Yohanes E. Riyanto

CROSS-BORDER M&A INFLOWS AND QUALITY OF COUNTRY GOVERNANCE: DEVELOPING VERSUS DEVELOPED COUNTRIES

This paper provides an empirical explanation to the observed disparity in cross‐border merger and acquisition inflows to developing and developed countries over the past two decades. We show two main results. First, the disparity can be attributed to the difference in the quality of institutions between the two groups of countries. Second, the gain from reforming institutions in developing countries is smaller than that in developed countries. These findings suggest that, with the current speed of institutional reforms in some developing countries, the disparity in cross‐border merger and acquisition inflows is likely to persist.

Corporate Social Responsibility in a Corporate Governance Framework

We argue that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) may affect the agency relationship inside a firm. We analyze how CSR and the threat of stakeholder activism influence effort of manager and shareholder, and describe how CSR may arise endogenously in this context. By engaging in CSR the shareholder can commit to less monitoring, increase the manager’s effort, and raise profits. Even a socially indifferent shareholder may thus benefit from CSR and prefer to behave socially responsibly. He may even find it optimal to sponsor a social activist, giving it the means to exert pressure.

Gain and Loss Domains and the Choice of Welfare Measure of Positive and Negative Changes

Abstract Mounting evidence continues to suggest that people value changes in terms of a neutral reference state and that those in the domain of losses are commonly valued far more than those in the gains. Consequently, both negative and positive changes in the domain of losses, including mitigation of losses such as restoring environmental quality and reducing accident rates, may be more accurately valued with the minimum acceptable-compensation (WTA) measure, those in the domain of gains are more accurate with the maximum willingness-to-pay (WTP) measure. Current practice, that assumes equivalence and that all positive changes are considered as gains, is therefore likely to often seriously mislead.

Outsourcing Types, Relative Wages, and the Demand for Skilled Workers: New Evidence from U.S. Manufacturing

Existing studies on the impact of outsourcing on relative wages and the demand for skilled workers mainly focus on aggregate outsourcing, in which imported intermediate inputs are used as a proxy. We depart from the existing studies by focusing on various types of outsourcing based on the six-digit NAICS U.S. manufacturing data. We show that downstream materials and service outsourcing are skill biased, whereas upstream materials outsourcing is not. We also produce other supplementary results pertaining to the impact of technology, different capital inputs on relative wages, and the demand for skilled workers.

Information as a regulatory instrument to price biodiversity benefits: certification and ecolabeling policy practices

In this paper we address the issue of market failure arising from the non-existence of (market) prices for biodiversity, and also present and discuss alternative policies to cope with it. Particular attention is given to certification and ecolabeling of policies. First, we critically survey the role of certification and ecolabeling as an information provision instrument. Second, we provide a comprehensive view on basic foundations and crucial issues that underpin the design of a certification and ecolabeling policy. Finally, we present some case studies to draw some lessons from current certification and ecolabeling policy practices.

Corporate takeovers, bargaining and managers' incentives to invest

This paper analyzes the impact of potential takeovers on the investment decisions of managers. The takeover involves bargaining over the potential surplus between the acquiring firm, the target manager, and shareholders of the target firm. The anticipation of future takeover gains will influence the decision-makers to invest ex ante. Interestingly, both over and underinvestment might prevail, depending on the relative bargaining powers of the parties. The model encompasses specific cases documented in the empirical literature and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) practice. It is, therefore, particularly suited to focus on the desirability of anti-takeover legislation. Copyright

Would you pay for transparently useless advice? a test of boundaries of beliefs in the folly of predictions

Standard economic models assume that the demand for expert predictions arises only under the conditions in which individuals are uncertain about the underlying process generating the data and there is a strong belief that past performances predict future performances. We set up the strongest possible test of these assumptions. In contrast to the theoretical suggestions made in the literature, people are willing to pay for predictions of truly random outcomes after witnessing only a short streak of accurate predictions live in the lab. We discuss potential explanations and implications of such irrational learning in the contexts of economics and finance.

A Market Mechanism for Scientific Communication: A Proposal

No abstract available.

CATEGORY REPORTING IN CHARITABLE GIVING: AN EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS

Harbaugh (1998a) has shown theoretically that charities can increase the size of donations by publicly acknowledging their donors using categories. In a complementary paper,using the data on the donations given by 146 lawyers to their almamater law school, Harbaugh (1998b) provided empirical support for this theoretical assertion. Essentially, being acknowledged in categories gives donors some prestige benefits. In this paper, we experimentally investigate the impact of various reporting plans as described in Harbaugh (1998a and 1998b) on the behavior of donors. Our results show that, although the category reporting plan has no significant impact on the size of donations when compared to the exact reporting plan and the no reporting plan, it does signi�ficantly alter the charitable behavior of donors. We show that the presence of a category reporting plan induces the clustering of donations on the lower boundaries of categories, which suggests that donors are motivated by prestige. We also discover that in some circumstances the presence of prestige benefi�ts crowds out the warm glow motive for giving.

Policy Instruments for Creating Markets for Biodiversity: Certification and Ecolabeling

This paper provides an economic evaluation of certification and ecolabeling as an important policy instrument for creating markets for biodiversity. In the paper we conclude that the success of a policy instrument for creating markets for biodiversity depends on the nature crucial factors, including the ability of the policy instrument to deal with (a) the public good nature of most of the nonmarket biodiversity benefits; (b) the asymmetric informational characteristics related to the biodiversity (and environmental friendly) market supply and demand mechanisms; (c) the impact of certification practices in the producers costs, and (d) the cross price elasticity between regular and market certified products. Indeed, in some cases certification and ecolabeling policy instruments alone are not sufficient to guarantee a successful creation of markets for biodiversity. Finally, the certification schemes need to be sufficiently flexible to allow mutual recognition among the countries involved, as well as to meet the demand of weak sensitive markets. By mutual understanding, and learning with the past experiences, certification and ecolabeling will positively contribute to the creation of markets for biodiversity and thus expected to assist to the development of an effective and broadly accepted sustainable management of such a scarce natural resource.