The Motor Tycoon of The world

NewDeparturesTosecureapositionamongthetopglobalcompetitors,acompanyneedstobeabletoadaptswiftlytochangingcondi-nons.Thereisnoalternative.Businesses,processandstructuresmustberegularlyscreenedtoensuretheircontinuingfitnesstomeetever-changingchallenges.TheDaimler-BenzGrouprecentlyconductedacomprehensivereviewofitsbusinessportfolio,whichresultedinthePrevious35businessesbeingreducedto23.FOllowingthisstrategicrepositioning,Daimler-Benzisnowactiveinthefol-lowingfields:Passengercars,commercialvehi…     

The Cost of Survival

Most corporations aren’t managed for change In the years of the late 1990s, no economic theorist looked better than Joseph Schumpeter, the Austrian champion of capitalism who died in 1950． His distinction﹖ A theory he called“creative destruction．” The idea was straightforward: in with the new, out with the old． Companies had life cycles, just as people do． They were born, they grew up． And when a better competitor came along, they died due to capital starvation． It was the way thi…     

The Analysis of Bases of Market Segmentation

This paper analyses the characters of different bases of market segmentation and classes the bases into four kinds： observable general bases, observable product-specific bases, unobservable general bases and unobservable product-specific bases. The result can be used in the future research of market segmentation.     

The Analysis of Merging Strategies

The paper first analyzes the achievement of BOE＇s merging case and substantiates its success, then focuses on the strategy analysis of merger of the BOE, including the guidelines, merging way, strategic overall arrangement, culture conformity, financial guarantee etc., in a bid to offer valuable experience and reference function for the Chinese enterprises.     

The circulation physiology of agroecosystems

This paper represents an effort to enlarge the understanding of the biophysical foundation of agroecosystemsby using an analogy with the circulation of the blood in the human body. The circulation function in the human body canbe represented as arterial pressure. The factors affecting arterial pressure in the human body have direct counterpartsin the cultivation-husbandry system. The relationship between circulation pressure and the factors affecting that pressurein the cultivation-husbandry system are similar to the relationship between the arterial pressure and factors affectingarterial pressure in the human body. Furthermore, circulation resistance in the cultivation-husbandry system can beshown to be analogous to the calculation of peripheral resistance in the human body by Poiseuille’s formula.     

The contribution of resources and capabilities to the competitiveness： The case of Port of Sines

The main objective of this paper is to analyse the competitiveness of the main maritime Port sited in Portugal - Port of Sines. This paper is developed under the resource-based view approach. A literature review about the resource-based view is presented with a special highlight on the contribution of organisation owns＇ resources to the competitiveness. With this study we intend to emphasize the applicability of a management theory to a different type of organisation which only recently starts to be preoccupied with its competitiveness. A case study methodology is used in order to collect all information needed about its main resources and capabilities of Port and also its competitiveness. The resources analysed in this paper are： The infrastructures, the accessibilities, the Port operations and also the information systems used on it. Also, a set of performance data is analysed as the main indicators of competitiveness. After that, a conceptual model is presented in order to systematise the main resources and capabilities under which the competitiveness of the Port of Sines is built on.     

The Motor Tycoon of the World

CommercialVehicleDivisionThewiderangeofcommercialvehiclesformsthesecondpillaroftheautomotivesector.Thetruckrangeextendsfromcompactvansuptoheavy-dutyarticulatedtrucksforlong-distancetransport.Thelargenumberofmodels,versionsandspecialbodiesallowsthebestpossiblemouldingofthevehiclestotheirghicularaPPlication.TheUnimogcatersforthediverserequirementsinmunicipalservice,theconstructionindustry,agricultureandforestly,whileabroadrangeofSetraandMeroedes-Benzbusesandcoachescaterfortheneedsofregularse…     

The tragedy of the commons?

Summary We provide a complete characterization of the set of Markov-Perfect Equilibria (MPE) of dynamic common-property resource games a la Levhari and Mirman (1980). We find that all MPE of such games exhibit remarkably regular dynamic behavior. Surprisingly, however, and despite their memoryless nature, MPE need not result in a tragedy of the commons, i.e., overexploitation of the resource relative to the first-best solutions. We show through an example that MPE could, in fact, lead to the reverse phenomenon of underexploitation of the resource. Nonetheless, we demonstrate that, in pay off space, MPE are always suboptimal.The first version of this paper was written when Sundaram was a graduate student at Cornell University; the current version was completed when he was visiting the California Institute of Technology. We are grateful to many people for their advice, and would like to thank, in particular, Mukul Majumdar, Andreu Mas-Colell, Tapan Mitra, Debraj Ray, Aldo Rustichini, and Karl Shell. We also benefitted from the comments of participants at presentations in Columbia University (Fall 1988) and Caltech (Spring 1990), and at various conferences. Partial support for this project was provided by the NSF under Grant 86-06944 (principal investigator: Karl Shell).     

The Analysis and Modification of Opportunity Cost of Investment

We think we should use basic return rate of industry to measure the opportunity cost of capital and use the rule of Maximum NPV （Net Present Value） to modify the wrong solution in the book.     

The Evolutionary Rules of Production System

The competition among modem enterprises has been converted from products to capability. As the basis of competition, production system can＇t win the market unless it takes advantage of its capability in competition. Here in this article, the evolutionary rules of production system contributing to the establishment, renovation, reform, invention and promotion of the production of modem enterprises are observed.     

The Study of Technical Dimension-Color-Phase Structure

In this paper, we firstly contrast Chinese mode of establishment and construction of technical dimension-color structure. achievements with those of foreign, and then study a phase structure from a complete new height of dimension-color structure.     

The simultaneity in human capital estimations： The case of China

Existing papers on human capital and growth in China has been using single equation estimations. This might cause a simultaneity bias if a two-way causality between the two variables exists. In this paper, the author performs vector autoregressive estimations using panel data on the number of graduates at each level of education as a proxy for human capital in China during 1991-2005. The results show that investment in human capital increases output per worker at all three levels of education. Regarding the effects of output per worker on the accumulation of human capital, the author finds mixed results with the primary-school graduates＇ benefits the most from increases in per capita output.     

Richard Kahn's fellowship dissertation: The fate of ‘The Economics of the Short Period’

Abstract

In 1930, Richard Kahn became a fellow of King's College, Cambridge, on the basis of his book-length dissertation ‘The Economics of the Short Period.’ It was finally published in the 1980s. Why did he not publish his thesis in the 1930s, when it would have made a substantial impact? We present two arguments. In 1932/33, Joan Robinson published many of Kahn's main ideas, rendering subsequent publication by him derivative. And by the mid-1930s, Kahn discovered that parts of his dissertation left untouched by Robinson were no longer new or distinctive because of rapid progress in research on imperfect and monopolistic competition.     

The ‘Value’ of Europe: The Political Economy of Culture in the European Community

During the 1970s and 1980s the “cultural sector” became one of the primary motors for wealth creation in the European Community. At the European and national scales, a group of actors helped transform Europe's vast array of practices and services (tourism, heritage, books, audio-visual products, etc.) into “cultural industries” and pushed the EC to develop a common cultural policy to support these industries. Documenting these changes at the European scale, I argue that the perceived impact of cultural policy for particular national economic competitiveness was also significant. Italian MEPs and members of Italy's national government were especially important, as they fought to protect the country's historical heritage and promote tourism. France pushed the strongest and I show how that country's efforts were primarily intended to protect its audio-visual and publishing industries from the EC internal market's liberalisation policies, which were vocally supported by Britain because they would have served that county's national economic interests.     

The World Production and Trade of Rare Earth Elements： The Position of the Pacific Area

In this paper we analyze the characteristics of the so-called rare earth elements （REEs） and its industrial applications. We present the policy, or lack thereof, in the countries in the Pacific Rim for its mining and commerce, and the current and future weight that rare earth minerals will have in international trade. The technological revolution experienced over the last 25 years, has brought the REEs to the public＇s attention for being instrumental in obtaining catalysts, lasers and optical fiber, luminescent substances and LEDs, superconductors, permanent magnets, batteries and ultra-capacitors. China＇s leading position as the supplier of these minerals worldwide, and its recent export restriction policy for domestic industrial activities have driven up international prices. Price increase for REEs is leading to the need for both recycling and its replacement. It has also led other countries in the Asia Pacific Rim to prospect new potential sites on their own territories, or even to restart operations in deposits that had been previously abandoned. Those strategies will likely gain greater importance as environmental pollution problems associated with the exploitation, processing, and recovery of REEs increase.