Firms pursue third-party certification to private standards to reduce firm-level information asymmetries of certain unobservable characteristics and thus obtain legitimacy. However, when the private standard’s legitimacy dilutes, those same firms have reasons to abandon certifications...

This exercise defines balance of payments as a statement of a country's economic transactions with the rest of the world and explains its significance and utility along with other essential economic terms related to understanding and calculating balance of payments. An exercise for calculating a...

Firms are frequently pressured by customers to obtain certification to one or more voluntary sustainability standards. However, uncertainty associated with competing voluntary sustainability standards can reduce the value of standard certifications and jeopardize the entire voluntary regulatory...

This case describes the successful recapitalization effort, through an international equity issue in 1999, by the Siam Commercial Bank (SCB). An update of the A case (UVA-BP-0443), the B case can be used in conjunction with the A case to discuss how SCB was able to gain the confidence of foreign...

This case describes the events between October 1998 and early January 1999. To prevent a devaluation of the real (Brazil's unit of currency), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) provided a standby loan to Brazil. The case outlines the conditions under which the loan was granted and the effect...

This case provides an update of Brazil's economic performance since the January 1999 decision to devalue the real as well as a reflection by the former Central Bank President M. Gustavo Franco. The case affords a discussion of the effects of the devaluation on the Brazilian economy. It can be...

Critics assert that globalization is detrimental to the environment because it encourages location of polluting industries to countries with low environmental regulations. We suggest that globalization might also have positive environmental effects because global ties increase self-regulation...