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This paper aims at assessing the impact of institutional and cultural distances and trade barriers on ASEAN's trade efficiency using a panel data set of 65 countries for the period 2006–2017.

First, the authors applied an improved version of the stochastic frontier model to estimate the trade efficiency scores. After that, we used the system generalized method of moment (GMM) estimator to investigate the impacts of institutional and cultural distances on ASEAN's trade efficiency.

The results show that the trade efficiency of ASEAN countries with the rest of the world (ROW) is moderate, ranging from 0.561 to 0.612, but shows a downward trend. This result indicates that considerable trade potential exists between ASEAN countries and ROW. Institutional and cultural distances, as well as the trade barriers, negatively affect ASEAN's trade efficiency. Efforts to reduce differences in institutions and cultures and to promote trade liberalization are vital remedies for ASEAN countries to turn potentials into actual trade performance.

This study contributes to the existing literature in three different ways. First, this is the first study on the impact of the differences between internal and external characteristics on trade efficiency, specifically, the impact of institutional and cultural distances on ASEAN's trade efficiency. Second, to obtain accurate efficiency scores, the authors use an improved version of the stochastic frontier model proposed by Karakaplan (2018), which can control the problem of endogeneity. Third, in quantifying the determinants of trade efficiency, the authors apply a system GMM estimator, which allows us to overcome the problems of endogeneity, measurement errors, and omitted variables.

The purpose of this study is to empirically analyze the impact of logistics efficiency on trade volume growth, and to examine the effects of lower tariffs resulting from free trade agreements. In order to measure the impact of logistics efficiency on trade volume growth, the export and import trade volume among 53 countries was introduced as the dependent variable. Macroeconomic indicators including annual average tariff rate, logistics efficiency indicators for port, air, railroad, road and container vessel connectivity, as well as dummy variables such as whether a free trade agreement was signed, were introduced as the explanatory variables. Bilateral panel data between trading nations was used to estimate the gravity panel model, and analysis followed the categorization: 1) separate inputs of the five logistics efficiency variables and 2) one aggregated input of the five variables as a single indicator. The analysis found that logistics efficiency had a statistically significant impact on bilateral trade volume growth, while the impact of lowering tariff rates on increasing trade was insignificant. In addition, logistics efficiency was found to have a greater impact on increasing trade volume than free trade agreements. These results imply that trade can be promoted more effectively by establishing and efficiently operating logistics-related infrastructure rather than traditional methods of reducing trade barriers such as lowering tariffs and signing free trade agreements.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the efficiency of trade shows and provide insights for trade show exhibitors using data envelopment analysis (DEA). The paper also offers a benchmarking analysis of the business factors for the most efficient trade shows in each sector.

The paper uses the metafrontier DEA methodology and identifies several frontiers according to the sector in which the trade show operates since different sectors could not share homogeneous production technology for exhibitor firms.

The main findings reveal different profiles of individual sectors. The investment sector presents a more homogenous profile than either the consumer goods or the services sector. The consumer goods sector is more heterogeneous but it is also possible to find common characteristics for the most efficient trade shows. The service sector is characterized by a high variability and as such it is more difficult to identify benchmarking elements for the most efficient trade shows.

The main limitation of the study is that the sample only includes audited trade shows. Future studies could extend the period under study in order to obtain a more complete picture on the evolution of trade show efficiency.

This paper extends the DEA results by profiling the most efficient trade shows in each sector so that this information can be used as a benchmarking tool to define exhibitors’ strategic decision making.

The purpose of this paper is to illuminate light on the assessment of operating efficiency of specialty coffee retailers from the perspective of socially responsible global sourcing. This paper evaluates the impact of socially responsible sourcing on the operating efficiencies of specialty coffee retailers before and after implementing fair‐trade practices and compares the operating efficiencies of fair‐trade coffee retailers to those of non‐fair‐trade coffee retailers.

The paper proposes data envelopment analysis (DEA) to measure the comparative efficiency of seven specialty coffee retailers, relative to prior periods and their key competitors. It develops the Charnes‐Cooper‐Rhodes (CCR) model that is designed to derive weights without their being fixed in advance. The CCR version of DEA is adopted to assess the impact of the coffee retailers' policy initiatives (i.e. fair‐trade practices) on their efficiency and measure the change over time (i.e. before and after fair‐trade practices) efficiency of the coffee retailers. As a post hoc DEA analysis, it also performs non‐parametric rank sum statistical tests for any discernable group differences between fair‐trade coffee retailers and non‐fair‐trade coffee retailers.

The study found that a group of coffee retailers committed to socially responsible sourcing (i.e. fair‐trade) practices tended to perform significantly better than the group which has yet to commit socially responsible sourcing practices with a concern over increased purchasing price. Also, it was found that a premium purchasing price paid to fair‐trade coffee beans did not undermine the coffee retailer's comparative operating efficiency despite its adverse impact on purchasing cost. In other words, a cost increase resulting from socially responsible business conducts might have been offset by the revenue increase resulting from favorable brand recognition attached to social responsibility.

This study is the first attempt to assess the impact of socially responsible sourcing practices on the multinational firms (MNFs) such as specialty coffee retailers' competitiveness and then investigate whether the MNF's commitment to socially responsible sourcing practices can be developed into its long‐term strategic weapon. In addition, it helps specialty coffee retailers formulate future global sourcing strategies by providing the detailed picture of how socially responsible sourcing can impact their competitiveness.

The purpose of the paper was to establish the implications of globalisation for labour markets when efficiency wages create endogenous wage rigidity and to re‐examine the credibility of the arguments that call for deregulation, more wage flexibility and less social protection in this context.

The role of efficiency wages is reviewed in the traditional international economics theory, new economic geography and the neo‐Schumpeterian perspective towards international competitiveness.

First, taking into account endogenous sources of wage rigidity has different implications for employment, inequality, regional growth convergence and the role of the welfare state in the context of international competitiveness, from those derived when assuming them away or taking them as imposed by labour market institutions. Second, policies that would substantially reduce social security or lead to cost‐cuts may have an adverse effect on effort and thus on productivity.

To the author's knowledge, this paper is the only review in the literature that concentrates on efficiency wages applied in international trade.

The aim of this paper is to examine the informational efficiency of prices of all exchange traded funds (ETFs) that are actively traded on the NYSE Arca, based on methodology developed by Chordia et al.

The authors estimate the speed of convergence to market efficiency based on short‐horizon return predictability from past order flows of 273 ETFs that were traded every day on the NYSE Arca during the first six months of 2008, and compare the resulting price formation process to that of shares traded on the NYSE and NYSE Arca.

Despite the significant differences in trading costs, volatility, and informational effects between ETFs and regular stocks, the paper documents that price adjustments to new information for ETFs occur in about 30 minutes, which is comparable to price adjustments for traditional stocks traded on Arca. In multivariate setting, the paper further shows that the speed of convergence to market efficiency of ETFs is not only significantly driven by volume, but also by the probability of informed trading.

The findings provide direct answers and insights to questions posed in a recent SEC concept release document. The analysis of the speed of convergence provides a feasible measure to assess how efficiently prices of ETFs respond to new information.

The authors are first to utilize the short‐horizon return predictability from historical order flow approach to evaluate the price formation process of ETFs and to provide evidence on the determinants of its efficiency.

The purpose of this paper is to increase knowledge of the role organizational factors have in how health personnel make efficiency-thoroughness trade-offs, and how these trade-offs potentially affect clinical quality dimensions.

The paper is a thematic synthesis of the literature concerning health personnel working in clinical, somatic healthcare services, organizational factors and clinical quality.

Identified organizational factors imposing trade-offs were high workload, time limits, inappropriate staffing and limited resources. The trade-offs done by health personnel were often trade-offs weighing thoroughness (e.g. providing extra handovers or working additional hours) in an environment weighing efficiency (e.g. ward routines of having one single handover and work-hour regulations limiting physicians' work hours). In this context, the health personnel functioned as regulators, balancing efficiency and thoroughness and ensuring patient safety and patient centeredness. However, sometimes organizational factors limited health personnel's flexibility in weighing these aspects, leading to breached medication rules, skipped opportunities for safety debriefings and patients being excluded from medication reviews.

Balancing resources and healthcare demands while maintaining healthcare quality is a large part of health personnel's daily work, and organizational factors are suspected to affect this balancing act. Yet, there is limited research on this subject. With the expected aging of the population and the subsequent pressure on healthcare services' resources, the balancing between efficiency and thoroughness will become crucial in handling increased healthcare demands, while maintaining high-quality care.

An agent-based market simulation is utilized to examine the impact of high frequency trading (HFT) on various aspects of the stock market. This study aims to provide a baseline understanding of the effect of HFT on markets by using a paradigm of zero-intelligence traders and examining the resulting structural changes.

A continuous double auction setting with zero-intelligence traders is used by adapting the model of Gode and Sunder (1993) to include algorithmic high frequency (HF) traders who retrade by marking up their shares by a fixed percentage. The simulation examines the effects of two independent factors, the number of HF traders and their markup percentage, on several dependent variables, principally volume, market efficiency, trader surplus and volatility. Results of the simulations are tested with two-way ANOVA and Tukey’s post hoc tests.

In the simulation results, trading volume, efficiency and total surplus vary directly with the number of traders employing HFT. Results also reveal that market volatility increased with the number of HF traders.

Increases in volume, efficiency and total surplus represent market improvements due to the trading activities of HF traders. However, the increase in volatility is worrisome, and some of the surplus increase appears to come at the expense of long-term-oriented investors. However, the relatively recent development of HFT and dearth of appropriate data make direct calibration of any model difficult.

The simulation study focuses on the structural impact of HF traders on several aspects of the simulated market, with the effects isolated from other noise and problems with empirical data. A baseline for comparison and suggestions for future research are established.

The study explores how a market-like organizational system realizes efficient and/or effective development by investigating the efficiency/effectiveness trade-off in micro-level exchanges.

The study is motivated by two principles: reciprocity and similarity. Reciprocal benefits drive exchanges. Accordingly, two agents for a potential exchange should have different resources. However, differences in resources usually cause lack of trust, which hinders the efficient occurrence of exchanges. Alternatively, if two parties have similar resource positions, they can conduct an exchange efficiently. Nevertheless, the similarity makes the exchange less effective. Therefore, an efficiency/effectiveness trade-off exists in micro-level exchanges. To understand how different focuses on the efficiency/effectiveness trade-off shape the macro-level performance, the author develops a complex adaptive systems model for computer simulations.

The author finds that an efficiency-focus institution facilitates a market-like organizational system's rapid emergence but hinders the system's effective development.

The study develops a model of how a dyadic exchange happens (or not) between any two parties in a competitive and uncertain environment and how the micro-level exchanges aggregate, suggesting one specific way to understand the micro-to-macro process of a market-like organizational system's economic dynamism. Future research is expected to improve the model with different contingencies.

The study's findings suggest that the efficiency-focus institution and the effectiveness-focus institution should be used at different times in a market-like organizational system's development process.

The study investigates the macro-level consequences building upon the micro-level efficiency/effectiveness trade-off.

This paper aims to measure the trade price impact of a recent regulatory disclosure intervention in municipal securities secondary markets, which required broker-dealers to disclose securities trading information on a near-real-time and continuing basis.

The author analyzes trade price outcomes in the preintervention and postintervention regimes using a suite of time series estimations that give heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors (Prais–Winsten and Cochrain–Orcutt), accommodate higher-order lag structure in the error term (autoregressive integrated moving average) and account for volatility clustering in the time series (generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity).

Results show that regulatory disclosure intervention significantly improved trade price efficiency in municipal securities secondary markets as daily trade price differential and volatility both declined market-wide after the disclosure intervention.

The sample consists of trades in State of California general obligation bonds; therefore, empirical findings may not be generalizable to other states, local governments and different types of bonds.

The findings highlight voluntary information disclosure as a practical and effective mechanism in disclosure regulation of municipal securities secondary markets.

Only a small body of work exists that examines information disclosure regulation in municipal securities secondary markets; therefore, this paper expands knowledge on the topic and should provide renewed impetus for regulatory efforts aimed at improving the efficiency of municipal capital markets.