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Terms modified by Sellers Selected AbstractsTeaching & Learning Guide for: Victorian Life WritingLITERATURE COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 5 2007Valerie Sanders Author's Introduction The Victorian period was one of the great ages for life-writing. Though traditionally renowned for its monumental ,lives and letters', mainly of great men, this was also a time of self-conscious anxiety about the genre. Critics and practitioners alike were unsure who should be writing autobiography, and whether its inherent assertiveness ruled out all but public men as appropriate subjects. It was also a period of experimentation in the different genres of life-writing , whether autobiography, journals, letters, autobiographical novels, and narratives of lives combined with extracts from correspondence and diaries. Victorian life-writing therefore provides rich and complex insights into the relationship between narrative, identity, and the definition of the self. Recent advances in criticism have highlighted the more radical and non-canonical aspects of life-writing. Already a latecomer to the literary-critical tradition (life-writing was for a long time the ,poor relation' of critical theory), auto/biography stresses the hidden and silent as much as the mainstream and vocal. For that reason, study of Victorian life-writing appeals to those with an interest in gender issues, postcolonialism, ethnicity, working-class culture, the history of religion, and family and childhood studies , to name but a few of the fields with which the genre has a natural connection. Author Recommends A good place to start is the two canonical texts for Victorian life-writing: George P. Landow's edited collection, Approaches to Victorian Autobiography (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1979) and Avrom Fleishman's Figures of Autobiography: The Language of Self-Writing in Victorian and Modern England (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1983). These two re-ignited interest in Victorian life-writing and in effect opened the debate about extending the canon, though both focus on the firmly canonical Ruskin and Newman, among others. By contrast, David Amigoni's recently edited collection of essays, Life-Writing and Victorian Culture (Aldershot: Ashgate 2006) shows how far the canon has exploded and expanded: it begins with a useful overview of the relationship between lives, life-writing, and literary genres, while subsequent chapters by different authors focus on a particular individual or family and their cultural interaction with the tensions of life-writing. As this volume is fairly male-dominated, readers with an interest in women's life-writing might prefer to start with Linda Peterson's chapter, ,Women Writers and Self-Writing' in Women and Literature in Britain 1800,1900, ed. Joanne Shattock (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 209,230. This examines the shift from the eighteenth-century tradition of the chroniques scandaleuses to the professional artist's life, domestic memoir, and spiritual autobiography. Mary Jean Corbett's Representing Femininity: Middle-Class Subjectivity in Victorian and Edwardian Women's Autobiographies (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1992) begins with material on Wordsworth and Carlyle, but ,aims to contest the boundaries of genre, gender, and the autobiographical tradition by piecing together a partial history of middle-class women's subjectivities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries' (3). Corbett is particularly interested in the life-writing of actresses and suffragettes as well as Martineau and Oliphant, the first two women autobiographers to be welcomed into the canon in the 1980s and 90s. Laura Marcus's Auto/biographical Discourses, Theory, Criticism, Practice (Manchester and New York, NY: Manchester University Press, 1994) revises and updates the theoretical approaches to the study of life-writing, stressing both the genre's hybrid qualities, and its inherent instability: in her view, it ,comes into being as a category to be questioned' (37). Another of her fruitful suggestions is that autobiography functions as a ,site of struggle' (9), an idea that can be applied to aesthetic or ideological issues. Her book is divided between specific textual examples (such as the debate about autobiography in Victorian periodicals), and an overview of developments in critical approaches to life-writing. Her second chapter includes material on Leslie Stephen, who is also the first subject of Trev Lynn Broughton's Men of Letters, Writing Lives: Masculinity and Literary Auto/biography in the Late Victorian Period (London: Routledge, 1999) , her other being Froude's controversial Life of Carlyle. With the advent of gender studies and masculinities, there is now a return to male forms of life-writing, of which Martin A. Danahay's A Community of One: Masculine Autobiography and Autonomy in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993) is a good example. Danahay argues that nineteenth-century male autobiographers present themselves as ,autonomous individuals' free of the constraints of social and familial contexts, thus emphasizing the autonomy of the self at the expense of family and community. Online Materials My impression is that Victorian life-writing is currently better served by books than by online resources. There seem to be few general Web sites other than University module outlines and reading lists; for specific authors, on the other hand, there are too many to list here. So the only site I'd recommend is The Victorian Web: http://.victorianweb.org/genre/autobioov.html This Web site has a section called ,Autobiography Overview', which begins with an essay, ,Autobiography, Autobiographicality and Self-Representation', by George P. Landow. There are sections on other aspects of Victorian autobiography, including ,Childhood as a Personal Myth', autobiography in Dickens and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and a list of ,Suggested Readings'. Each section is quite short, but summarizes the core issues succinctly. Sample Syllabus This sample syllabus takes students through the landmarks of Victorian life-writing, and demonstrates the development of a counter-culture away from the mainstream ,classic male life' (if there ever was such a thing) , culminating in the paired diaries of Arthur Munby (civil servant) and Hannah Cullwick (servant). Numerous other examples could have been chosen, but for those new to the genre, this is a fairly classic syllabus. One week only could be spent on the ,classic male texts' if students are more interested in pursuing other areas. Opening Session Open debate about the definition of Victorian ,life-writing' and its many varieties; differences between autobiography, autobiographical fiction, diary, letters, biography, collective biography, and memoir; the class could discuss samples of selected types, such as David Copperfield, Father and Son, Ruskin's Praeterita, and Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë. Alternatively, why not just begin with Stave Two of Dickens's A Christmas Carol (1843), in which the First Spirit takes Scrooge back through his childhood and youth? This is a pretty unique type of life-writing, with Scrooge ,laughing and crying' as his childhood and youth are revealed to him in a series of flashbacks (a Victorian version of ,This is Your Life?'). The dual emotions are important to note at this stage and will prompt subsequent discussions of sentimentality and writing for comic effect later in the course. Week 2 Critical landmarks: discussion of important stages in the evolution of critical approaches to life-writing, including classics such as Georges Gusdorf's ,Conditions and Limits of Autobiography', in Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical, ed. James Olney (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), 28,47; Philippe Lejeune's ,The Autobiographical Pact', in On Autobiography, ed. Paul John Eakin, trans. Katherine Leary (original essay 1973; Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), 3,30; and Paul De Man's ,Autobiography as De-Facement', Modern Language Notes 94 (1979): 919,30. This will provide a critical framework for the rest of the course. Weeks 3,4 Extracts from the ,male classics' of Victorian life-writing: J. S. Mill's Autobiography (1873), Ruskin's Praeterita (1885,89), and Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua (1864). What do they think is important and what do they miss out? How open or otherwise are they about their family and personal lives? Are these essentially ,lives of the mind'? How self-aware are they of autobiographical structures? Are there already signs that the ,classic male life' is fissured and unconventional? An option here would be to spend the first week focusing on male childhoods, and the second on career trajectories. Perhaps use Martin Danahay's theory of the ,autonomous individual' (see above) to provide a critical framework here: how is the ,Other' (parents, Harriet Taylor) treated in these texts? Weeks 5,6 Victorian women's autobiography: Harriet Martineau's Autobiography (1877) and Margaret Oliphant's Autobiography (1899): in many ways these are completely unalike, Martineau's being ordered around the idea of steady mental growth and public recognition, while Oliphant's is deeply emotional and disordered. Can we therefore generalize about ,women's autobiography'? What impact did they have on Victorian theories of life-writing? Students might like to reconsider Jane Eyre as an ,autobiography' alongside these and compare scenes of outright rebellion. The way each text handles time and chronology is also fascinating: Martineau's arranged to highlight stages of philosophical development, while Oliphant's switches back and forth in a series of ,flashbacks' to her happier youth as her surviving two sons die ,in the text', interrupting her story. Week 7 Black women's autobiography: how does Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands (1857) differ from the Martineau and Oliphant autobiographies? What new issues and genre influences are introduced by a Caribbean/travelogue perspective? Another key text would be Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave-Girl (1861). How representative and how individual are these texts? Do these authors see themselves as representing their race as well as their class and sex? Week 8 Working-class autobiography: Possible texts here could be John Burnett's Useful Toil (Allen Lane, 1974, Penguin reprint); Carolyn Steedman's edition of John Pearman's The Radical Soldier's Tale (Routledge, 1988) and the mini oral biographies in Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor (1861,62) (e.g., the Water-Cress Seller). There is also a new Broadview edition of Factory Lives (2007) edited by James R. Simmons, with an introduction by Janice Carlisle. This contains four substantial autobiographical texts (three male, one female) from the mid-nineteenth century, with supportive materials. Samuel Bamford's Passages in the Life of a Radical (1839,42; 1844) and Early Days (1847,48) are further options. Students should also read Regenia Gagnier's Subjectivities: A History of Self-Representation in Britain 1832,1910 (Oxford University Press, 1991). Week 9 Biography: Victorian Scandal: focus on two scandals emerging from Victorian life-writing: Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857) (the Branwell Brontë/Lady Scott adultery scandal), and Froude's allegations of impotence in his Life of Carlyle (1884). See Trev Broughton's ,Impotence, Biography, and the Froude-Carlyle Controversy: ,Revelations on Ticklish Topics', Journal of the History of Sexuality, 7.4 (Apr. 1997): 502,36 (in addition to her Men of Letters cited above). The biographies of the Benson family written about and by each other, especially E. F. Benson's Our Family Affairs 1867,1896 (London: Cassell, 1920) reveal the domestic unhappiness of the family of Gladstone's Archbishop of Canterbury, Edward White Benson, whose children and wife were all to some extent homosexual or lesbian. Another option would be Edmund Gosse's Father and Son (1907) in which the son's critical stance towards his father is uneasy and complex in its mixture of comedy, pity, shame, and resentment. Week 10 Diaries: Arthur Munby's and Hannah Cullwick's relationship (they were secretly married, but lived as master and servant) and diaries, Munby: Man of Two Worlds: The Life and Diaries of Arthur Munby, ed. Derek Hudson (John Murray, 1972), and The Diaries of Hannah Cullwick: Victorian Maidservant, ed. Liz Stanley (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1984): issues of gender and class identity; the idealization of the working woman; the two diaries compared. Half the class could read one diary and half the other and engage in a debate about the social and sexual fantasies adopted by each diarist. It would also be sensible to leave time for an overview debate about the key issues of Victorian life-writing which have emerged from this module, future directions for research, and current critical developments. Focus Questions 1To what extent does Victorian autobiography tell an individual success story? Discuss with reference to two or three contrasting examples. 2,All life writing is time writing' (Jens Brockmeier). Examine the way in which Victorian life-writers handle the interplay of narrative, memory, and time. 3To what extent do you agree with the view that Victorian life-writing was ,a form of communication that appeared intimate and confessional, but which was in fact distant and controlled' (Donna Loftus)? 4,Bamford was an autobiographer who did not write an autobiography' (Martin Hewitt). If autobiography is unshaped and uninterpreted, what alternative purposes does it have in narrating a life to the reader? 5,Victorian life-writing is essentially experimental, unstable, and unpredictable.' How helpful is this comment in helping you to understand the genre? [source] How beliefs influence the relative magnitude of pleasure and painJOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DECISION MAKING, Issue 4 2010Barbara A. Mellers Abstract Loss aversion is an economic assumption about utility,people value giving up a good more than they value getting it. It also has hedonic meaning,the pain of a loss is greater in magnitude than the pleasure of a comparable gain. But value and pleasure are not necessarily identical. We test the hedonic interpretation of loss aversion in experimental markets. With hedonic forecasts, sellers imagine the pain of losing their endowment, and buyers imagine the pleasure of being endowed. With hedonic experiences, sellers rate the pleasure of having the endowment, and buyers rate the pain of being without it. Contrary to loss aversion, predicted pleasure is greater in magnitude than predicted pain, and experienced pleasure surpasses experienced pain. We show that the relative magnitude of pleasure and pain depends on beliefs about the likelihood of outcomes, as well as utilities. Surprise makes gains more pleasurable and losses more painful. With surprising gains and expected losses, pleasure can surpass pain. But when gains and losses are equally likely (or losses are surprising and gains are expected), the opposite pattern can occur. Finally, within-group and between-group prices are significantly correlated with hedonic experiences. Sellers who feel better with their endowments assign higher selling prices, and buyers who feel worse about the absence of endowment assign higher buying prices. Despite the fact that hedonic experiences deviate from loss aversion, these emotions predict the endowment effect. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Pharmacokinetics of ketamine in plasma and milk of mature Holstein cowsJOURNAL OF VETERINARY PHARMACOLOGY & THERAPEUTICS, Issue 5 2010G. SELLERS Sellers, G., Lin, H. C., G. Riddell, M. G., Ravis, W. R., Lin, Y. J., Duran, S. H., Givens, M.D. Pharmacokinetics of ketamine in plasma and milk of mature Holstein cows. J. vet. Pharmacol. Therap. 33, 480,484. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the pharmacokinetics of ketamine in mature Holstein cows following administration of a single intravenous (i.v.) dose. Plasma and milk concentrations were determined using a high-performance liquid chromatography assay. Pharmacokinetic parameters were estimated using a noncompartmental method. Following i.v. administration, plasma Tmax was 0.083 h and plasma Cmax was 18 135 ± 22 720 ng/mL. Plasma AUC was 4484 ± 1,398 ng·h/mL. Plasma t½, was 1.80 ± 0.50 h and mean residence time was 0.794 ± 0.318 h with total body clearance of 1.29 ± 0.70 L/h/kg. The mean plasma steady-state volume of distribution was calculated as 0.990 ± 0.530 L/kg and volume of distribution based on area was calculated as 3.23 ± 1.51 L/kg. The last measurable time for ketamine detection in plasma was 8.0 h with a mean concentration of 24.9 ± 11.8 ng/mL. Milk Tmax was detected at 0.67 ± 0.26 h with Cmax of 2495 ± 904 ng/mL. Milk AUC till the last time was 6593 ± 2617 ng·h/mL with mean AUC milk to AUC plasma ratio of 1.99 ± 2.15. The last measurable time that ketamine was detected in milk was 44 ± 10.0 h with a mean concentration of 16.0 ± 9.0 ng/mL. [source] Short Sellers and Financial MisconductTHE JOURNAL OF FINANCE, Issue 5 2010JONATHAN M. KARPOFF ABSTRACT We examine whether short sellers detect firms that misrepresent their financial statements, and whether their trading conveys external costs or benefits to other investors. Abnormal short interest increases steadily in the 19 months before the misrepresentation is publicly revealed, particularly when the misconduct is severe. Short selling is associated with a faster time-to-discovery, and it dampens the share price inflation that occurs when firms misstate their earnings. These results indicate that short sellers anticipate the eventual discovery and severity of financial misconduct. They also convey external benefits, helping to uncover misconduct and keeping prices closer to fundamental values. [source] Delivery risk and the hedging role of optionsTHE JOURNAL OF FUTURES MARKETS, Issue 4 2002Donald Lien Multiple delivery specifications exist on nearly all commodity futures contracts. Sellers typically are allowed to deliver any of several grades of the underlying commodity and at any of several locations. On the delivery day, the futures price as such needs not converge to the spot price of the par-delivery grade at the par-delivery location, thereby imposing an additional delivery risk on hedgers. This article derives the optimal hedging strategy for a risk-averse hedger in the presence of delivery risk. In particular, it is shown that the hedger optimally uses options on futures for hedging purposes. This article provides a rationale for the hedging role of options when futures markets allow for multiple delivery specifications. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 22:339,354, 2002 [source] The Founding Fathers: Best Sellers!THE JOURNAL OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Issue 2 2005TV Stars! [source] Formation of buyer-seller trade networks in a quality-differentiated product marketCANADIAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, Issue 3 2006Ping Wang Abstract We examine the formation of buyer-seller links when exchange can take place only if such a link exists. Sellers produce products of different qualities, and multiple sellers can form a sellers' association to pool their customers setting uniform prices. Buyers form trade links with individual sellers or sellers' associations. We show which buyer-seller links will form and find the set of links that are stable and show how these links influence prices. We also show that a trade network mismatch may occur where a high-quality good remains unsold even without an economy-wide excess supply of goods. Les auteurs examinent le processus de formation de liens acheteurs-vendeurs quand l'échange ne peut s'effectuer que si de tels liens existent. Les vendeurs produisent des biens de différentes qualités et un nombre de vendeurs peuvent former une association pour mettre en commun leurs clients et imposer des prix uniformes. Les acheteurs forment des liens commerciaux avec des vendeurs individuels ou avec leurs associations. On montre quels liens acheteurs-vendeurs vont se former, quels liens vont s'avérer stables, et comment ces liens influencent le niveau des prix. On montre aussi qu'un réseau de commerce peut être mal adapté et un bien de haute qualité resté sans preneur même s'il n'y a pas offre excédentaire de biens dans toute l'économie. [source] TRUST AS A TRADABLE COMMODITY: A FOUNDATION FOR SAFE ELECTRONIC MARKETPLACESCOMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE, Issue 2 2010Reid Kerr In large electronic marketplaces populated by buying and selling agents, it is difficult to judge trustworthiness. A variety of systems have been proposed to help traders to find trustworthy partners by learning to discount or disregard disreputable parties. In this article, we present a novel model for providing safe electronic marketplaces: Commodity Trunits, a system that considers trust as a tradable commodity. In this system, sellers require units of trust (trunits) to participate in transactions, and risk losing trunits if they act dishonestly. Sellers can purchase trunits when needed, and sell excess quantities. We demonstrate that under Commodity Trunits, rational sellers will choose to be honest, since this is the profit maximizing strategy. We also show that Commodity Trunits provides protection from a number of vulnerabilities common in existing trust and reputation systems, e.g., the important,exit problem, where sellers can cheat without fear of repercussions if they intend to leave the market. We then present a simulation that validates the system by demonstrating that a market operator can manage the trunit marketplace to ensure sustainability. We conclude with a discussion of the value of Commodity Trunits as a method for promoting trust in electronic marketplaces. [source] Contracting With Uncertain Level Of TrustCOMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE, Issue 4 2002Sviatoslav Braynov The paper investigates the impact of trust on market efficiency and bilateral contracts. We prove that a market in which agents are trusted to the degree they deserve to be trusted is as efficient as a market with complete trustworthiness. In other words, complete trustworthiness is not a necessary condition for market efficiency. We prove that distrust could significantly reduce market efficiency, and we show how to solve the problem by using appropriately designed multiagent contracts. The problem of trust is studied in the context of a bilateral negotiation game between a buyer and a seller. It is shown that if the seller's trust equals the buyer's trustworthiness, then the social welfare, the amount of trade, and the agents' utility functions are maximized. The paper also studies the efficiency of advance payment contracts as a tool for improving trustworthiness. It is proved that advance payment contracts maximize the social welfare and the amount of trade. Finally, the paper studies the problem of how to make agents truthfully reveal their level of trustworthiness. An incentive,compatible contract is defined, in which agents do not benefit from lying about their trustworthiness. The analysis and the solutions proposed in this paper could help agent designers avoid many market failures and produce efficient interaction mechanisms. [source] Reverse Auctions with Multiple Reinforcement Learning Agents,DECISION SCIENCES, Issue 1 2008Subhajyoti Bandyopadhyay ABSTRACT Reverse auctions in business-to-business (B2B) exchanges provide numerous benefits to participants. Arguably the most notable benefit is that of lowered prices driven by increased competition in such auctions. The competition between sellers in reverse auctions has been analyzed using a game-theoretic framework and equilibria have been established for several scenarios. One finding of note is that, in a setting in which sellers can meet total demand with the highest-bidding seller being able to sell only a fraction of the total capacity, the sellers resort to a mixed-strategy equilibrium. Although price randomization in industrial bidding is an accepted norm, one might argue that in reality managers do not utilize advanced game theory calculations in placing bids. More likely, managers adopt simple learning strategies. In this situation, it remains an open question as to whether the bid prices converge to the theoretical equilibrium over time. To address this question, we model reverse-auction bidding behavior by artificial agents as both two-player and n -player games in a simulation environment. The agents begin the game with a minimal understanding of the environment but over time analyze wins and losses for use in determining future bids. To test for convergence, the agents explore the price space and exploit prices where profits are higher, given varying cost and capacity scenarios. In the two-player case, the agents do indeed converge toward the theoretical equilibrium. The n -player case provides results that reinforce our understanding of the theoretical equilibria. These results are promising enough to further consider the use of artificial learning mechanisms in reverse auctions and other electronic market transactions, especially as more sophisticated mechanisms are developed to tackle real-life complexities. We also develop the analytical results when one agent does not behave strategically while the other agent does and show that our simulations for this environment also result in convergence toward the theoretical equilibrium. Because the nature of the best response in the new setting is very different (pure strategy as opposed to mixed), it indicates the robustness of the devised algorithm. The use of artificial agents can also overcome the limitations in rationality demonstrated by human managers. The results thus have interesting implications for designing artificial agents in automating bid responses for large numbers of bids where human intervention might not always be possible. [source] Managing Risks in Multiple Online Auctions: An Options Approach,DECISION SCIENCES, Issue 3 2005Ram Gopal ABSTRACT The scenario of established business sellers utilizing online auction markets to reach consumers and sell new products is becoming increasingly common. We propose a class of risk management tools, loosely based on the concept of financial options that can be employed by such sellers. While conceptually similar to options in financial markets, we empirically demonstrate that option instruments within auction markets cannot be developed employing similar methodologies, because the fundamental tenets of extant option pricing models do not hold within online auction markets. We provide a framework to analyze the value proposition of options to potential sellers, option-holder behavior implications on auction processes, and seller strategies to write and price options that maximize potential revenues. We then develop an approach that enables a seller to assess the demand for options under different option price and volume scenarios. We compare option prices derived from our approach with those derived from the Black-Scholes model (Black & Scholes, 1973) and discuss the implications of the price differences. Experiments based on actual auction data suggest that options can provide significant benefits under a variety of option-holder behavioral patterns. [source] Unobservable Investment and the Hold-Up ProblemECONOMETRICA, Issue 2 2001Faruk Gul We study a two-person bargaining problem in which the buyer may invest and increase his valuation of the object before bargaining. We show that if all offers are made by the seller and the time between offers is small, then the buyer invests efficiently and the seller extracts all of the surplus. Hence, bargaining with frequently repeated offers remedies the hold-up problem even when the agent who makes the relation-specific investment has no bargaining power and contracting is not possible. We consider alternative formulations with uncertain gains from trade or two-sided investment. [source] Is It Wrong To Pay For Housework?HYPATIA, Issue 2 2002Gabrielle Meagher This paper assesses arguments that paying for housework compromises the moral integrity of either the buyer or seller or both. I find that none provides adequate justification for avoiding paying for housework. Instead, I argue that the vigorous pursuit of justice for women workers will best remedy injustice in service sector occupations, including paid housework. [source] Equilibrium Partner Switching in a Bargaining Model With Asymmetric InformationINTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 4 2000Gianni De Fraja We study a model in which the seller of an indivisible object faces two potential buyers and makes an offer to either of them in each period. We find that the seller's ability to extract surplus from them depends crucially on the value of the cost of switching from one buyer to the next. If the seller is pessimistic about the buyers' valuations and there is a switching cost, however small, then the market is a natural bilateral monopoly; the second buyer is never called on. If the switching cost is zero, or if the seller is optimistic, then switching, and possibly recall of the original buyer, may occur. [source] The New Role of the Internal Auditor: Implications for Internal Auditor ObjectivityINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AUDITING, Issue 2 2000Richard G. Brody The role of the internal auditor continues to evolve. The recent emphasis on consulting activities has brought new questions and concerns regarding the ability of internal auditors to function in an independent and objective manner. The purpose of this research is to explore whether internal auditors view their consulting role as one in which they are to provide objective feedback to management or one in which they are to provide solutions that they believe are in the best interests of their company. Specifically, we examine whether the internal auditors' judgments are dependent on their company's role (buyer or seller) in an acquisition. Results revealed that the role of the company in the negotiation process did influence judgments. This suggests that internal auditors are likely to assume the position that is in the best interests of their employer. Implications of these results are discussed as are suggested areas for future research. [source] The stochastic implications of rent maximization: an application to stumpage rates for timber in British ColumbiaJOURNAL OF APPLIED ECONOMETRICS, Issue 1 2004M. Ryan Haley We construct a model of rent-maximizing behaviour by a single seller of timber in the absence of a formal market, deriving the stochastic implications of rent maximization for timber prices (stumpage rates) when other input and output (lumber) prices are random. Subsequently, we examine the model's ability to describe monthly, time-series, stumpage-rate data from British Columbia, Canada between January 1979 and October 1999. Deviations of stumpage rates from their long-run trend are also structured by an error-correction model which suggests that between 13 and 20% of period-to-period changes in stumpage rates can be explained by an equilibrium adjustment term. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Developing an effective sell-side strategyJOURNAL OF CORPORATE ACCOUNTING & FINANCE, Issue 2 2007Dale R. Martin There's been a lot written about how to buy companies. But what about strategies to help the seller? Experts have paid very little attention to the best ways to sell a company. What can the seller do to get the most from the sale? © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] A Theory of Fraud and Overtreatment in Experts MarketsJOURNAL OF ECONOMICS & MANAGEMENT STRATEGY, Issue 4 2006Ingela Alger Consumers often rely on an expert's diagnosis to assess their needs. If the expert is also the seller of services, he may use his informational advantage to induce overtreatment, which is a pervasive phenomenon in experts markets. We offer and discuss conditions leading to equilibrium overtreatment in an otherwise purely competitive model. This market failure results from consumers' ability to turn down an expert's recommendation: experts defraud consumers to keep them uninformed, as this deters them from seeking a better price elsewhere. [source] Bundling and the Reduction of the Winner's CurseJOURNAL OF ECONOMICS & MANAGEMENT STRATEGY, Issue 4 2002Indranil Chakraborty The paper studies the effects of bundling on the bidding strategies and seller revenues in auctions when the bidders have common values for the objects. Bundling of objects before the auction reduces the problem of the winner's curse, and the bidders bid more aggressively. This does not mean that a bundled auction is always better for the seller's revenue. Indeed, there is another effect that makes the bundled auction preferable (from the seller's standpoint) if and only if the number of bidders is small. While this is the only effect present in an independent-private-values model, it does not vanish when bidders have pure common values for the objects. The paper concludes that a bundled auction is unambiguously better for the seller than separate auctions when the number of bidders is small. [source] Courts and contract enforcement in transition agriculture: theory and evidence from PolandAGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 2-3 2004Volker Beckmann Abstract The paper investigates theoretically and empirically the role of courts for contract enforcement in transition agriculture. In a survey of 306 Polish farmers conducted in 1999, only 38.5% respondents reported to believe that they could use courts to enforce contracts with their most important customer. Furthermore, those who believed the legal system could be used would accept significant financial losses before taking action. We develop a theoretical model, based on the costs and benefits of court enforcement, which captures the boundary between contracts to be regarded as ,enforceable' and ,not-enforceable' and, simultaneously, the threshold of taking legal action. The empirical analysis strongly supports our model: (1) the farmers' responses can be explained by cost-benefit calculations regarding the use of courts, (2) the legal ,enforceability' of contracts depends not only on the efficiency of the legal system but also on the attributes of the transaction, the contracts and the relationship between buyer and seller and (3) the threshold of taking legal action is significantly influenced by indirect costs of court enforcement, such as the disruption of a valuable business relationship, and by the availability of alternative enforcement mechanisms. [source] Taxes and the Efficiency-Rent Extraction Trade-offJOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMIC THEORY, Issue 5 2006ANIL ARYA This paper presents an adverse selection model in which progressive taxation enhances productive efficiency by encouraging a principal (buyer) to be less aggressive in contracting with an agent (seller). Wary of padded cost budgets, the buyer employs a hurdle-rate procurement policy. With a low cost hurdle, the buyer keeps greater profits when transactions are undertaken but trade occurs less often. While the hurdle is unaffected by a flat tax, a progressive tax tilts the buyer's preference: the buyer's benefit from a lower hurdle becomes less pronounced, since the marginal increase in his profits is muted in after-tax terms. The result is increased trade and the possibility of Pareto improvements. [source] Leveraging Family-Based Brand Identity to Enhance Firm Competitiveness and Performance in Family Businesses,JOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2008Justin B. Craig Drawing on the family-embeddedness perspective on entrepreneurship and the resource-based-view of the firm, we investigate how the promotion of family-based brand identity influences competitive orientation (customer versus product) and firm performance in family businesses. Applying structural equation modeling to survey data collected from leaders of 218 family businesses, we demonstrate that developing a family-based brand identity positively contributes to firm performance (growth and profitability) indirectly, via a customer-centric orientation. In contrast, attempts to leverage family-based brand identity via a product-centric orientation do not impact firm performance. Our results suggest that family-based brand identity enhances the family business' ability to persuade customers to make purchasing decisions based on the perceived attributes of the seller. As a result, we contribute to the discussions centered on how to optimize the intricate synergy between family and business. [source] ,Were it not against our laws': oppression and resistance in Shakespeare's Comedy of ErrorsLEGAL STUDIES, Issue 2 2009Eric Heinze The Comedy of Errors, always loved on the stage, has long been deemed less substantial than Shakespeare's ,mature' works. Its references to private and public law have certainly been noted: a trial, a breached contract, a stand-off between monarchical and parliamentary powers. Yet the play's legal elements are more than historical curios within an otherwise light-hearted venture. The play is pervasively structured by an array of socio-legal dualisms: master,servant, husband,wife, native,alien, parent,child, monarch,parliament, buyer,seller. All confront fraught transitions from pre-modern to early modern forms. Those fundamentally legal relationships fuel character and action, even where no conventionally legal norm or procedure is at issue. ,Errors' in the play serve constantly to highlight unstable and shifting relationships of dominance and submission. Law undergoes its own transition from feudal,aristocratic to commercial forms. Through a theatrical framing device, it thereby re-emerges to remind us that those dualisms, even in their new incarnations, will remain squarely within law's ambit. [source] Price-setting power and information asymmetry in sealed biddingMANAGERIAL AND DECISION ECONOMICS, Issue 6 2006Article first published online: 18 SEP 200, James E. Parco Diverging from the historical precedent of using a midpoint rule (k=½) to experimentally structure two-person bargaining under incomplete information, extreme values of k (k={0, 1}) are invoked in an asymmetric information environment endowing one player with exclusive price-setting power and the other player with veto-only power. Theoretical analysis suggests that regardless of who possesses an information advantage, expected profits for a seller (buyer) decrease (increase) in k. Yet, experimental results show that under conditions of dramatic information asymmetry, not only is the observed share of the surplus is much smaller than predicted for the player with price-setting power, but also the player with the information advantage is unable to garner a greater share of the surplus as has been consistently demonstrated in previous studies providing a boundary test of Daniel et al.'s Information Disparity Hypothesis (1998). Published in 2006 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] RISK INDIFFERENCE PRICING IN JUMP DIFFUSION MARKETSMATHEMATICAL FINANCE, Issue 4 2009Bernt Øksendal We study the risk indifference pricing principle in incomplete markets: The (seller's),risk indifference price,,is the initial payment that makes the,risk,involved for the seller of a contract equal to the risk involved if the contract is not sold, with no initial payment. We use stochastic control theory and PDE methods to find a formula for,,and similarly for,. In particular, we prove that ,where,plow,and,pup,are the lower and upper hedging prices, respectively. [source] Optimal timing of switches between product sales for sports and entertainment ticketsNAVAL RESEARCH LOGISTICS: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 1 2008Matthew J. Drake Abstract Like airlines and hotels, sports teams and entertainment venues can benefit from revenue management efforts for their ticket sales. Teams and entertainment venues usually offer bundles of tickets early in their selling horizon and put single-event tickets on sale at a later date; these organizations must determine the best time to offer individual tickets because both types of ticket sales consume the same fixed inventory. We model the optimal a priori timing decision for a seller with a fixed number of identical tickets to switch from selling the tickets as fixed bundles to individual tickets to maximize the revenue realized before the start of the performance season. We assume that bundle and single-ticket customers each arrive according to independent, nonhomogeneous Markovian death processes with a linear death rate that can vary over time and that the benefit from selling a ticket in a package is higher than from selling the ticket individually. We characterize the circumstances in which it is optimal for the seller to practice mixed bundling and when the seller should only sell bundles or individual tickets, and we establish comparative statics for the optimal timing decision for the special case of constant customer arrival rates. We extend our analytical results to find the optimal time for offering two groups of tickets with high and low demand. Finally, we apply the timing model to a data set obtained from the sports industry. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2008 [source] Switching costs, dynamic uncertainty, and buyer,seller relationships,NAVAL RESEARCH LOGISTICS: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 8 2007Nagesh N. Murthy Abstract We analyze strategic relationships between buyers and sellers in markets with switching costs and dynamic uncertainty by investigating the scenario wherein a representative buyer trades with two foreign sellers located in the same foreign country. We show that, under exchange rate uncertainty, switching costs may lead to switching equilibria where both sellers co-exist in the market with the buyer, or no-switching equilibria where either seller captures the market. The presence of exchange rate uncertainty facilitates competition by allowing the sellers to co-exist in the market with the buyer. However, if the level of uncertainty is beyond a threshold, the only viable equilibria are those where one of the sellers captures the market. Further, depending on the level of exchange rate uncertainty and the sellers' variable costs, switching costs may either raise or lower the level of prices in long-term contracts between the buyer and the sellers. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2007 [source] Wealth Effects of Diversification and Financial Deal Structuring: Evidence from REIT Property Portfolio AcquisitionsREAL ESTATE ECONOMICS, Issue 3 2003Robert D. Campbell This study examines the strategic characteristics and shareholder wealth effects of a popular vehicle for Real Estate Investment Trust growth in the 1990s: the acquisition of a portfolio of properties from a single seller. We examine a sample of 209 REIT portfolio acquisitions during 1995-2001. We observe a wide variety of financing strategies and find an array of different categories of sellers. Contrary to results reported in real estate transactions of this sort in the past, we find that announcement-period shareholder returns are significantly positive in the aggregate. We present evidence that excess returns to acquirers result from (1) wealth benefits received when companies reconfirm their geographical focus in the acquisition, (2) positive information conveyed by the use of project-specific private debt and (3) a positive signal sent to the market when transactions are financed by stock privately placed with financial institutions. [source] Listing Price, Time on Market, and Ultimate Selling Price: Causes and Effects of Listing Price ChangesREAL ESTATE ECONOMICS, Issue 2 2002John R. Knight Information about price changes during a home's marketing period is typically missing from data used to investigate the listing price, selling price, and selling time relationship. This paper incorporates price revision information into the study of this relationship. Using a maximum-likelihood probit model, we examine the determinants of list price changes and find evidence consistent with the theory of pricing behavior under demand uncertainty. Homes most likely to undergo list price changes are those with high initial markups and vacant homes, while homes with unusual features are the least likely to experience a price revision. We also explore the impact of missing price change information on estimating a representative model of house price and market time. Our results suggest that mispricing the home in the initial listing is costly to the seller in both time and money. Homes with large percentage changes in list price take longer to sell and ultimately sell at lower prices. [source] An Experimental Analysis of the Impact of Intermediaries on the Outcome of Bargaining GamesREAL ESTATE ECONOMICS, Issue 2 2001Abdullah Yavas We conduct an experimental analysis of the bargaining between a buyer and a seller of the exchange of a single good by means of an intermediary or broker. We examine how an intermediary affects the price, the likelihood of a successful negotiation, and the time it takes to complete a negotiation. We first examine the impact of the intermediary as a pure middleman, and then as an information source about the distribution of seller and buyer reservation prices. The results show that an intermediary, whether or not informed, increases the sale price, reduces the likelihood of an agreement, and increases the time to reach an agreement (though the number of bargaining rounds declines). The results suggest that the benefits of brokerage may be predominantly in the matching of buyers and sellers rather than in facilitating bargaining. 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