Ð Analysis of rural households and environmental resources is beset by inadequate data, especially in Africa. Using purpose-collected panel data from Zimbabwe, we demonstrate seven empirical regularities in the rural poverty-environment relationship. Most important, environmental resources make a signi®cant contribution to average rural incomes. Poorer households also depend heavily on these re...

This paper investigates the relationship between capital structure and firm performance, paying particular attention to the degree of industry competition. The paper applies a novel measure of competition, the Boone indicator, to the leverage-performance relationship. Using panel data consisting of 257 South African firms over the period 1998–2009, this paper examines the effect of capital stru...

Recent studies in the tradition of Schmookler have re-emphasised the potential role of demand in stimulating innovation. Here, we reconsider the role of ‘home’ and ‘export’ market demand in stimulating manufacturing innovation using comparable panel data for two small open economies – Ireland and Switzerland. Our analysis is based on the estimation of reduced form innovation production function...

Investors often influence the strategic decisions of their holdings, such as long-term orientation and investments in intangible assets. Investigating IT capability as a strategic asset, we examine the influence of institutional shareholders’ investment horizon and blockholdings on the development of organizational IT capability. We perform a panel data analysis of eleven years of archival data...

The hypothesis that individuals try to maximize their life-satisfaction is analyzed. The approach was to derive empirically testable predictions as to the relationships between intentions, actions, importance weights, and satisfaction levels that would be consistent with the hypothesis, and to test these predictions on a Russian and a German panel data set. The respondents investigated were mor...

Refinancing a mortgage is often one of the biggest and most important financial decisions that people make. Borrowers need to choose the interest rate differential at which to refinance and, when that differential is reached, they need to take the steps to refinance before rates change again. The optimal differential is where the interest saved by refinancing equals the sum of refinancing costs...

The authors use panel data constructed from the responses of repeatedly surveyed top managers at 261 companies regarding their firm’s market orientation, along with objective performance measures, to investigate the influence of market orientation on performance for a nine-year period from 1997 to 2005. The authors measure market orientation in 1997, 2001, and 2005 and estimate it in the interv...

The paper uses a modern adaptation of the Ricardian model which incorporates monopolistic competition and multiple factors to derive a MacDougall-type relation between a country’s international competitiveness at the industry level and its productivity performance. This relation is implemented empirically for Canada and the United States, using panel data for 25 years and 40 industries. A key f...

This work was completed while the second author was visiting the Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies (IMES), Bank of Japan (BOJ). He would like to thank the Institute for the hospitality and research support. We would also like to thank two referees and the staff of the institute for helpful comments on an early draft. However, the views expressed in this paper are solely the authors’ o...

Article history: Accepted 14 January 2011 JEL classification: D43 J29 J69 L60