On the shape of the single-country and world commodity-substitution and factor-substitution surfaces under conditions of joint production

In recent years trade theorists have completed the task of specifying necessary and sufficient conditions for the single-country and world transformation surfaces to be locally of any assigned degree of flatness. However those conditions are relevant only if the technology is of the no-joint-products type. In the present note we derive necessary and sufficient conditions for the single-country and world transformation surfaces to be of any assigned degree of flatness under conditions of joint production; and we also obtain, as a by-product, necessary and sufficient conditions for the single-country and world equal-product surfaces to be of any assigned degree of flatness.     

An Hedonic Analysis of the Rental Office Market in the Tokyo Central Business District: 1985–1994 Fiscal Years

We study the rental office market in the Tokyo central business district by estimating hedonic equations for the office rent for 1985–94 fiscal years. This period includes the "Bubble" of asset prices, followed by its deflation. We find that the characteristics related to transportational conveniences are less effective in explaining office rents than the characteristics related to the agglomeration of offices and the amenity characteristics of the office buildings themselves. Using a skewed error-term specification, we show that the discount in rental transactions is not irrelevant. The hedonic office rent indices and possible policy implications are also presented.
JEL Classification Numbers: L85, R32.     

Revealed Specialization: Evidence on U.S. International Services

This article is an investigation of the comparative advantage structure of United States international trade in services. It appears that the United States has a strong comparative advantage in knowledge-based services. For this study, the author adopts the Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) index to analyze the comparative advantage structure, and demonstrates that variance in the RCA deviations indicates a similarity in the export structure between the United States and the world. This study also focuses on the role of multinational companies, linking microeconomic entities and the macroeconomic surroundings.     

Market Size and Firm Location in a Service Industry

This paper investigates the welfare effects of firm location in a service industry. We consider the situation where firms determine their locations in either of two regions with a difference in market size. From the viewpoint of the consumers' welfare, there are too few firms in the large market and too many in the small market. However, from the viewpoint of the producers' and social welfare, the opposite is true. Further, an increase in the difference in market size is unambiguously unfavorable for the producers. On the other hand, such an increase is favorable for the consumers and the economy as a whole.     

Rates and Biases of Technical Progress and Returns to Scale in the Multi-output, Multi-input Production: Primal Versus Dual, Output-augmenting Versus Input-saving and Long-run Versus Short-Run

I examine the relationships among various dual concepts of output-augmenting and input-saving rates of technical progress as well as various dual concepts of returns-to-scale measures in the long run and short run. Output-augmenting rates of technical progress are all equal, and so are input-saving ones. Returns to scale plays an important role in the relationship between output-augmenting and input-saving rates of technical progress. Capacity utilization plays an important role in the relationship between the long run and short run. The bias of technical progress is also briefly referred to.
L Classification Numbers: D24, O030, O047.     

Multiplant MRP

Many manufacturing firms have multiple manufacturing plants, located in geographically diverse parts of the world. This situation is becoming more common, as firms establish new plants in foreign countries to take advantage of low labor cost. In such cases, it is not unusual for the firm to retain production capability of certain key parts in a backup plant, with the necessary equipment and trained workforce in place. High volume production could be obtained relatively quickly from the backup plant in case of an emergency at the main supplying plant. In such multiplant settings, the transportation costs are significant. Throughout this paper, we use the term “multisourced parts” to describe parts produced in more than one location.Material Requirements Planning (MRP) is the component of a total manufacturing control system that is designed to manage inventory and plan orders for parts and material with dependent demand (demand derived from the demand of other items). Most of the literature on MRP systems discusses MRP methodology in a single-plant environment. Most MRP software systems in use today are single-plant systems.Currently, it is common for firms with multiple plants treated as cost centers to use an independent single-plant MRP system for each and handle the transshipment problems manually. Because of lack of coordination of production schedules between supplying and demanding plants, those firms hold more inventory and experience longer lead times than necessary to compensate for uncertainties in schedules and supply policies.The purpose of this article is to enhance single-plant MRP systems for coping with multiplant situations in which: the plants are regarded as cost centers, there exist multisourced parts, and the transportation costs are significant. The multiplant MRP system should recognize that parts are produced in different plants, make offset calculations for in-transit lead times, and consider transportation costs when establishing production requirements and shipping routes for multisourced parts. The objective is, beginning with the corporate-determined master schedule for finished products, to communicate in one planning cycle time-phased planned order release schedules and shipping/delivery schedules to each manufacturing plant producing components for the finished products.We first present a simplified framework for the multiplant MRP system, where a transportation algorithm is incorporated into the MRP logic. Then we refine this simplified framework to handle more complex aspects of a multiplant network. These complexities include the treatment of requirements that are not shipped on time and the regeneration of new MRP schedules. We also observe that the solution to the transportation problem described above is affected by the lot-sizing rules employed. In addition, we discuss several important issues and decisions that confront a firm when implementing a multiplant MRP system.     

Endogenous Timing in a Strategic Trade Policy Game: A Two-Country Oligopoly Model with Multiple Firms

This paper examines strategic trade policy games where the number of firms in the importing and exporting countries differs and all firms play as Cournot oligopolies. Under the assumption of linear demand and constant marginal cost, we show that, if the number of firms in the exporting country exceeds that in the importing country by more than three, the government of the exporting country chooses to move as a leader, imposing an export tax on firms. The government of the importing country then becomes a follower and imposes an import tariff. This lies contrary to the previous study, which assumed that there is only one firm in each country.     

Modeling Methods for Discrete Choice Analysis

This paper introduces new forms, sampling and estimation approaches fordiscrete choice models. The new models include behavioral specifications oflatent class choice models, multinomial probit, hybrid logit, andnon-parametric methods. Recent contributions also include new specializedchoice based sample designs that permit greater efficiency in datacollection. Finally, the paper describes recent developments in the use ofsimulation methods for model estimation. These developments are designed toallow the applications of discrete choice models to a wider variety ofdiscrete choice problems.