Market-induced Asset Specificity: Redefining the Hold-up Problem

In a standard hold-up problem, individuals are vulnerable to hold-up because it is impossible to write complete contracts to cover the lifespan of relationship-specific investments. Hold-up occurs only when investments are to some degree nongeneric, and the extent of the problem increases with the time-span over which an investment must pay off, since long-term contracts are more difficult to write than short-term contracts. This result appears inconsistent with the real life experience of contract suppliers in two respects. First, suppliers often consider themselves "vulnerable" to hold-up even when investments are generic. Second, such a sense of vulnerability is often greatest precisely when assets are short-lived rather than long-lived. This paper provides a model that solves this apparent paradox by looking beyond the isolated problem of bilateral monopoly to the market context in which contracting takes place. We then find that the very meaning of asset specificity comes into question

Decision Structures in Franchise Systems of the Plural Form

Many successful franchise chains directly own a positive fraction of stores --- a structure referred to as plural form. We propose that this ownership structure is chosen as a commitment not to expropriate franchisees. The theoretical model is based on an empirical analysis of contract and interview data from the US fast-food sector and well known stylized facts: First, franchisees typically have strong contractual obligations to implement activities selected by the chain. Second, franchisees pay a revenue-based royalty to the chain. Therefore, the chain has incentives to select inefficient activities that yield high revenues but are too costly. If uniform standards require that activities must be the same in company-owned and franchise stores, a substantial fraction of company-owned stores works as a commitment device to select more efficient activities. The theoretical analysis further predicts that a strong contractual commitment to uniform standards is preferable if the fraction of company-owned stores is sufficiently high. This prediction is supported by our data.franchising, plural form, contracts

ACCESSING ACADEMIC LANGUAGE: THE BENEFITS OF AN EXPLICIT STUDY OF LATIN AND GREEK ROOTS

Many students in South Africa are entering university linguistically underprepared to cope with the meta-language of academe. Reasons for this are proposed by Language Development staff in the Academic Development Programme at UCT (Thesen et al., 1997:1-2): First, the language system, or code (in this case English, which is also the medium of instruction) can pose problems for students for whom it is not a main language. Second, the new formal register which students meet in the transition from school to university presents difficulties for almost all first time entering students. A third factor is previous educational experience.Students who have not had practice in the more abstract cognitively demanding tasks (in English or any other language) through which quality schooling prepares students for the transition to university, are at a disadvantage

Research and development program for a combined carbon dioxide removal and reduction system. Supplement 1, phase 2a - Physicochemical properties of lithium chloride lithium carbonate melt mixtures

Physiochemical properties of liquid mixtures of lithium chloride and lithium carbonat

Field Validation of LiDAR-based Predictions of Riparian Buffer Zones

Riparian buffer zones (RBZ’s) are critical for protecting water quality both in channel and downstream. High Resolution Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) provides a way to locate where water is flowing through a channel into an RBZ and then into a stream. The objectives of this study were to characterize riparian buffer zones around Lake Issaqueena, SC and streams flowing into the lake by channel presence: ephemeral, intermittent, and perennial; to relate channel presence to buffer width and buffer cover composition via soil moisture content and buffer width, and to validate potential differences in LiDAR versus field observations via soil moisture content and soil temperature. A LiDAR derived DEM was utilized in ArcGIS to define flow channels and determine forty locations for field measurements (soil moisture, buffer width, buffer composition, and a thermal image of the soil) around Lake Issaqueena. LiDAR indicated channels were ephemeral with large buffers generally ten meters or greater (except where locations were located on private property). High flow accumulation channels can be accurately predicted by LiDAR data, but not for low and moderate flow channels. Surface soil temperature measurements were relatively uniform with some extremes and showed no difference between sample locations and control locations indicating that channel presence cannot be accurately predicted using surface soil temperature. These presented methodologies can serve as a template for future efforts to quantify riparian buffers and their effects on protecting in-stream habitat and water quality

Costing pioneers: Some links with the past; Retrospective: David Solomons, 1912-1995 In memoriam

When the author was working on the history of cost accounting at the beginning of the 1950s, he entered into correspondence with some of the pioneers who were developing the subject at the beginning of this century, or with men who had been personally associated with those pioneers. This paper places on record the more important biographical information that that correspondence gleaned about (in alphabetical order) Alexander Hamilton Church, Harrington Emerson, Emile Garcke and J. M. Fells, G. Charter Harrison, J. Slater Lewis, Sir John Mann and George P. Norton. It also comments briefly on their significance for the development of costing

Gathering Storm: Structuring More Successful Responses to Disasters

Abstract The period between 1992 and 2005 was turbulent for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Failed responses to Hurricanes Andrew and Katrina resulted in academics questioning the efficacy of FEMA’s structure and ability to coordinate a response. The literature studying this phenomenon focuses on whether the failed responses were due to FEMA’s structure being too flexible or too hierarchical. This thesis argues this duality misses the point. First, the literature is overly focused on failure at the expense of success. This necessarily ignores half the story. Analysing successful responses will provide a more holistic view of what structures are the most appropriate in a response. Second, responses are never wholly open or closed but rather a mixture of both. FEMA’s responses need to be disaggregated into their strategic (policy-makers) and operational (implementers) components and their combinations examined. With reference to two failures, Hurricanes Andrew and Katrina, and two successes, The Great Midwest Floods and Northridge Earthquake, this thesis argues optimal response frameworks are strategically closed and operationally open.N/ADepartment of Government and International Relation