East Asian Scholarly Research: A View from the 94th Floor

This article examines both applied and academic research relating to East Asia published during 1994 in terms of its applied relevance and its contributions to existing theory. In recent years the volume of research related to East Asia has expanded rapidly, and this review looks at the hightlights of that literature. Research from each of the functional business areas is examined, both in terms of its current and future contributions. In addition, special attention is paid to the areas of strategic management and entrepreneurship, which had a large amount of important research published during this period. Finally, there is an overall assessment of the impact of this research.     

Local Government Modernization: UK and Comparative Analysis from an Organizational Perspective

This article analyses three strands of local government modernization. The first takes an overview of the development of 'modernization' and 'improvement' of local government in the UK under the Labour government since 1997 and the overall programme of reform. We discuss both the shifts and the continuities with the previous decade and a half of the 'new public management' of Conservative administrations. We examine the implicit assumptions about how to achieve organizational and cultural change, arguing that much modernization is premised on a mechanistic metaphor of organizational change. The second section of the article examines other metaphors and theories of organizational change, arguing for the need to consider institutional and organizational perspectives in analysing local government modernization. The third section of the article then applies some organizational concepts to the comparative analysis of local government modernization.     

How sensitive are bargaining outcomes to changes in disagreement payoffs?

We use a human-subjects experiment to investigate how bargaining outcomes are affected by changes in bargainers’ disagreement payoffs. Subjects bargain against changing opponents, with randomly drawn asymmetric disagreement outcomes that vary over plays of the game, and with complete information about disagreement payoffs and the cake size. We find that subjects only respond about half as much as theoretically predicted to changes in their own disagreement payoff and to changes in their opponent’s disagreement payoff. This effect is observed in a standard Nash demand game and a related unstructured bargaining game, in both early and late rounds, and is robust to moderate changes in stake sizes. We show theoretically that standard models of expected utility maximisation are unable to account for this under-responsiveness, even when generalised to allow for risk aversion. We also show that quantal-response equilibrium has, at best, mixed success in characterising our results. However, a simple model of other-regarding preferences can explain our main results.     

The diary of a charity donor: an exploration of research information from the Royal Mail Consumer Panel and Mail Characteristics Survey

This paper looks at direct mail in the United Kingdom across all market sectors and in detail at the charity sector. It uses the research information that Royal Mail has been collecting foroveradecadetoshowthegrowthofthe medium. The diary system used by the Consumer Panel gives an insight into the typical donor and their relationship with charities. This paper looks only at direct mail: ‘personally addressed advertising material that is delivered through the post’. This definition means that leaflets put through the letterbox are excluded. Copyright © 1999 Henry Stewart Publications     

A Nonlinear Model of the Term Structure of Interest Rates

We present an economically motivated two–factor term structure model that generalizes existing stochastic mean term structure models. By allowing a certain parameter to acquire dynamical behavior we extend the two–factor model to obtain a nonlinear three–factor model that is shown, in a deterministic version, to be equivalent to the Lorenz system of differential equations. With reasonable parameter values the model exhibits chaotic behavior. It successfully emulates certain properties of interest rates including cyclical behavior on a business cycle time scale. Estimation and pricing issues are discussed. Standard PCA techniques used to estimate HJM type models are observed to be equivalent to dimensional estimates commonly applied to 'spatial data' in nonlinear systems analysis.
It is concluded that techniques commonly used in the analysis of nonlinear systems may be directly applicable to interest rate models, offering new insights in the development of these models. Tests of nonlinearity in interest rate behavior may need to focus on long cycle times.     

Mapping and analysing virtual outcrops

Laser scanning is a very efficient way to generate realistic, high-resolution digital models of 3-D geological outcrops. This paper discusses the methodologies involved in the creation and analysis of virtual outcrops, based on laser scanner data. The visualisation of the laser scanner data as a photorealistic 3-D object is described. Geological features picked out on the virtual outcrop (e.g. fractures, faults or bedding planes) can be extrapolated outward, into space, and inward, into the subsurface, using tension surfaces.