A Long Run House Price Index: The Herengracht Index, 1628–1973

This article introduces a biennial historic index of real estate values for the period 1628 through 1973. This index is based on the transactions of the buildings on the Herengracht, one of the canals in Amsterdam. Since its development, the quality of the buildings on this canal has been on a constant, high level, which makes the Herengracht a unique sample to base a long run house price index upon. The index is a hedonic repeated-measures index and is estimated in real terms. An index is also constructed in nominal terms. The average real price increase after World War II is about 3.2% per annum. Nevertheless, the real value of the index in 1973 is only twice as high as it was in 1628.     

Office Building Investment and the Macroeconomy: Empirical Evidence, 1973–1985

Given the recent concern about overbuilding in the office sector, this paper considers the influence that macroeconomic factors have upon office construction. Because office construction is volatile and because the "time to build" problem requires construction to change with a lag, the paper employs a different methodology, vector autoregressions, to model the office building sector. The findings indicate that anticipated output has a large and direct effect. This effect depends on the predictive content of nominal interest rates, suggesting that the declines in nominal rates over the past five years explains the recent overbuilding.     

Police Pay and Bargaining in the UK, 1978–2000

Police pay and conditions in the UK are governed by a unique mechanism, the Police Negotiating Board. This paper reviews the circumstances in which it was set up and examines the outcomes, relative to other public service workers, over the first twenty years of its operation. Recent developments highlight the role of ministerial intervention and raise questions about the relationship between the PNB negotiating system and working practice at police force level.     

The Accuracy of Owner-Provided House Values: The 1978–1991 American Housing Survey

The American Housing Survey (AHS) includes the owner's valuation of the house as a measure of the house's value. If owner-stated values are accurate, the AHS (as well as other survey instruments) can be used by researchers studying a variety of topics. In this study we use the metropolitan version of the AHS for three cities over fourteen years to compare owners' valuations with sales prices of houses that sold in the twelve months prior to an interview. We find that, on average, recent buyers report house values that are 8.4% higher than the stated sales prices. Further analysis indicates that these recent buyers, when compared with owners with longer tenure, overvalue their houses by 3.3%, on average. Thus, we find that the average owner overvalues his house by 5.1%. Also, differences between sales prices and owners' valuations are not related to particular characteristics of the house, occupants (other than length of tenure), or neighborhood. Thus, the use of the owners' valuations will result in accurate estimates of house price indexes and will provide reliable estimates of the prices of house and neighborhood characteristics.     

Rankings of Contributing Authors to the AREUEA Journal by Doctoral Origin and Employer: 1973–1987

This paper reports on the rankings of the contributing authors to the AREUEA Journal, the origins of their doctoral degrees, and their employers from 1973–1987. Articles in the Journal were identified as being either finance, investment, valuation, housing, and urban and regional. The rankings suggest that approximately 28% of the contributing authors have managed repeat appearances. The rankings also indicate that over 74 different institutions have awarded doctoral degrees to AREUEA Journal contributors and more than 180 different institutions have employed them.     

管道指数安全评价法敏感性分析

采用多因素敏感性分析法,对W．Kent．Muhlbauer指数评价法模型本身的影响因素进行敏感性分析．确定各影响因素对管道评价指数影响的大小。通过分析,发现各因素评价分值权重与敏感性并不完全匹配,由此对模型分值权重提出了新的思考：分值权重多少不仅仅需要考虑因素本身的重要性大小,还需要结合实际工程情况,考虑影响因素的不确定变化特性或敏感性大小,以使整个评价模型和过程更具有实用性。     

中国区域建筑产业竞争力ANP评价模型指标选择与实证研究

将指标综合选择方法引入建筑产业评价领域,利用聚类分析、主成分分析、相关性分析等分析方法,定量化地选定了12个观测指标,从资源要素、产业外部环境、产业内生能力3个方面提出区域建筑产业竞争力评价指标体系.针对该评价指标体系本身非递阶层次结构特点,利用网络分析法(ANP)建立了中国区域建筑产业竞争力评价模型,对全国31个省、市、自治区建筑产业竞争力进行了具体测定与排序.计算结果表明:建筑产业竞争力存在着明显的地域差异,东部和沿海地区表现明显优于西部和中部地区.     

Internationalization and the Dynamics of Product Adaptation—An Empirical Investigation

Firms competing in foreign markets can choose to make no changes to the physical product and packaging, called a product standardization policy, which keeps costs low. The main drawback of such a policy is that the product might not satisfy customers. Conversely, firms may choose to modify, or to adapt, the physical characteristics or attributes of a product and its packaging to fit the needs and desires of consumers in different countries better, but this increases development, manufacturing, marketing, packaging, and distribution costs. Though product adaptation is a core aspect of customizing an export market offering, little research has investigated modifying the physical product and packaging. To be successful, an adapted product must add sufficient incremental revenue (through increased sales due to better satisfying customer needs and wants relative to competitive product offerings) such that the additional manufacturing and marketing costs that result from adapting the product are recovered. In this article, a model of the product adaptation process is developed. Using mail surveys, information is gathered from managers in 239 U.S. organizations and 302 South Korean organizations, all of which export products. The goal was to understand better the motivation of firms to adapt their products for export markets as well as the performance implications of adapting products. Furthermore, the model was tested in these two countries to determine if the model is robust and to uncover differences between the United States and South Korea. Using structural equation modeling to analyze the data, a positive association was found between the level of product adaptation and profitability at the project level. Second, U.S. firms appear to be more reactive when adapting products for export markets, doing so when laws and regulations in the export market mandate changes relative to the U.S. market. Conversely, South Korean firms appear to be more proactive and to adapt products even when not required by the governments of export markets. Third, greater international product adaptation is linked to a more responsive marketing organization with customer‐focused practices. Fourth, while a positive link was expected between business unit experience and the extent of international product adaptation, inconsistent results were found between the two country samples. For U.S. firms, it was found that greater experience in international business and product design capability is linked to a higher level of international product adaptation. For South Korean firms, however, a negative relationship was found. Greater international product adaptation occurred with less international business and product design experience. These findings are discussed, and areas for future research are noted.     

Impact of Vertical Mergers on Industry Profitability: An Empirical Evaluation

Vertical integration has become an important business strategy to respond to the needs of a consumer-driven marketing system. Although one of the perceived benefits of vertical ownership integration is improved profitability of the integrated firm, empirical literature mostly ignores this issue. Using a sample of U.S. food manufacturing industries, this study examines the impact of vertical mergers on profitability. Findings show that vertical mergers negatively impact profits. This may be due to the failure of vertical mergers to create differential advantages, such as cost savings, for the integrated firm.     

Purchase Intentions and the Dimensions of Innovation: An Exploratory Model

The ultimate success of new product R&D depends as much on customer acceptance as on technological breakthroughs. In this article, Susan Holak and Donald Lehmann focus on customer acceptance by exploring the manner in which the general attributes of Rogers (relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, divisibility and communicability) plus perceived risk combine to form the intention to buy an innovation. Results demonstrate a causal structure among these attributes and lead to various implications for R&D guidelines and product design.     

An Analysis of Home Equity Conversion in the RAM Program

Home equity conversion by elderly homeowners is described and analyzed. The transactions were completed under the California RAM Program. One hundred twenty-six of 345 applicants elected to enter into reverse mortgages or sale-leasebacks. Data from interviews conducted as part of the application/counseling process are analyzed to discern the most important variables in the equity conversion decision.     

The Process of Fixing the British National Minimum Wage, 1997–2007

The British National Minimum Wage was introduced in 1999 under the guidance of a Low Pay Commission constructed on a basis of 'social partnership'. The article analyses its conduct over its first 10 years from diary data. Key challenges were for it to be independent of government, to have its advice accepted by government and to maintain internal unanimity. The changing internal dynamics of the Commission, and its major negotiations over the level of the minimum wage, are described and analysed. Conclusions are drawn for the social partnership process.     

Housing Inventory Change and the Role of Existing Structures, 1961–1985

This paper makes two contributions. First, an internally consistent annual data set is constructed for the housing-units identity. For the 1961–85 period, data are computed for completions, mobile home placements, the change in households, the change in vacancies, and, residually, net other additions (non-new construction additions less losses). Our computed net other additions data for 1974 to 1980 are shown to be comparable to those implicit in the Annual Housing Survey data. Second, evidence is provided that net other additions play a major role in the short-run equilibration of the demand and supply for housing units. Our evidence suggests that, on average, a surge in household formations is half satisfied by reduced losses or non-new construction additions during the concurrent year.     

Teamwork for innovation – the 'troika' of promotors

The management of innovation requires 'champions' or 'promotors' who commit with enthusiasm to the new product or the new process idea. More complex innovations will require more than one promotor. Division of labour becomes an essential success factor. According to the promotor model, at least a dyad of a 'power promotor' and a 'technology promotor' is necessary to overcome the barriers of unwillingness and of ignorance. With growing complexity, additional problems of communication and process management will occur. This will demand a third team member, the 'process promotor', who is needed to overcome the barriers of non‐responsibility and non‐communication between the organisational units involved and to act as navigator of the process. In this article, we present an empirical investigation of 133 innovations in the German plant construction and engineering industry. The results strengthen the hypothesis that the level of success of an innovation depends on the existence of a 'troika' of promotors.