This article examines what factors motivate small firms to export. Specifically, this study looks at firms with 200 or fewer employees, dividing the sample into two groups: firms with 25 or fewer employees and firms with more than 25 employees. The results suggest that firms with 25 or fewer employees export for two main reasons: the firm has a unique product, and it has a technological advantage over competitors. Firms with more than 25 employees export for the above two reasons, plus two additional reasons: to achieve economies of scale and to avoid losing out on foreign opportunities. Due to the limitations of the size and scope of this research, future research should include additional SIC categories as well as firms outside California.

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This abstract was created post-production by the JFI Editorial Board. This study has examined the power and type I error rate of four methods of testing for regression parameter changes when applied to detecting beta changes in monthly stock return series. The study used simulated stock return series with known betas, error variances, beta change dates, and error term distributions. In summary, it appears to be nearly impossible to detect or find the location of small or moderate beta changes in monthly stock return series. This suggests that the market model parameter changes reported by Hays and Upton (1986) are most likely not beta changes. However, they find of market model nonstationarity in almost all of the stocks in their sample-far more than this study finds. This suggests that if non-normality of stock returns accounts for the results obtained by Hays and Upton, the Stable Paretian 1.95 distribution does not adequately explain monthly stock returns.

This article examines the potential impact of a wages-paid tax credit and a tax credit for the cost of retraining workers in California. The empirical results suggest that a wages-paid tax credit would be most effective in increasing employment atfirms with the fewest resources. The results also suggest that a tax credit for the cost of retraining workers would not be effective in the retention of workers.