Institutions and Multinational Ownership Strategy

This paper examines the impact of institutions on a multinational firm’s ownership strategy. We develop an international joint venture (IJV) model in which a multinational firm and its local partner both can undertake costly ex post actions to increase their revenue share specified by the ex ante IJV contract. The model captures the effects of two institutional features on the optimal IJV ownership structure: contract enforceability and cronyism. We introduce the IJV model into an industry equilibrium framework to analyze the impact of institutions on a multinational firm’s choice between forming an IJV or setting up a wholly-owned subsidiary. Ce papier examine l'impact des institutions sur la stratégie de propriété d’une entreprise multinationale. Nous développons un modèle de coentreprise internationale dans lequel une entreprise étrangère et son partenaire local peuvent ex post entreprendre des actions coûteuses pour augmenter leur part de revenus indiquée dans le contrat de coentreprise. Le modèle analyse les impacts de deux caractéristiques institutionnelles sur la structure de propriété optimale : le renforcement du contrat et le copinage. Nous introduisons le modèle de coentreprise dans un modèle d'équilibre général pour analyser l'impact des institutions sur le mode d’entrée des entreprises multinationales.liability of foreignness, international joint venture, contract enforceability, cronyism, coentreprise internationale, renforcement du contrat, copinage

Bayesian spike inference from calcium imaging data

We present efficient Bayesian methods for extracting neuronal spiking information from calcium imaging data. The goal of our methods is to sample from the posterior distribution of spike trains and model parameters (baseline concentration, spike amplitude etc) given noisy calcium imaging data. We present discrete time algorithms where we sample the existence of a spike at each time bin using Gibbs methods, as well as continuous time algorithms where we sample over the number of spikes and their locations at an arbitrary resolution using Metropolis-Hastings methods for point processes. We provide Rao-Blackwellized extensions that (i) marginalize over several model parameters and (ii) provide smooth estimates of the marginal spike posterior distribution in continuous time. Our methods serve as complements to standard point estimates and allow for quantification of uncertainty in estimating the underlying spike train and model parameters

Sensitivity Analysis of Transportation Production Costs in Indonesia

The transportation production cost (TPC) considerably has strong influence to the national economic condition. This paper focused on the analysis of the transportation production cost sensitivity in relation to the variation of the external affecting factor, which are fuel price, rupiah exchange rate and Bank of Indonesia interest rate. Based on the R2 values, the TPC components in general have significant correlation, with the fuel prices. However, they do not have high correlation to the fluctuation of interest rate and rupiah exchange rate. The sensitivity analysis shows that a 10% rise on fuel price would cause 6%, 2%, 7%, 2.4%, and 4.9% rise on the TPC of intercity bus, ferry ship, interisland ship, train, and airline, respectively