, few empirical investigations exist. This paper gives a first insight into the impact of research joint ventures on firms ' profit margins. In addition, it investigates the degree to which different firm variables influence participation in research joint ventures (RJVs). For this purpose, 314 US

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An electronic version of the paper may be downloaded • from the SSRN website: www.SSRN.com • from the CESifo website: www.CESifo.de CESifo Working Paper No. 852

to promote scientific discussion. They are not to be quoted without written permission of the author(s). The Role of Efficiency of Redistributive Institutions on Redistribution: An

The conventional instrument of monetary policy in most major industrial economies is the very short term nominal interest rate, such as the overnight federal funds rate in the case of the United States. The use of this instrument, however, implies a potential problem: Because currency (which pays a nominal interest rate of zero) can be used as a store of value, the short-term nominal interest rate cannot be pushed below zero. Should the nominal rate hit zero, the real short-term interest rate—at that point equal to the negative of prevailing inflation expectations—may be higher than the rate needed to ensure stable prices and the full utilization of resources. Indeed, an unstable dynamic may result if the excessively high real rate leads to downward pressure on costs and prices that, in turn, raises the real short-term interest rate, which depresses activity and prices further, and so on. Japan has suffered from the problems created by the zero lower bound (ZLB) on the nominal interest rate in recent years, and short-term rates in countries such as the United States and Switzerland have also come uncomfortably close to zero. As a consequence, the problems of conducting monetary policy when interest rates approach zero have elicited considerable attention from the economics profession. Some contributions have framed the The views expressed are our own and are not necessarily shared by anyone else in the Federal Reserve System. We have benefited from conversations with many colleagues. We also thank Thomas Gallagher of the ISI Group and Jeffrey Young of Nikko/Citigroup for providing data on their real-time interpretations of, respectively, U.S. and Japanese monetary policies.

The Working Paper series presents reports on matters in the sphere of activities of the Riksbank that are considered to be of interest to a wider public. The papers are to be regarded as reports on ongoing studies and the authors will be pleased to receive comments. The views expressed in Working Papers are solely the responsibility of the authors and should not to be interpreted as reflecting the views of the Executive Board of Sveriges Riksbank. Bank Lending, Geographical Distance, and Credit risk:

Die ZBW räumt Ihnen als Nutzerin/Nutzer das unentgeltliche, räumlich unbeschränkte und zeitlich auf die Dauer des Schutzrechts beschränkte einfache Recht ein, das ausgewählte Werk im Rahmen der unter

Although the importance of service quality and service quality measurement have been recognized, there are limited researches that have addressed the structure and antecedents of the concept for the hotel industry in Bangladesh. The clarification of the dimensions of service quality is inevitable for the managers in the hotel industry as these identify the bundles of service attributes consumers find important. Therefore, this study aims to measure the service quality from the customers ’ perspective of five star hotels in Ban-gladesh based on the SERVQUAL model. Three five star hotels (Ruposhi Bangla Hotel, Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel, and Radison Water Garden Hotel) out of four were selected for the purpose of the study. The study is based on the primary data collected from the respondents with the help of a self-administered questionnaire to measure the perception of service quality characteristics of the five star hotels. Data analysis has been done using SPSS software and a factor analysis has been conducted to measure the differenc-es among the factors affecting service quality perceptions. To measure the service quality gap, five dimensions related to hotel indus-try were identified. The analysis shows that the service quality of the five star hotels is highly dependent on the physical appearance, interior decoration, food quality, behavior of the employees, security system, and customized services given to individual customers.

The authors are indebted to Tony Venables for invaluable suggestions. Jim Harrigan provided great insights and help with the data. Shangjin Wei likewise graciously provided data. Trevor Reeve provided outstanding research assistance. The views expressed in the paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Federal Reserve or of other institutions providing support.

Die ZBW räumt Ihnen als Nutzerin/Nutzer das unentgeltliche, räumlich unbeschränkte und zeitlich auf die Dauer des Schutzrechts beschränkte einfache Recht ein, das ausgewählte Werk im Rahmen der unter