The MidSouth Partnership for Rural Community Colleges : building public policy while building rural communities

Rural areas ; Rural development

Corruption and International Valuation: Does Virtue Pay?

Using firm-level data from 44 countries, we investigate the relation between corruption and international corporate values. Our analysis shows that firms from more corrupt countries trade at significantly lower market multiples. The effect is both economically and statistically significant. Furthermore, using a two-stage estimation procedure, we show that corruption impacts firm value primarily through lower expected future cash flows, most directly captured by firms’ profitability forecasts. Collectively, our evidence shows corruption has significant economic consequences for shareholder value.corruption; international valuation; market multiple

Persistence of UK Real Estate returns: a Markov chain analysis

The persistence of investment performance is a topic of perennial interest to investors. Efficient Markets theory tells us that past performance can not be used to predict future performance yet investors appear to be influenced by the historical performance in making their investment allocation decisions. The problem has been of particular interest to investors in real estate; not least because reported returns from investment in real estate are serially correlated thus implying some persistence in investment performance. This paper applies the established approach of Markov Chain analysis to investigate the relationship between past and present performance of UK real estate over the period 1981 to 1996. The data are analysed by sector, region and size. Furthermore some variations in investment performance classification are reported and the results are shown to be robust

New Regionalism in East Asia: How Does It Relate to the East Asian Economic Development Model?

In recent years a new regionalism has begun to emerge in East Asia that represents a clear break from the region's strong history of multilateralism. The countries of East Asia have been giving more attention to ways of expanding intra regional trade that include: the establishment of regional trade agreements (RTAs) such as ASEAN+3; plans to establish a free trade area involving the economies of ASEAN and China; as well as moves towards bilateral trade agreements (BTAs). This paper focuses upon the meaning and implications of this new regionalism for the "old" EADM, and explores the key ingredients of an emerging "new" EADM growth and development paradigm, incorporating the new regionalism, that appears to be emerging in the wake of the 1997-98 crisis.new regionalism, East Asia, East Asian economic development model

Public Policy and Small and Medium Enterprise Development

We review the policy arguments in favour of assisting SMEs in various areas of their operations. Our review suggests that many of the arguments put forward for subsidising SME activities (as distinct from some activities of firms regardless of size) are not economically justified. Nonetheless, it is widely acknowledged that SMEs suffer from disadvantage relative to large firms, principally in the areas of access to information and technology. We then study the possibilities offered by networks in helping SMEs deal with the disadvantages they experience. Our examination indicates that there are benefits that firms can derive from participating in networks. Further, because networks can assist firms overcome some of their inherent disadvantages, they can become less reliant on public assistance and more able to compete on an equal footing with larger firms once the initial impetus is provided for the formation of cooperative networks that can enable firms to compete more effectively.small and medium enterprises, public policy, government intervention, networks