Tracing Trade Interdependence between EU and East Asia

Abstract

There have been two related trends shaping global trade during the past couple of decades: the increasing role of international supply chains and the rise of China. Increased complexity in global trade has generated a need to construct more processed trade data — trade in value added — in order to deepen our understanding of trade relations between countries. In this article, we present a broad picture of trade in value added between the EU28 and East Asian countries. We find that East Asia is important as a final demand and supply chain export destination, especially for Northern European countries, while for CEE countries it is more important as an import source for both final demand and supply chain trade. Trade with East Asia is least important for Southern European countries. The production structure of an EU country seems to be one of the main factors explaining the importance of supply chain trade with East Asian countries. The data also suggest that supply chain trade could support the growth of domestic value-added exports to the supply chain trade partner country as well as to other countries.     

Survey on Competing in Network Industries: Firm Strategies, Market Outcomes, and Policy Implications

We review the recent literature on market structure, firm strategies and public policy in network industries. In particular, we focus on the latest applied work, including case studies and empirical work as well as refinements of the established theoretical results. We group each set of results along two dimensions: Static (within-generation) and dynamic (across-generations).     

Profiling the ageing wellness consumers in the retailing context

In the context of retailing, ‘wellness consumption’ cannot be defined by a product or service category, but by shopping motives. As previous research strongly suggests our consumption patterns to be influenced both by age and generational effects, in the current study we explore the wellness orientations of consumers at different ages/belonging to different generations as they manifest in everyday practices, especially in the context of retailing. Drawing on that, we aim to shed light on implications of the population ageing on retailing-related wellness industry. The main focus is on Baby Boomers. Starting with a random sample of 18–75-year-olds (N=1600), we extracted six dimensions connected to different aspects of wellness. Next, the dimensions extracted among aged 18–75 and 55?64 were fed into respective cluster analyses which both yielded seven segments. The differences in the composition of wellness dimensions indicate that age-/generation-specific segmentation is warranted and will return in more accurate estimations of the market potential and more targeted marketing activities. Examination of the parallel typologies enabled us to gain a broader understanding of differences between generations. There was an obvious age-/generation-based pattern in the cluster memberships in the 18–75 sample, all clusters offering different opportunities for the wellness market.     

Firm litigation risk and the insurance value of corporate social performance

This paper advances the risk management perspective that superior social performance enhances firm value by serving as an ex ante valuable insurance mechanism. We posit that good social performance is more valuable as an insurance mechanism for firms with higher litigation risks. Moreover, value generation of corporate social performance (CSP) depends on whether a firm has gained pragmatic legitimacy (i.e., a firm's financial health) and moral legitimacy (i.e., whether or not a firm operates in a socially contested industry) among its stakeholders. We find that the value of CSP as insurance against litigation risk is practically significant, adding 2 to 4 percent to firm value. But CSP is less likely to create value if the firm is in financial distress or is operating in socially contested industries. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

ICT Statistics at the New Millennium—Developing Official Statistics—Measuring the Diffusion of ICT and its Impact

The paper gives a short and very rough overview of the ongoing work in the field of statistics relating to the development of information and communication technology (ICT) and its impacts on the economies and on the society as a whole. It introduces three slightly different approaches with different emphasis on describing the emergence and diffusion of ICT and the respective economic and social change. These are termed the indicators approach, the new economy approach and the intellectual capital approach. The paper also discusses the basic requirements for the establishment of a new statistical system, as well as the present obstacles and problems of this work. Finally, some remarks are presented regarding further statistical co-operation in this field.     

Regulation and investment behaviour in the telecommunications sector: policies and patterns in US and Europe

This paper reports the results of the quantitative analysis of international experience of the relationship between infrastructure investment in the deployment of capacity that can carry large volumes of voice and data traffic and regulatory policy changes in the telecommunications sectors. It looks at the relationship between infrastructure investment for these infrastructure assets and the access pricing régimes for local exchange carriers in the United States and Europe. It then looks at the relationship between various aspects of regulatory and institutional policy changes in Europe and how they affect access prices.The paper finds that a lower access price promotes greater deployment of digital technology among US incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs). Based on this finding, it suggests that it is in the ILECs interest to have access to their networks encouraged.The European data for interconnection are recent and far reaching conclusions are not feasible, but the findings, however, suggest that competition has worked by facilitating new entry through decreasing interconnection prices, although path dependencies, of existing and traditional concepts, in the mindsets of operators as well as regulators, may account for these findings.     

论深港科技合作的环境制约性因素

科技合作环境影响和制约着科技合作的发展，深港两地在包括经济发展水平及城市发展定位、经济体制、市场环境在内的经济环境、包括科技水平和力量、科技政策和立法在内的科技环境方面有很大的差异。对这些差异的分析有利于深港两地科技合作进一步发展。     

Market orientation of retail brands in the grocery chain: the role of supplier relationships

The role of retail brands has grown gradually and today they are regarded as one of the key strategic factors in the positioning of retail firms. However, developing retail brands that are competitive in terms of price and quality as well as in offering unique and specific values to consumers requires long-term, mutually beneficial retailer–supplier relationships that involve information exchange and a combination of the parties' core competencies and resources. This study investigates inter-firm activities in developing market-oriented retail brands in the grocery chain in four European countries. The aim is to identify critical factors that influence the role of these activities. Factors related to the internal organization, the nature of the supplier relationships and the market structure are discussed.     

Paragons of virtue? Competitor entry and the strategies of incumbents in the U.S. local telecommunications industry

We investigate whether the presence of new competitors has influenced the behaviour of U.S. incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) with respect to pricing, advertising and the extent of diversification that they engage in. This issue is explored empirically, using data for the major local exchange carriers for the years 1994 to 1998. The period straddles periods of both absence and presence of competition in the industry, since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 has opened hitherto closed markets to competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs). While a recent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) report on local competition documents vigorous entry during the past years, the market share of the entrants is insubstantial. Our results indicate that the threat provided by market entrants has notably influenced the strategic behaviour of ILECs. The findings show that the incumbent U.S. local operators, particularly the larger ILECs, aggressively protect their profit streams from traditional business. The evidence demonstrates that the ILECs have responded to the Telecommunications Act 1996, and to the threat of market entry it has created, through entry deterrence. This strategic behaviour has been successful in providing ILECs with protection of their monopolistic markets so far.