Malmquist indices of productivity growth for Islamic and conventional banks in Malaysia

This paper studies the total factor productivity （TFP） of banks in Malaysia with the emphasis on comparing the relative productivities of Islamic and Conventional banks. The Malmquist index approach is used to decompose productivity growth into technical efficiency and technological change. The productivity growth is measured and decomposed into technical change and efficiency change. The efficiency change is further decomposed into pure efficiency change and scale efficiency. It is found that Islamic banks＇ productivity growth is limited by its lack of technological change compared to its conventional counterparts. Nonetheless, both types of banks are operating at the correct level in terms of scale or size.     

基于信息通讯技术的开放远程教育——联合国教科文组织的视角

1.构建知识型社会的背景 1.1联合国教科文组织的工作 紧随信息社会世界首脑会议,联合国教科文组织通过了一个为期六年的中期战略计划,总体目标之一是构建具有包容性的知识社会。这一计划无疑是基于联合国教科文组织在信息社会世界首脑会上的倡导提出的。世界信息社会世界首脑会议分为两阶段,第一阶段于2003年在瑞士日内瓦召开,第二阶段于2005年在突尼斯召开。     

Semiotic knowledge toward heritage product in tourism industry： A case of Terengganu

In order to provide an appropriate context for the current state of the heritage product in tourism industry, semiotic knowledge become an important role to know deeply the identity, philosophy, and also the meaning of behind the actual product. Scott （2000） stresses the requirement of aesthetic and semiotic content in a creative product, instead of creativity. But, how many of retailers and salespersons in heritage product believe the semiotic as knowledge to present the product and opportunities in their selling？ According to Kotler （2000） a good personal selling will provide a detailed explanation or demonstration of the product. The message can be varied by the salesperson to fit the motivations and interests or each prospective customer. So, the purpose of this paper is to closely examine the level of awareness among retailers and salesperson toward the important of semiotic knowledge as part of strategic persuasion in a selling process. This survey study will develop a sample among retailers and salesperson in Kuala Terengganu as a respondent who give the feedback to fulfill the research questions.     

Growth limitation and political power : Bruno Fritsch,Ballinger Publishing Company,Cambridge, Mass.

Standardization in modeling is understood here as a strategic process to improve the transfer of models and modeling know-how, to diminish the gap between model builders and model users, and to make the art of modeling an honorable science on a consolidated basis. Within the wide spectrum of standardization efforts, this paper reflects on a general approach for an improvement of model transfer, based on technical concepts for the next generation of software tools. These tools will be developed for large-scale modeling activities. Three formal software concepts to meet these needs are discussed: modularization, software interfaces, and integrated modeling systems. Although modularization is understood here as a concept characterizing the transferable good (the models), the other two concepts refer to output (or input) characteristics of the modeling tools and to their performance requirements. Some remarks on implementation of technical standards are added.     

The intellectual structure of the strategic management field: an author co-citation analysis

This paper complements a recent study by Ramos-Rodriguez and Ruiz-Navarro (2004) that investigated the intellectual structure of the strategic management field through co-citation analysis. By using authors as the units of analysis and incorporating all the citations that are included in the Science Citation Index and the Social Science Citation Index, we trace the evolution of the intellectual structure of the strategic management field during the period 1980–2000. Using a variety of data analytic techniques such as multidimensional scaling, factor analysis, and Pathfinder analysis, we (1) delineate the subfields that constitute the intellectual structure of strategic management; (2) determine the relationships between the subfields; (3) identify authors who play a pivotal role in bridging two or more conceptual domains of research; and (4) graphically map the intellectual structure in two-dimensional space in order to visualize spatial distances between intellectual themes. The analysis provides insights about the influence of individual authors as well as changes in their influence over time. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the Measurement of Changes in Product Quality in Marginal Intra-Industry Trade

There is a long established thread of the international trade literature concerned with the measurement of intra-industry trade (IIT). Two distinct strands of the literature have developed: First, measures of marginal IIT that are concerned with the adjustment implications of volume-based changes in IIT; second, measures of vertical and horizontal IIT that are concerned with quality-based differences in IIT. This paper marries the two literatures to provide a new perspective on the smooth adjustment hypothesis debate and suggests the use of the marginal product quality index, a new measure of changes in quality in matched trade changes that complements dynamic measures of volume-based IIT. JEL no.  F19     

LIFETIMES OF MACHINERY AND EQUIPMENT: EVIDENCE FROM DUTCH MANUFACTURING

This paper estimates service lifetimes for capital assets in Dutch manufacturing industries, using information on asset retirement patterns. A Weibull distribution function is estimated using a non-linear regression technique to derive service lifetimes for three selected asset types: transport equipment, machinery and computers. For this purpose, benchmark capital stock surveys for different two-digit industries are linked to annual discard surveys. On average the estimated lifetimes are 6, 9 and 26 years for transport equipment, computers and machinery, respectively. However, these estimates vary across industries. A comparison of our estimates with Canadian, U.S. and Japanese estimates shows notable differences in the lifetimes of all the asset types, with machinery showing the largest difference.     

On the measurement of product quality in intra-industry trade: An empirical test for China

A relatively recent development in the intra-industry trade (IIT) literature is the measurement of the simultaneous import and export of quality-differentiated products, commonly known as vertical and horizontal IIT. A recent paper from Azhar and Elliott [Azhar, A. K. M. & Elliott, R. J. R. (2006), On the Measurement of Product Quality in Intra-Industry Trade, Review of World Economics, Vol 142 no 3, pp 476–495] analyses various approaches for disentangling vertical and horizontal IIT and suggests a complementary methodology. To investigate the robustness and sensitivity of the existing approaches we examine data on the nature of trade flows between China and its East Asian neighbours and show that in 2002 China tended to export low quality versions of its manufactured goods to Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.