The "concept of the co-operative identity" (consisting from the definition, aims and functions of cooperatives and the so-termed co-operative principles) serves as a general theoretical background for the economic analysis of agricultural co-operation. The development of Dutch dairy co-operatives is used as a case study example, which suitably illustrates and represents the processes taking pla...

This paper examines the stock price effect in New Zealand of announcements of increases in dividends and of share repurchases from 1993 to 2009. The results are related to the soft substitution hypothesis on Australian data. Dividend-increase announcements provoke a greater positive effect on the stock price than buyback announcements. The preference of the marginal investor is also examined wh...

It is time hospice and palliative care grew up. We can no longer expect governments to treat them as a charity case, with just enough funding to avert adverse newspaper headlines. Increased financial pressure from the global economic recession and fiscal crisis on already stretched budgets means tough decisions have to be made about where to invest limited health funds. Consequently, we need to...

We investigate whether e¢ cient collusive bidding mechanisms are a¤ected by potential information leakage from bidders’ decisions to participate in them within the independent private values setting. We apply the concept of rati…ability introduced by Cramton and Palfrey (1995) and show that when the seller uses a second-price auction with participation costs, the standard e¢ cient cartel mechan...

Extensive personal information is gathered explicitly or implicitly when a customer interacts with a firm. Significant risks are associated with handling such personal information. Providing protection may reduce risk of misuse or loss of private information, but it imposes some costs on the firm and its customers. Risk is associated with improper handling of sensitive customer information. Pro...

This chapter considers the growing body of theoretical and empirical research on the economics and behavioral economics of privacy, and how those streams of research can be applied to the investigation of the economic implications of business analytics and consumer data mining. The chapter begins by highlighting why privacy-sensitive scenarios and outcomes can be often interpreted through econo...

This paper examines the contribution of behavioral economics to tax reform by examining two major reforms in the United Kingdom which may be seen as natural experiments – the reform of local taxation and the introduction of value added tax. The case for both was based strongly on mainstream economic analysis but one was a failure and the other a success. The introduction of the local community ...

This paper is built on the work of Baron and Diermeier (2001, Quarterly Journal of Economics), which highlights the role of the status quo policy in parliamentary politics. Our main modi…cation is to introduce “outside options”to make a distinction between voters and members of parliament whose parties are not in government. As the value of outside options increases, the status quo relative to ...

Software is valuable when it produces; information in a manner that enables people and systems to meet their objectives more effectively. Software engineering techniques have value when they enable software developers to build more valuahle software. Software economics is the sub-field of software engineering that seeks improvements which enable software engineers to reaso:n more effectively ab...