Effects of scale economies and production seasonality on optimal hub locations: the case of regional fresh produce aggregation

Interest in supporting local and regional food systems is rising and food hubs have attracted considerable attention among Federal, State, and local policymakers. This study explores the problem of endogenous hub location in fresh produce value chains in the Northeastern United States. To overcome limitations in the literature, we incorporate the effects of economies of scale and production seasonality into our models. Three experimental models are designed to examine the effects of alternatively applying yearly, quarterly, and monthly data on model solutions. We explicitly assess how interactions of scale economies and seasonality influence the structure and spatial attributes of an optimal regional produce aggregation hub system. The three models generate marketed different solutions and in many respects they lead to different conclusions about developing local/regional supply chains. The monthly model allows for production seasonality and actual hub operation cycle frequency and thus leads to more efficient hub solution with rich policy implications.     

Exploring the male Chinese tourists’ motivation for commercial sex when travelling overseas: Scale construction and validation

Sex and tourism has long been understudied. Little is known about tourists' motivations for consuming commercial sex while travelling, and even less, if indeed anything, is known about that of Chinese outbound tourists in particular. Based on twenty interviews and two surveys with a sample of 534 male Chinese tourists who had engaged in commercial sex when travelling overseas in the previous 12 months, this study aimed first to explore why male Chinese tourists travelled overseas and purchased commercial sex, and second to construct a comprehensive scale for measuring male tourists’ motivations for overseas commercial sex. With acceptable reliability and validity, the measurement scale yielded in this study consisted of eight motivation dimensions labelled as socialisation, relaxation and escape, travel-related novelty, sexual desire fulfillment/excitement seeking, sex-related learning, sexual mastery, social prestige, and business/pragmatic purpose. Both the theoretical and methodological implications related to the developed scale are also discussed.     

Cross‐Functional Integration: Concept Clarification and Scale Development

The centrality of cross‐functional integration (CFI) to supply chain theory and practice has long been recognized. Yet researchers continue to struggle with consistently defining or measuring the CFI construct, thus limiting the utility of CFI research. This research develops (1) a comprehensive definition of CFI that synthesizes previous supply chain research and (2) a valid set of scale items that measure the conceptual domain outlined by this definition. The goal is to build a common foundation for extending knowledge on CFI's antecedents and consequences, and ultimately to improve scholars’ ability to guide a broader practitioner community still struggling to achieve integration in their organizations.     

What Determines Real Exchange Rates? The Nordic Countries

The model derived in this paper yields testable implications concerning the long‐run co‐movements of real exchange rates, relative labor productivity, the trade balance and terms of trade. Countries with relatively higher output growth, trade deficits or improved terms of trade are found to have more appreciated real exchange rates, with the main channel of transmission working through the relative price of nontraded goods. Exogenous terms‐of‐trade shocks are found to be the most important determinant of long‐run movements in the real exchange rate for Denmark and Norway, while demand shocks account for most of the long‐run variance in the real exchange rate for Finland and Sweden.     

服务业集聚与产业结构优化关系探究

随着全球化进程的不断加快，服务业集聚已经成为人们普遍关注的话题。产业集聚在获得规模效应的同时避免了垄断现象的产生，服务业集聚不但拥有这样的优势，而且还有自己独特的形成和发展特点。从产业结构的优化角度切入，借助区位商和专门化率等分析指标，以江苏省和上海市为例，对服务业集聚的形成进行理论和实证分析，提出产业结构的优化对于服务业集聚的形成和发展有着积极的作用。合理的产业结构能够为服务业集聚提供坚实的基础，各地区应该根据各自的产业特点积极的进行优化，催生服务业集聚，加快本地区经济的进一步发展。     

Labour use efficiency in the Indian and Pakistani commercial banks

The Indian and Pakistani banking industry is said to have an excessive use of labour due to the significant market share of government owned banks. Both countries have undertaken a process of regulatory reform to bring about market discipline in the usage of inputs and to increase the labour use efficiency and productivity. The focus of this paper is the estimation of productivity and efficiency of labour use in the banking sectors of the Indian sub-continent. The results show that the efficiency of labour use across the Indian sub-continent is improving over time and that foreign banks are more efficient compared to domestically owned banks in their usage of labour.     

Measuring the Impact of Regulation: A Study of Canadian Basic Cable Television

We evaluate the appropriateness of regulation within the Canadian cable television industry by applying both parametric and non-parametric approachesto measure scale efficiency. Although we begin with a sample offering adequatedegrees of freedom for parametric estimation, important policy issues lead us toconsider further estimation over sub-samples. Since some of these sub-samplesare small enough that parametric models cannot guarantee reliable estimates, weobtain production characteristics non-parametrically through data envelopmentanalysis. The nonparametric results for scale efficiency support the parametricresults. We find evidence against a natural monopoly argument that might havejustified continuation of the mandated monopolization of Canadian cable televisionservice. By the end of the sample period, there were no longer substantial economiesof scale in most relevant markets.     

How Issue Size, Risk, and Complexity are Influencing External Financing Costs: German IPOs Analyzed from an Economies of Scale Perspective

This paper is focused on the cost of raising capital in Germany. A cross-sectional analysis of flotation cost data for 117 IPOs over the years 1993–1998 is presented. We find average flotation costs to be 7.77 percent of gross proceeds, while underwriting fees average 5.01 percent. Our results extend the literature in two important directions. First, contrary to the conventional economies of scale view we find marginal spreads to be rather constant in gross proceeds and to be higher for more risky and more complex offerings. Fixed costs amount to 5 to 9 percent of underwriting fees. Second, by applying a principal component analysis we find issue size, an issuer risk factor, and an offering method complexity factor to have an economicaly meaningful impact on underwriting fees.     

International Economies of Scale and the Gains from Trade

In this paper, we present a two-country trade model with external economies of scale that emerge on an international level but are partially localized in each country. First, we show that the larger country exports the good produced in an industry with external economies of scale in the trading equilibrium. Second, we investigate the welfare effects of trade for the following two cases: (I) the case where external economies are completely localized in autarky; (II) the case where external economies are internationally effective in autarky. In case (II), it is shown that trade can be welfare-decreasing for both countries.