Remembering Mancur Olson

Mancur Olson, professor of Economics at the University of Maryland-College Park, died February 19, 1998. He served the Southern Economic Association as a member of the Executive Committee in 1978-80, as President-Elect in 1980-81, and as President in 1981-82. Three of his colleagues, Wallace Oates, Joe Oppenheimer, and Thomas Schelling, contributed personal essays to a memorial symposium in Public Choice Studies (No. 31, 1998), a journal published in Japanese. The Editor thanks the Japan Public Choice Society for permission to publish these contributions in English for the benefit of our readers.     

Corporate Environmental Responsibility

This paper offers directions for the continuing dialogue between business ethicists and environmental philosophers. I argue that a theory of corporate social responsibility must be consistent with, if not derived from, a model of sustainable economics rather than the prevailing neoclassical model of market economics. I use environmental examples to critique both classical and neoclassical models of corporate social responsibility and sketch the alternative model of sustainable development. After describing some implications of this model at the level of individual firms and industries, I offer an ethical justification of the sustainability alternative that is derived from the same values that underlie traditional market economics.     

Efficiency and Technological Change in the U.S. Brewing Industry

This study demonstrates that the measurement of technological change and economic efficiency are tightly linked. Efficiency measures may depend on carefully controlling for technological change, while tests of technological change may be sensitive to empirical model specifications. Moreover, the study underlines Solow's (1994) and Romer's (1994) admonition that econometricians should pay attention to industry and institutional evidence in building models of technological change. The empirical results presented here suggest that there has been substantial technological change in the U.S. brewing industry from 1950 to 1992. This occurred in the form of a dramatic shift in technology beginning with the introduction of super breweries in about 1972. There has also been a substantial increase in scale economies, which undoubtedly caused many inefficiently small firms to exit the industry during the 1960s and 1970s. Further results suggest that a more complete specification of technological change and the stochastic nature of the frontier production function leads to higher and more tenable estimates of efficiency.     

PRIMARY VERSUS SECONDARY PRODUCTION TECHNIQUES IN U.S. MANUFACTURING

In this paper we analyze the determinants of material inputs into individual production activities as a function of their outputs. We use observations on a large cross-section of U.S. manufacturing plants from the Census of Manufactures, including those that make goods primary to other industries, to study differences in production techniques. We find that in most cases material requirements do not depend on whether goods are made as primary products or as secondary products. We thus elucidate support for the commodity technology model as a useful working hypothesis.     

Managing service innovation: the need for selectivity rather than 'best practice'

In this paper we contrast the notions of best practice and configurations contingent on environmental conditions. The analysis draws upon our study of 38 UK and 70 US service firms. Four system configurations are identified, and the results provide an opportunity for updating the typologies of services, and suggest that practices and performance are multi-dimensional.     

EVIDENCE ON ADJUSTMENTS IN MAJOR NATIONAL STOCK MARKET LINKAGES OVER THE 1980S

This paper measures the alterations that have occurred in equity market correlations for six major internationally active stock exchanges between 1980 and 1987. The markets are chosen so as to allow for geographical diversity while still accounting for almost ninety percent of total worldwide equity market capitalization. The VAR variance decomposition technique is used to measure intermarket linkage patterns. We find substantial alterations in intermarket linkage patterns occurring over the 1980s. While the US market (the New York Stock Exchange) is still the dominant financial force in world equities trading, other markets (particularly those in the Pacific Basin region) now account for an increasing impact on observed index correlations in the system. This paper suggests that world financial integration is, in part, responsible for the altered linkage patterns observed over the 1980s.