STEINDL ON IMPERFECT COMPETITION: THE ROLE OF TECHNICAL CHANGE

Josef Steindl offers an innovative dynamic analysis of competition in Maturity and Stagnation in American Capitalism, with a key role for technical change. However, in his later writings he suggests that he had not gone far enough and that his account was not ‘sufficiently dynamic’, noting particularly his neglect of fundamental issues in technological development. Here, we critically examine the nature of technical change in Steindl’s analysis, pointing to ambiguities and contradictions that arise. Standard characterizations of the nature of technical change are then introduced and used to further integrate technical change into Steindl’s analysis of competition.     

哈尔滨市现代流通业竞争力现状、问题与对策

经过20多年的改革开放,哈尔滨市流通业已进入快速发展阶段,但流通业总体发展还存在诸多问题,制约了流通业的健康持续发展,严重影响了流通业的竞争力。文章提出建立一套流通业竞争力评价指标体系评价哈尔滨市流通业综合竞争力,探索流通业发展中存在的问题,通过制定相应的产业政策和培育大型流通企业和企业集团等措施,培育哈尔滨市流通业有效竞争市场模式,增强流通业的综合竞争力,促进哈尔滨市流通业的健康发展。     

FISCAL POLICY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN THE IMPERFECT LABOR MARKET

Using a simple overlapping generations model with the growth engine of public capital by incorporating the union wage setting, we examine the effects of fiscal policies on unemployment, economic growth and welfare in the imperfect labor market. We demonstrate that the growth‐maximizing tax in the imperfect labor market is larger than that of the perfect labor market. However, as the allocation ratio of public capital increases, the growth‐maximizing tax in the imperfect labor market approaches that of the perfect labor market, thus reducing the unemployment rate. The policy implications of the intergenerational welfare aspects are also mentioned.     

丹麦的饮料瓶自动回收机

我曾应大学期间的丹麦留学生玛丽之邀,首次走入了令人神往的童话之都哥本哈根。色彩艳丽典雅的街头建筑,穿城而过的自行车流,随处可闻的风琴乐韵,清新洁净的城市环境,曾有上海世博之旅的小美人鱼……让人如置身浪漫的童话世界。正当我在街头驻足留连之时,玛丽将一瓶饮料横在眼前,打断我沉醉的思绪。我接过饮料,边喝边交流旅游心得,不由为玛丽生活在这样的国度而艳羡不已。行至垃圾箱前,我紧喝两口,随手将空饮料     

THE CONSUMER'S INTEREST IN COMPETITION POLICY: 1.

The authors were invited to prepare a paper for the National Consumer Council to discuss the consumer interest in competition policy. While the analytical basis of competition policy has been extensively discussed in various places and empirical evidence on structure-conduct-performance relationships in industry is available, they have not found any material which deals systematically with a possible con sumer oriented approach to competition policy. Before offering specific policy suggestions they have therefore found it necessary to establish a theoretical basis for the identification of the consumer's interest in these matters. This is then used to guide their comments on the particular implications for competition policy. By competition policy they refer to that area of government policy which seeks to control the creation or conduct of dominant firms and other forms of restraint on competition. The analytical model is developed primarily in terms of a consideration of the effects of monopoly, to simplify the discussion it is therefore assumed that cartels can be viewed as a special case of monopoly. In the paper they have treated the consumer as a household-based purchaser and they do not therefore take into account the interests of industrial purchasers.     

博弈在伊朗——合同签订的要点和心得

国际工程承包是指一个国家的政府部门、公司、企业或项目所有人(一般称工程业主或发包人)委托国外的工程承包人负责按规定的条件承担完成某项工程任务。作者从1996年至今,在伊朗参与多个国际工程承包项目,包括机电设备出口、安装和调试类的80吨动平衡机项目、200台伊朗德黑兰地铁电扶梯项目、德黑兰北部高速公路项目等。本文以合同签订时必须注意的要点为红线,探讨一些实际、具体的问题。     

INNOVATION MANAGEMENT IN THE GERMAN TRANSPORTATION INDUSTRY

This article develops a conceptual framework for innovation management in logistics service providers, taking both a macro‐sectoral and a micro‐firm level perspective. Empirical data pertaining to the German transportation industry is applied in order to illustrate the current situation. In the analysis, the author distinguishes between various types of innovation: (1) product/service and process innovation, (2) market novelties, product‐range novelties and product imitations, and (3) ad hoc and planned innovation. The results indicate that despite the importance of innovation for the competitiveness of logistics service providers, innovation activities of firms in this industry and the share of innovators are at a low level compared to other industries. Only 30% of the LSP's are innovators. LSP innovation rests less on structured innovation, new product development and new product commercialization processes, instead, becomes often visible in form of technological advanced infrastructure and equipment investments. It is recommended that in the future LSP's should make more use of one or all forms of innovation activity discussed in this article.     

EXCHANGE RATE PASS-THROUGH IN THE AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY

This article examines empirically the exchange rate pass-through of car manufacturers on the Swedish market. It first analyzes the changes in prices by supplying countries during the period 1976 - 1996. In a second stage, the relationship between price-level adjusted exchange rates and quality-adjusted prices is investigated. Although there exist significant differences across countries, the evidence shows that actual price adjustments are associated with stabilization of local currency prices. The policy implication of the results is that the use of an exchange rate policy in the case of external imbalances should therefore be reconsidered within the broader context of how market structure and conduct influence the optimal pricing of traded goods.     

“长江三角洲物流业发展分析”系列之二：宁镇扬地区物流业发展现状分析

近日，江苏省提出了宁镇扬经济板块的概念，并且这一概念已经纳入了江苏省经济发展的战略中。这是江苏首次将宁镇扬作为一个经济发展整体板块提出，也是江苏经济发展战略中的重要布局。“宁镇扬经济板块”是指南京、镇江、扬州构成的三角地带。“宁镇扬经济板块”的提出基于两个方面的重要背景：     

中国零售业发展七大趋势

近日,国家经贸委贸易市场局副局长邸建凯就中国零售业的发展趋势谈到: 改革开放以来,我国零售业得到迅速发展.2001年社会消费品零售总额达37595.2亿元,比去年增长10.1%,是改革开放前的24倍,剔除价格因素,年平均递增10%以上.     

COMPETITION VERSUS STABILITY IN BANKING

COLLECTED WORKS OF WALTER BAGEHOT: THE ECONOMIC ESSAYS, VOLUMES IX—XI, edited by Norman St John Stevas     

CHAOTIC PATTERNS IN COURNOT COMPETITION

Chaos theory offers a new mode of analyzing the complexity of nonlinear (economic) dynamics. A growing list of applications is mainly focused on modeling macroeconomic (growth and business) cycles and dynamic (consumer's and firms') choice. This paper provides a nonlinear dynamic model of Cournot competition. The model improves upon Rand (1978) and Dana and Montrucchio (1986) by permitting monopoly output to be positive. The existence of chaotic regimes is proven and simulation experiments illustrate the implications.     

LONG RUN DEMAND FOR LABOUR IN THE CONSUMER GOOD INDUSTRY

We consider, for alternative models of production, the comparative statics of constant‐returns economies in long run competitive equilibrium, for which reswitching, capital‐reversing and consumption‐reversal are all completely absent. Notwithstanding the ‘well‐behaved’ nature of these economies, the use of labour per unit of output in the consumer good industry is always positively related to the real wage rate.     

AN INVESTIGATION OF ADVERTISING RIVALRY IN THE AUSTRALIAN BANKING INDUSTRY

This paper examines advertising rivarly in the Australina Banking Industry. It offers a theoretical discussion of a number of criteria that may be used in distinguishing the role of advertising in an oligopolistic market framework. Empirical evidence is obtained by testing single and simultaneous equation models.     

我国化工产业对外反倾销问题研究

化工产业在我国国民经济中占有重要地位,且在我国进出口贸易中占有很大比重.近年来,在我国外贸额快速增长的同时,大量进口化工产品不断冲击国内市场,进口化工产品倾销越来越严重,对我国化工产业的发展构成了损害和威胁,因此,有效运用反倾销措施保护我国受损产业已刻不容缓.     

MODELS OF COMPETITION BETWEEN FIRMS: ENDOGENOUS MARKET STRUCTURE IN THE KALECKIAN MODEL

The purpose of this paper is to incorporate free entry into the Kaleckian model. To this end, we consider a model with monopolistic competition, mark‐up pricing and a free‐entry condition. Using this model, the Kaleckian model is unstable under a wage‐led growth regime, and it is stable under a profit‐led growth regime, when the interest rate is supposed to be constant. Stability under a wage‐led growth can be achieved if the interest rate is allowed to respond positively to capacity utilization. We also find that a goods market policy, but not an income distribution policy, is then effective from an economic growth perspective.