The Investment Behaviour of Firms in an Oligopolistic Setting

Industrial organization theory has identified strategic investment in capacity as an important element in competition in oligopolistic markets. In the paper we specify a model of oligopolistic investment behaviour, and test it with panel data for 114 firms in 15 narrowly defined UK manufacturing industries in the 1970s and 1980s. The industries are distinguished according to their market characteristics as fragmented, dominant firm and dominant group sectors. The results indicate behaviour which is noncooperative in fragmented sectors, cooperative in dominant group sectors and competitive in dominant firm sectors.     

Separability and public finance

In a second best environment, the optimal policy choice sometimes follows first best rules. This paper presents a formal general argument which allows to unify much of the literature. It lays down the information structure and separability assumptions under which the results hold in a variety of setups, with extensions to preference heterogeneity and individual production sets.     

Productivity Growth,Technical Progress and Efficiency Change in African Agriculture

Abstract: The paper examines the economic performance of a large number of African countries using an international comparable data set and the latest technique for analysis. The paper focuses on growth in total factor productivity and its decomposition into technical change and efficiency change components. The analysis is undertaken using the data envelopment analysis (DEA). The present study uses data of 16 countries over the period 1970–2001. It was found that, globally, during that period, total factor productivity has experienced a positive evolution in sampled countries. This good performance of the agricultural sector was due to good progress in technical efficiency rather than technical progress. The region suffered a regression in productivity in the 1970s, and made some progress during the 1980s and 1990s. The study also highlights the fact that technical change has been the main constraint of achievement of high levels of total factor productivity during the reference period in sub‐Saharan Africa. Contrariwise, in Maghreb countries, technological change has been the main driving force of productivity growth. Finally, the results indicate that institutional factors as well as agro‐ecological factors are important determinants of agricultural productivity growth.     

Emission Permit Trading Between Imperfectly Competitive Product Markets

The present paper analyzes the efficiency of emission permit trading between two imperfectly competitive product markets. Even if firms are price takers in permit markets, the integration of permit markets can decrease welfare because of imperfect competition in product markets. If there is asymmetric information between the regulator and firms, the integration of the permit markets could have a positive effect related to the flexibility of an integrated market; this flexibility can justify integrating the permit markets.     

Empirical evidence on the use, size and cost of executive options schemes in Australia

In this paper we provide an overview of empirical data relating to the use, scale and cost of executive options schemes in Australia. Our data is based on a sample of 100 large listed Australian corporations. Our data suggests that approximately 80% of large listed corporations in Australia presently employ executive options schemes, but that the size and cost of these schemes reduced significantly after 2000. We argue that this reflects the impact of increased public scrutiny over options schemes and the impending move in Australia towards a financial reporting regime in which treating the cost of options as an expense for the purposes of calculating annual profit and loss is mandatory.     

Measuring physical access to ‘healthy foods’ in areas of social deprivation: a case study in Cardiff

This paper examines some characteristics of ‘food deserts’– areas of social deprivation which have poor physical access to food shopping – in a large British city, Cardiff. The stereotype of the ‘food desert’ is critically examined, emphasizing the importance attached by residents of such areas to easy access to food shopping, especially in multiple supermarkets. The case study of Cardiff briefly discusses the identification of potential ‘food deserts’, and then examines the structures of ‘healthy food’ availability and prices in four areas of the city (two in the inner city, two in the outer city) where physical access to large multiple supermarkets is poor. The analysis shows that the local shops in these areas cannot compete generally with large supermarkets on either availability of items or their prices, but that the local shops in the inner city areas are rather more competitive than those in the outer areas. Implications for research and policy formulation are finally discussed.     

Systems approaches to economic development for indigenous people: a case study of the Noongar Aboriginals of Australia

This paper illustrates a case study in the application of systems approaches to securing economic development for a specific group of indigenous people in Australia. The case study combines Field Anomaly Relaxation (FAR) with Effects-Based Operations (EBO) planning to realise more purposeful actions and endeavours in pursuit of economic development. The approach is a hybrid of Checkland’s Soft Systems Methodology (SSM), Rhyne’s FAR and an advancement of the EBO process emerging from within national security domains. The paper focuses primarily on the use of FAR as a means of understanding an economic development problem space within a present and future orientation, with minor reference to EBO planning as a method of bringing about purposeful change within a combined solution and design space. The paper seeks to demonstrate the utility of ‘soft’ approaches, such as FAR, in the exploration of economic undevelopment and how more purposeful corrective actions can result if they are harnessed to a deepened understanding of the problem space.