger than private monopolies, duopolies with one public and one private bank and private monopolies are no different with respect to market size. These results suggest that, while the presence of private banks toughens competition, public banks do not affect conduct.banking industry; public versus private ownership; effect of entry.

What Causes Plant Closure within Multi-Plant Firms?

This paper investigates why plants belonging to multi-plant firms are more likely to exit. Using Japanese plant data linked to firm data we study the process of plant closure among domestic multi-plant firms as well as multi-plant multinationals. As elsewhere in the literature these organisational forms are found to raise the probability of plant exit despite the superior characteristics of the plants they own. We find that the domestic multi-plant ownership effect is attributable to these firms closing the weakest elements of the firm. We reject the idea of multinationals being ‘footloose’ but instead find a residual effect of multinational ownership which reduces the probability of plant death when we control for the process of closure within those firms.Exit, Multinational Firms, Multi-plant firms, International Trade

Consistency in Organization (updated)

Internal organization relies heavily on psychological consistency requirements. This thought has been emphasized in modern compensation theory, but has not been extended to organization theory. The perspective sheds new light on several topics in the theory of the firm, like the boundaries of the firm, the importance of fairness concerns within firms, the attenuation of incentives, or the role of routines and incentives. It implies a perceptional theory of the firm that is realistic in the sense advocated by Ronald Coase (1937).disruptive technologies, skunkworks, ownership effect, fairness, employment relationship, Simon, theory of the firm, hierarchy, evolutionary theory of the firm, perceptional theory of the firm, consistency, small numbers, Williamson’s puzzle, centralization paradox, compensation, boundaries of the firm, fairness, idiosyncratic exchange, entitlements, obligations, routines, framing, Tayloristic organization, holistic organization

Are you what you have? The role of motivation and cultural value congruency on the mere ownership effect

Previous research on mere ownership effect has shown that merely possessing an object results in enhanced evaluation of that object (Beggan, 1992), when compared with unowned (Belk, 1988; Dittmar, 1992; Prelinger, 1959) or others-owned object (Nesselroade et al., 1999). Since people see their possessions as an extension of their self-identities (Belk, 1988), it is suggested that making self-enhancing judgments about possessions would satisfy owners\u27 desires to maintain positive self-image. Extending the traditional mere ownership effect, this thesis examined whether people perceive having endowed the positive features of the product upon acquiring its ownership prior to its actual use, using essential oil products as stimuli objects. It is hypothesized that the proposed mere ownership effect would occur only when participants are motivated to self-enhance; and when the functional value of the owned object is congruent to the participants\u27 own cultural value. A cross-cultural experiment was conducted in the United States and Hong Kong, with 93 American students and 99 Hong Kong students. Participants in both cultural groups were presented an essential oil product which was claimed to have a therapeutic function of enhancing one\u27s holistic mode of thinking. Given that holistic thinking ability is valued in Asian culture compared to American culture, the oil\u27s functional value is congruent to the cultural value of the Hong Kong participants relative to the American participants. Results showed that HK participants, who are motivated to enhance their holistic thinking ability, reported higher self-perceived efficacy in holistic thinking once they merely owned the holistic essential oils. This self-enhancing tendency did not happen in the American samples whose cultural orientation does not emphasize the importance of holism; and in participants who were not motivated to enhance their holistic thinking ability. The findings have important implications in understanding the circumstances in which this new form of the mere ownership effect might occur

Exploring the self-ownership effect: Separating stimulus and response biases.

Although ownership is acknowledged to exert a potent influence on various aspects of information processing, the origin of these effects remains largely unknown. Based on the demonstration that self-relevance facilitates perceptual judgments (i.e., the self-prioritization effect), here we explored the possibility that ownership enhances object categorization. The results of 2 experiments supported this prediction. Compared with items owned by a stranger (Expt. 1) or best friend (Expt. 2), those owned by the self were classified most rapidly (i.e., self-ownership effect) in an object-categorization task. To establish the basis of this effect, the processes underlying task performance were interrogated using a hierarchical drift diffusion model (HDDM) approach. Results of these analyses revealed that self-ownership was underpinned by a response bias (i.e., starting point of evidence accumulation). These findings explicate the origin of the ownership effect during object processing. (PsycINFO Database Recor

The Ownership and Industry Effects of Corporate Dividend Policy in India, 1961-2007

The cross-sectional trends in dividends are investigated at an aggregate level of ownership (i.e. closely/largely held and regulated firms), and at disaggregate level across 20 industries to examine how Indian Private Corporate Sector appropriated its profits over 1961-2007 periods. Alternatively it is examined whether internal funds are a significant source of finance and the dynamics of relation between dividends relative to earnings across type of companies and industries. Indian corporate sector pays relatively more equity dividends than preference dividends. Other things being equal, the probability of paying cash dividends decreases with share holder concentration and the regulated companies pay relatively larger dividends. Dividend payouts for all type of firms decline, and such tendency is more pronounced after liberalization periods indicating a greater choice of internal financing through retained earnings. The analysis of inter-corporate and inter-industry variations reveals that dividends interplays differently with exogenous factors.Dividend Policy, Indian Private Corporate Sector, Public and Private Limited Companies, Regulated Industry, Ownership Effect, Industry Cross-section

When my object becomes me:The mere ownership of an object elevates domain-specific self-efficacy

Past research on the mere ownership effect has shown that when people own an object, they perceive the owned objects more favorably than the comparable non-owned objects. The present research extends this idea, showing that when people own an object functional to the self, they perceive an increase in their self-efficacy. Three studies were conducted to demonstrate this new form of the mere ownership effect. In Study 1, participants reported an increase in their knowledge level by the mere ownership of reading materials (a reading package in Study 1a, and lecture notes in Study 1b). In Study 2, participants reported an increase in their resilience to sleepiness by merely owning a piece of chocolate that purportedly had a sleepiness-combating function. In Study 3, participants who merely owned a flower essence that is claimed to boost creativity reported having higher creativity efficacy. The findings provided insights on how associations with objects alter one\u27s self-perception