This research investigates the determinants of software piracy using panel data analysis. Our dataset contains eleven countries in the Far East during the period 1995 to 2006. Our major empirical result shows a negative relationship between software piracy and the unemployment rate, per capita GDP, and the balance of trade, but a positive relationship in population and economic freedom. These r...

We investigate whether the impact of institutions depends not just on their current state but also on how they came to be. In particular, we hypothesize that while economic freedom that emerges spontaneously may be growth promoting, economic freedom that emerges as a result of costly lobbying efforts may be less fruitful. In an extreme case, costly lobbying efforts may even negate the growth-en...

The aim of this paper is to explore how interpersonal variation in risk preference affects human capital investment and wage growth. To date, there has been a distinct lack of empirical research in this area despite the fact that the risk preference of individuals plays a key role in the theory of human capital accumulation. We investigate the link between risk preference, human capital investm...

The advantages, disadvantages, and issues involved in the panel analysis of travel behavior are discussed. Increased statistical efficiency, possibility of improved prediction, and the ability to observe changes and examine behavioral dynamics, are among the advantages panel data offer. Their disadvantages, on the other hand, stem from the added biases and costs of panel survey, and increased c...

Prior research has found mixed results regarding the performance impact of chief information officers (CIOs) included on top management teams (TMTs). This study answers the question, under which circumstances firms should include IT responsibility in the TMT and how to integrate IT in the TMT to successfully enhance firm financial performance. We explain business/IT alignment based on the distr...

This study investigates the relationship between consumer search costs, inflation, and firm markups in retail trade by employing actual measures of consumer search cost gathered by way of an online consumer survey. Consistent with theory, results indicate that markups can be higher if consumer search costs are higher. Results from panel data also show that increases in inflation lead to increas...

This paper examines how availability of microfinance influences households’ borrowing from informal sources in village economies. It uses a unique household level panel data set, which spans more than two decades (1987–2008), from rural Bangladesh. We find that households’ access to microfinance reduces the incidence of borrowing from informal sources, but not the amount of borrowing. We find t...

Adolescents’ school-based friendship networks tend to be segregated along ethnic lines. But few studies have examined whether variation in network boundaries affects the degree of ethnic friendship segregation. We use rational-choice theory to argue that ethnic homophily is more pronounced for friendships between classrooms than for those within classrooms. We empirically test this hypothesis u...

How does IT outsourcing affect firm performance? What is the role of internal IT experience in IT outsourcing? Prior research has provided different answers for these two questions. This study attempts to address the inconsistencies in the literature. We distinguish between knowledge intensive IT outsourcing (KITO) and infrastructural IT outsourcing (IITO) and suggest that these two types of IT...