Cost disease in service sector

A higher growth rate of the service sector prices, rather than prices in the manufacturing sector, through time is known as cost disease in the service sector. This paper investigates supply and demand-side reasons for cost disease. First, we present an analysis of the supply side of the cost disease, when services and manufacturing play their role both in the intermediate and final demand. Second, we consider a CES utility function for the consumer, which is a function of two commodity services and manufacturing. The results indicate that there are two reasons for cost disease to occur from the supply side in an economy: first, when the growth rate of total factor productivity and technological progress in services is less than that in the manufacturing sector, and second, when the elasticity of substitution between labor and manufacturing input in the services production function is large and elasticity of substitution in manufacturing production function is small. From the demand side, the result shows that the cost disease occurred if the growth rate of the income elasticity of service is more than the manufacturing sector through time.     

Book Reviews

Analytical business history requires a synthesis of theories of transaction cost, entrepreneurship and firm-specific competence. These theories can be integrated using the concept of information cost. Economies of information cost explain the emergence of market-making intermediation in capitalist economies. Economists have been so preoccupied with production that they have ignored the role of market-making intermediation, despite the fact that market-making intermediation has a crucial impact on the strategy and organisation of the firm. This essay charts the historical emergence of market-making intermediation, and analyses its effects using a diagrammatic technique specially developed for this purpose. It is suggested that the concept of information cost, and the techniques of analysis allied with it, offer a useful way forward for business historians.     

精益生产方式下成本管理的相关问题及对策

目标成本管理作为精益生产方式下的成本管理模式,它以目标成本控制为核心,以作业为成本计算对象,旨在消除浪费、减少质量事件。本文通过介绍精益生产方式的相关情况和具体实施,指出精益生产方式的独特之处;分析精益生产方式下的成本管理普遍存在的问题及原因;提出解决问题的对策。     

跨国市场竞争企业合并决策研究

通过构建一个两阶段古诺模型研究在跨国市场竞争的企业合并行为,发现企业的合并选择与国外市场相对规模、合并带来的边际成本降低程度相关,只有当国外市场规模变小或合并能够降低成本的程度较大时企业才会愿意合并。根据模型,促进整体福利的政府政策也应有针对性:对于能够带来提高生产效率的合并,政府应提供充足资金和政策支持;对于不能提高生产效率的合并,政策应激励企业进行研发和创新。     

Setting Upper Limits on Merger Related Efficiencies

The purpose of this paper is to show that a complementary entry analysis could be performed by the authorities when assessing the welfare impacts of a merger. In addition to analyzing the likelihood and impact of post-merger entry by other firms, the authorities could also study pre-merger alternatives for the insiders, that is, to study wether other concentration operations were available but not chosen by the merging or acquiring firms. This may be particularly useful when the authorities are faced with a concentration operation that raises anti-competitive concerns. Insiders will argue that cost reductions are likely to compensate these negative effects. However, if the cost reductions are not firm specific it is possible, in some circumstances, to establish an upper limit on the extent of cost reductions when there are other mergers available. If these mergers were admissible but were dominated by the present one, information is revealed about the extent of cost reductions. This information may lead to the authorities updating their beliefs on efficiencies. Such updates may lead to the modification of the decision to approve or reject the merger.     

General equilibrium trade modelling with Canada–US transportation costs

Transportation costs are an important topic in international trade, but seldom have researchers paid attention to general equilibrium trade modelling with transportation costs and explored their relevant effects. This paper uses numerical general equilibrium trade model structures to simulate the impacts of transportation costs on welfare and trade for a Canada–US country pair case. We compare two groups of model structures: Armington assumption models and homogeneous goods models. Within these two groups of models, we also compare balanced trade structures to trade imbalance structures and production function transportation costs to iceberg transportation costs. Armington goods models generate more absolute welfare gains from transportation cost elimination than homogeneous goods models. Welfare gains under balanced trade structures are larger in production function transportation cost scenarios than in iceberg transportation cost scenarios, but under trade imbalance structures, welfare gains are greater under iceberg transportation cost scenarios. Canada's welfare gains in the iceberg transportation cost scenario are significantly larger than gains in the production function transportation cost scenario. On trade effects, homogeneous goods models generate more export and import gains, balanced trade structures have more trade variations, and iceberg transportation costs generate more trade effects.     

A Bayesian Net Benefit Approach to Cost‐effectiveness Analysis in Health Technology Assessment

The economic literature on cost‐effectiveness analysis in the context of decisions by health technology assessment agencies assumes as the quantity of interest a linear combination of the mean of the sampling distribution of the effectiveness and the cost. We argue that this is not always reasonable. Our reasons for this assertion are that (i) treatments are compared on the basis of mean values, and for some useful models the mean of the distribution of the cost, which is conditional on the available data, does not exist, and (ii) even for models for which the mean does exist, it might not constitute an accurate reflection of the distribution. This paper presents a general Bayesian cost‐effectiveness analysis of a single treatment, where the quantity of interest is the distribution, conditional on the data, of the net benefit. This approach permits a natural extension to several treatments, which enables us to make a statistical comparison. Illustrations with treatment comparisons for real and simulated data are given.     

我国农产品市场价格变动背后的生产成本效应--以粮食为例

以粮食为主要研究对象,探讨我国农产品市场价格变化过程中存在的生产成本效应。在具体方法上,将成本因素划分为生产成本、供应成本和机会成本三类,选取有关变量指标,并选择小麦、稻谷和玉米三类代表性的粮食,以1988年~2017年全国数据为样本进行实证检验。结果发现:我国粮食价格上涨背后的成本效应非常显著,农业生产资料价格、劳动力成本、农产品物流成本、劳动力机会成本等是引起我国粮食价格上涨的重要成本因素;此外,粮食区域供应成本是小麦和玉米价格上涨的一个推手,但是对稻谷价格的推动作用却不显著。     

Optimal pricing, production rate, and quality under learning effects

This study investigates the marketing and production problem for a monopolist firm where price, quality and production rate are simultaneous dynamic decision variables under the condition of a dynamic demand that depends on price, quality and cumulative sales. The formulated continuous profit maximization model follows the steps for dynamic optimization to derive optimal price, quality and production policies, wherein a unit production cost that decreases with cumulative production reflects the cost learning effect. Through the differentiable multiplicatively separable demand function, this study analyzes optimal trajectories for determining price, quality, and production rate. The results specify several optimal policies and policy makers would gain insight into the consequence of their decisions that otherwise might have been obscured by sub-optimal analysis.     

The Production Responses of the Competitive Firm to Three Conventional Distributional Shifts: a Unified Perspective

This paper presents a unified perspective on the production responses of the competitive firm to three conventional distributional shifts: (i) a rightward shift of the distribution, (ii) a Rothschild–Stiglitz increase in risk, and (iii) a Menezes et al. increase in downside risk. In particular, assuming that the von Neumann–Morgenstern utility is increasing and concave, and assuming its higher‐order derivatives are uniformly signed, we demonstrate that the production responses are unambiguous in the case of price less than or equal to marginal cost. In the alternative case of price greater than marginal cost, we then demonstrate that the production responses can be signed unambiguously by reference to sufficient conditions motivated by absolute risk aversion and by absolute prudence.     

物流成本层次性分析与优化途径探析

本文认为,企业的物流成本可以划分为物流战略成本、物流经营成本和物流作业成本三个层次。物流战略成本发生在战略资源层次,是物流成本的起源;物流经营成本是在物流经营层面上发生的成本,它根据物流战略成本的目标和规划制定出具体的执行方案,并控制着物流作业成本的形成过程;物流作业成本是物流作业实际发生过程中的成本,是物流成本的最终凝结和转化。文章提出,物流成本的控制应该以战略成本为导向,以经营成本为核心,以作业成本为重点,通过不同层次的物流成本—价值分析,建立基于外部扩展供应链、贯穿于企业生产制造过程或顾客价值提供全过程的横向物流成本控制系统以及贯穿于物流战略资源层次、物流经营管理层次和物流作业层次的一体化通贯式的纵向成本控制体系。     

论企业成本管理方法的完善

现代企业生产经营是以提高经济效益为目标的,要提高经济效益必须加强企业的成本管理,因此,在建立现代企业制度中强调成本管理十分重要。目前,我国企业成本管理中存在一些问题,企业的成本管理方法需要完善,包括明确战略定位、根据市场需求设计产品及加强与产品相关各环节的成本控制等。只要企业存在,对企业成本管理方法的探求就不会停止,企业应根据自身情况选择适合自己的成本管理方法并不断地加以改进和创新。     

Venture planning and analysis: An integrated approach to investment evaluation and product pricing

The venture planning and analysis (VPA) system is a quantitative analysis useful for developing pricing policy, projecting financial results, and comparing various investment opportunities. It is an integrated approach to product (investment) evaluation utilizing both marketing and cost information to determine an optimum pricing strategy.A venture plan is developed which covers several years of the anticipated life of the product (venture). The pricing strategy is determined by identifying the relationship between price, volume, and variable cost which yields the greatest positive cash flow. Revenue, variable expense, fixed expense, and engineering expense are input by fiscal year.The VPA system computes interest expense/income and cash flows. Ratios of the venture's quality-marginal investment quality factor and investment quality factor-are displayed, as are matrices which indicate the sensitivity of the venture to changes in the input data. Computer generated plots also help illustrate the cash flow and optimum level of production for each fiscal year of the analysis.     

A simple generalization of the singular rent model

Salvadori discovered a new variety of rent, called singular rent, when requirements are functions of income distribution. This note makes a simple generalization of the singular rent model by introducing many agricultural processes. Hence the problem of choice of technique arises. With respect to singular rent alone, it is shown that there may exist more than one cost‐minimizing technique even though joint production is set aside, and there may be no cost‐minimizing technique even though all techniques are feasible. However, in the latter case, at least one system determining intensive rent is feasible and cost‐minimizing.     

Joint Production with ‘Restricted Free Disposal’

A single production system with constant returns can produce any level and composition of demand by appropriate intensities of the cost‐minimizing processes. Hence, in the long run, products can never be in excess supply and there exists a system of prices of production which is semipositive and independent of demand. These (and other) properties do not, in general, carry over to joint production systems where one or several processes produce two or more different products. The proportions in which products emerge will generally be different from those in which they are required for use. The usual approach to that problem is to apply the rule of ‘free goods’. This assumption may be applied to goods which, if they are left where they are and as they are, cause neither costs nor benefits. But it cannot be applied to outworn machines, scrap, wastes or pollutants and is therefore not generally applicable. The present paper aims at finding conditions for the existence of cost‐minimizing systems for cases where this crucial assumption either is completely absent or is substituted by the assumption of ‘restricted free disposal’, i.e. by the assumption that excess production is permitted up to a certain tolerated limit. It will be proved that the conditions for the existence of cost‐minimizing systems with free disposal carry over to systems with restricted free disposal.     

Appliance service and repair

The appliance industry trade journal Appliance reported that during 1989 manufacturers shipped over 55 million major household appliances. Previous studies have explored length of appliance service life for a given household and the economic cost of energy consumption for major appliances. However, limited information is available on availability and cost of maintenance and repairs which affect the total useful life of equipment. Survey results from a study of Nebraska appliance service and repair firms are presented here. This research provides information regarding the distribution and cost of appliance service and repair. The findings serve as current estimates of service and repair information for consumers as well as manufacturers.     

无烟粉煤生产合成氨造气用型煤的技术经济分析

介绍了利用无烟粉煤生产合成氨造气用型煤的工艺路线、设备配置和产品性能，并进行生产成本及经济效益分析以证明其可行性。     

三甲苯生产装置的技术经济分析

介绍了三甲苯的生产工艺及产品技术指标，对三甲苯生产装置的产品成本进行了测算，并对其盈亏平衡及敏感性进行了分析，进而确定了主要经济指标。     

企业成本管理方法研究综述

传统的成本管理方法和几种系统型成本管理方法虽有其各自的特点,又有其缺点和不足,没能同时从整体和局部全方位地去考察成本控制问题。为此建立一种在表皮成本、内皮成本和葱心成本基础上的新的成本管理方法——洋葱成本方法,从而可实现整个生产流程的成本节约,为强化成本控制提供了有效的途径。     

Asymmetric Price Adjustment in the US Gasoline Industry: Evidence from Bayesian Threshold Dynamic Panel Data Models

This paper investigates the gasoline price adjustment to changes in the input cost price for a panel of 48 US states using a monthly data set covering the period 1994–2011. We build, for the first time, a non-linear threshold panel vector-error-correction model (PVECM) and propose efficient Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) Bayesian techniques. Our findings indicate that states with high margin experience a slower adjustment and a more asymmetric response to input price cost shocks. Our results are robust to potential structural breaks in the threshold parameter, which is important as market conditions change over time and are very sensitive to production/consumption constraints. Lastly, we attribute fluctuations in the gasoline prices to input cost shocks, arguing that the peak responses occurring one month after the shock are short-lived.