Time compression (dis)economies: An empirical analysis

Research Summary: To investigate time compression diseconomies (TCD), this study estimated time–cost elasticities using 459 oil and gas global investment projects (1997–2010). Results show that the average cost of accelerating investments is negative: a firm could cut $6.3 million in costs of a single project by accumulating asset stocks 1 month faster. About 88% of the projects exhibit negative time–cost elasticities with over 39% of unrealized economies of time compression. Only 12% of the projects are subject to TCD. These time inefficiencies or frictions do not negate the existence of TCD, but suggest they are less prevalent than assumed in the literature. Management experience, R&D investment, firm size, economic development, and political stability are shown to be associated with greater time compression efficiency. Managerial Summary: How fast should firms invest? The conventional view is that acceleration increases market revenues but also inflates costs. However, there is no recent empirical evidence of this tradeoff. Our article systematically investigates the costs of compressing time in investment projects. Results show that most firms in the oil and gas industry are significantly time inefficient in their operations. Specifically, by accelerating investments, firms would also substantially decrease costs. We estimate the magnitude of these time inefficiencies for specific oil and gas industries and firms and study which strategies might mitigate this problem. This fine‐grained analysis should help firms assess their financial incentives to accelerate projects and prove informative to stock market analysts’ valuations of firm investment timing.     

Food aid for supplementary feeding programmes : An analysis

Supplementary feeding projects to selected population groups are one outlet for the food aid which is sent to developing nations. The author discusses the costs and benefits, both nutritional and non-nutritional, of supplementary feeding projects, with two questions in mind. He asks: are supplementary feeding programmes an effective nutrition intervention; and should such programmes be supported by food aid or would their purpose be better achieved with local food?     

Project Failures Arising from Corporate Entrepreneurship: Impact of Multiple Project Failures on Employees' Accumulated Emotions,Learning, and Motivation

In this paper, we consider an organizational paradox inherent to corporate entrepreneurship; that is, the pursuit of entrepreneurial projects is necessary for organizational rejuvenation, renewal, and/or organic growth; however, the high failure rate of entrepreneurial projects likely has enduring implications for the project team members and, by extension, the organization. Drawing on the psychology and emotion literatures, we model the human capital costs of corporate entrepreneurship arising from the multiple failures of entrepreneurial projects. Specifically, we explore how and with what consequence negative emotions can accumulate across multiple failures; when this accumulation is most likely to occur; and what the nature of this accumulation is across organizational contexts, employee differences, and time. This theorizing complements extant scholarship focused on the financial benefits and costs of corporate entrepreneurship by investigating the negative impact of multiple project failures on employees.     

Is failure good?

Approximately 80–90 percent of new firms ultimately fail. The tendency is to think of this failure as wasteful. We, however, examine whether there are economic benefits to offset the waste. We characterize three potential mechanisms through which excess entry affects market structure, firm behavior, and efficiency, then test them in the banking industry. Results indicate that failed firms generate externalities that significantly and substantially reduce industry cost. On average these benefits exceed the private costs of the entrants. Thus failure appears to be good for the economy. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cost reductions or reputation enhancement as motives for mergers: The logic of multihospital systems

This paper examines two motives for the formation of local multihospital systems: cost reduction and reputation enhancement. Systems may reduce costs by eliminating redundancies and reducing administrative costs. Integration may also lower costs for consumers seeking consistently high qualiiy. We hypothesize that if systems achieve either cost or reputation benefits, then member hospitals will ‘look’ different from random collections of hospitals. We find that local systems do not appear to have lower costs but do appear to enjoy reputation benefits over nonsystem hospitals. Our findings challenge the assumptions behind popular health reform initiatives.     

Bias and Error in Mine Project Capital Cost Estimation

Previous analyses of small samples of mining projects have found that feasibility studies tend to underestimate the as-built capital costs of the project. Our review of 63 international mining and smelting projects confirms that as-built capital costs are, on average, 14% higher than as estimated in the bankable feasibility study. There is little attenuation over time of this bias in capital cost estimation, appearing to reflect an absence of learning on the part of the project sponsor or the consulting engineering firm. We argue that this persistence of bias is instead intentional and rational, driven by a scarcity of project financing and the need by project sponsors to inflate the project economics in a bid to secure financing. We find some empirical support for our contention. A second phase of the analysis examines estimation error. Roughly half of all projects' as-built capital costs fall outside of the expected ± 15% of the feasibility study capital cost estimate, even after allowing for intentional estimation bias. Cost overruns of 100% or more happen in roughly 1 out of 13 projects. Smaller projects have less estimation accuracy than large projects. Finally, our analysis of the cost overrun data reveals that a shifted lognormal probability distribution should be used when modeling mining project capital costs in a Monte Carlo analysis.     

价值工程在油田开发工程造价管理中的应用

结合实际就采油厂在油田开发工程造价管理中价值工程的原理进行了阐述,并结合实际案例就价值工程在油田开发工程造价管理设计阶段、施工阶段、招投标阶段的应用进行了分析。通过开展价值工程活动,对提高采油厂油田开发工程的总体效益,降低开发工程寿命周期成本起到积极作用。     

Do Tenants Capture the Benefits from the Low‐Income Housing Tax Credit Program?

This article compares the rent savings accrued by recipient households over the life cycle of Low‐Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) projects to their allocated tax credits. A simple two‐stage empirical procedure is developed and implemented for a selected medium‐sized metropolitan statistical area. Using hedonic pricing parameters estimated in the first stage, LIHTC ceiling rents are compared to predicted market rents. The findings indicate rent savings constitute a relatively small fraction of the programs costs, suggesting developers and investors may capture some of the program's benefits. As this finding characterizes only one potential source of benefits of the LIHTC program, a brief discussion of other potential benefits to low‐income households supplements the analysis.     

海上油气田区域开发经济评价思路探讨

常规油气田开发的经济评价通常以单个油气田开发建设项目作为评价单元.针对海上油气开发互为依托且高成本、高风险的特征,建议引入区域开发的经济评价思想,按照三类实用可行的开发思路,即“利用闲置生产设施”、“油气田群内联合开发”、“区域内储量滚动开发”进行项目经济评价,从而最终实现区域内每一个油气田的有效开发.文章对三种思路进行了讨论,并提出了实际工作需重点关注的事项.     

Efficiency Wages in Weitzman's Share Economy

Weitzman proposes widespread profit or revenue sharing as a way of guaranteeing both very low levels of equilibrium unemployment and increased stability in the face of aggregate shocks. The benefits of a share economy come from the subsidy that current workers pay to marginal workers. In an efficiency-wage model, the wage subsidy paid by current workers costs the firm as much in lower productivity as it gains from lower labor costs. There is, therefore, neither a reduction of the equilibrium unemployment rate nor a necessary increase in macroeconomic stability when the share economy is introduced.     

Gaining added value from centres of excellence in the UK medical equipment industry

New technologies and the transfer, exchange and pooling of existing technologies are impacting, at the strategic level. Research on joint activities has emphasised the industry sectoral differences and the need for more in-depth analysis at these levels. This study of eleven companies' joint activities with government research institutes, university medical schools and other companies, in developing thirty-four medical equipment innovations, details the mechanisms by which the expected added value from joint activities is realised.
The manufacturers gained added value by:
1. Appropriating user knowledge to them-selves
2. Transferring costs to the users
3. Increasing private returns through co-operation with the user in gaining market penetration
4. Diffusion of costs and the capturing of benefits through intermediary-manufactureruser interactions
5. The coupling of 'outside product champions' to 'inside product champions'.     

提升代建制下政府投资项目工程质量的对策研究

政府投资项目具有投资规模大、专业化程度高、非私有品及较大的外部性等特性,同时大都属于国家基础设施建设,关系到国民经济的发展.我国政府投资项目在代建制模式下得到了很好的发展,但工程质量仍存在很大隐患.文章通过对代建制下政府投资项目工程质量的现状进行分析,归纳总结出导致工程质量存在问题的主要原因,进而提出了从建立健全代建制下政府投资项目监管体系、完善代建制及其相关配套制度等方面,来提升代建制下政府投资项目的工程质量,为充分发挥代建制在政府投资项目中的优势作用提供参考.     

Two-way cable television trial — a preliminary report

The Spartanburg two-way cable project of the Rand Corporation consists of a series of experiments to determine the benefits of interactive cable for the delivery of public services. The work is supported by the Research Applied to National Needs (RANN) programme of the National Science Foundation. Like the other projects funded in the NSF cable research programme, the Spartanburg project is intended to provide data on the costs and benefits of cable television systems that can be used both to receive and send signals from a home, agency, or business.     

Effective interim collaboration: how firms minimize transaction costs and maximise transaction value

This study of automotive transaction relationships in the U.S.A. and Japan offers data which indicate that transaction costs do not necessarily increase with an increase in relation-specific investments. We empirically examine the conditions under which transactors can simultaneously achieve the twin benefits of high asset specificity and low transaction costs. This is possible because the different safeguards which can be employed to control opportunism have different set-up costs and result in different transaction costs over different time horizons. We examine in detail the practices of Japanese firms which result in effective interfirm collaboration. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Taking a hit to save the world? Employee participation in a corporate social initiative

Research Summary: Companies often justify their corporate social initiatives by citing talent management benefits. We examine the extent of, and the reasons for, employee interest in such an initiative in a global management consulting firm. We find a large fraction of employees to be interested in participation in the initiative even when participation requires a personal sacrifice in the form of a salary cut. However, this interest is driven not just by prosocial motivation: Expectations regarding private benefits, such as improved career prospects from new skills acquired, also play a role. Considerations of social impact and private benefits are equally salient when no salary cut is required, but private considerations become more prominent when participating employees are asked to accept a salary cut. Managerial Summary: Many companies are moving from stand‐alone corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects to social initiatives integrated into strategy. Providing employees with the opportunity to participate in such initiatives is said to help attract, motivate and retain talent. In this study, carried out in collaboration with a management consulting firm, we examine how much and why employees value participation in a corporate social initiative. Based on interviews and survey data, we find that employees are not only interested in, but often even willing to accept, a temporary salary cut for the opportunity. However, altruistic motivation is not the only driver of this interest: Employees also expect and value the possibility that the experience would lead to private benefits, such as developing skills likely to enhance their career prospects.     

中国工业绿色转型研究

目前,中国已进入产业转型升级的重要战略机遇期。面对应对气候变化的国际压力和日益加大的资源环境约束,中国工业迫切需要加快绿色转型。工业是中国经济的主体产业,工业绿色转型势必会对经济社会发展产生重大影响。一方面,在推动工业向绿色、低碳化转型过程中,需要付出一定的成本和代价;另一方面,实现工业绿色转型也将产生显著的效益。总体而言,工业绿色转型的效益远高于成本,这将成为中国工业绿色转型的根本动力。中国工业绿色转型需要加快机制创新。应充分借鉴国际经验,以政府战略法规为支撑,市场化推进,鼓励产业界积极响应、企业自主行动和公众广泛参与,建立涵盖环境规制、节能减排机制、绿色技术研发和产业化应用机制、国际协调机制的综合性、开放式绿色转型机制创新体系,并在技术、资金、交易机制、国际合作等方面不断丰富绿色转型的政策措施。     

Tracing feeding programme drop-outs

Supplementary feeding programmes have been used as one outlet for the food aid which is sent to developing nations. In the November 1978 issue of Food Policy, Simon Maxwell analyzed the costs and benefits of supplementary feeding projects, in terms of both nutritional and non nutritional results.¹ In considering the importance of such results, trie rate and health status of programme drop-outs can significantly affect conclusions. An exercise demonstrating the differences in results, depending on assumptions about dropouts, is presented here for a World Food Programme (WFP) feeding project in Mexico.     

Export intensity and marketing in transition economies: Evidence from China

Firms in transition economies face a common adaptation problem of having to compete within increasingly marketized environments. This creates a need for managers to learn skills associated with marketing, such as those pertaining to the development of new and better products. Although distance is usually a barrier to learning, we propose that in exchange situations involving transition economy firms, the benefits of long-distance trade may outweigh the costs of knowledge acquisition. We find support for this proposition in this study by establishing a link between the export intensity of Chinese exporters and their acquisition of marketing know-how. We also find evidence that the marketing knowledge of transition economy firms has a positive effect on overall performance.     

Evaluation method of benefits and efficiency of grid investment in China: A case study

The existing evaluation system for power grid investment in China has not combined measures of the investment benefits and investment efficiency very well and it lacks practical reference value. This article proposes an improved evaluation index system of the benefits and efficiency of power grid investment projects. The system divides the evaluation method into indexes. This includes the basic indexes, modification indexes, and appraisal indexes that evaluate the economic and environmental benefits of the investment projects comprehensively. It considers the overall efficiency in terms of the economy, technology, and society. It combines an absolute efficiency evaluation model with a data envelope analysis relative efficiency evaluation model. Finally, the benefits and efficiency of investment of an actual power grid project are evaluated through a case study. The results show the practical value of the proposed efficiency evaluation method for evaluating investment projects in a power grid.