Business groups,foreign direct investment,and capital goods trade: The import behavior of Japanese affiliates

We examine the impact of buyer–supplier relationships within business groups on capital goods trade by taking into account potential simultaneous effects of business group ties on foreign direct investment. We posit that (1) foreign affiliates of business group firms have a greater propensity to import capital goods from the home country, increasing home country exports; (2) if the establishment of overseas affiliates by business group firms attracts foreign direct investment by their capital goods suppliers, business group ties are localized and the ‘trade creating’ impact of business group ties may disappear or even be reversed. Empirical analysis of capital goods imports by 1790 manufacturing affiliates operated abroad by Japanese multinational firms, combined with information on linkages with machinery suppliers within horizontal and vertical business groups, provides broad support for these predictions. Our findings suggest that it may be incorrect to infer from the absence of a simple relationship between business group ties and trade that such ties are unimportant; instead, intra-group ties may be replicated abroad through foreign direct investment.     

Are trade creditors relationship lenders?

We test the hypothesis that trade creditors are relationship lenders using SME data from Japan. We find that the validity of the relationship lending hypothesis depends on the relative bargaining power between the buyer and sellers. Specifically, we find evidence that longer buyer–seller relationships may matter depending on the buyer–seller relative bargaining power. When a buyer depends too much on its main supplier, the supplier does not provide more credit as its relationship with the buyer matures. However, a longer buyer/main-supplier relationship is beneficial because a non-dependent buyer can obtain more overall credit from sellers. Depending on the extent to which this increase is due to an increase in the credit from the main suppliers, our findings are consistent with the relationship lending hypothesis. However, even if the increase mainly comes from other sellers, our findings imply that sellers extract a positive signal from a longer buyer/main-supplier relationship.     

简论国际货物买卖合同标的物所有权的转移

在国际货物买卖合同中,标的物所有权何时起从卖方转移到买方,是一个十分重要的问题。由于各个国家的立法角度和立法背景不尽相同,对买卖合同标的物所有权转移有不同的规定。随着全球经济一体化进程的加剧,各国之间的经济交往越来越密切,国际贸易活动越来越频繁,为促进各国之间贸易活动的顺利进行,尽量减少因各国法律规定不同而造成的贸易障碍,有必要对如何确定买卖合同中标的物所有权转移的问题进行探讨。     

新农村建设中农民对公共产品的供给意愿研究——基于河北省644个农户的调查

对河北省644个农户的调查结果表明，农村公共产品供给具有较强的政府依赖性，农民参与意愿普遍较低；村集体成为农民视角的村级公共产品的主要供给主体；农民合作供给和市场化供给也成为农民的重要选择。文章提出了增强农民供给意愿，构建供给主体多元化格局的政策建议。     

The implications for suppliers of the spread of supermarkets in southern Africa

ABSTRACT

The growth of supermarkets in southern Africa opens local and regional markets to suppliers through participation in supermarket supply chains. Supermarkets in the region provide an important route to market for processed foods and household consumable products. Through a regional value chain lens, this article provides an assessment of the implications of the growth of supermarkets for the participation of suppliers in Botswana, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The research finds that, while supermarkets provide important opportunities for suppliers, they also exert considerable buyer power that limits supplier development and upgrading. High private standards, onerous requirements and costly trading terms negatively affect supplier participation in value chains. Long-term investments are required to build the capabilities of suppliers to meet supermarket requirements in terms of quality, consistency, volume and cost-competitiveness.     

基于价格契约的生产制造型企业VMI系统研究

随着生产制造型企业在中国的大力发展,大量多品种零部件库存管理变得非常重要。文章对生产制造型企业实施VMI的特点进行了分析,从供应商的利润和生产制造型企业零部件成本两个角度进行研究。供应链双方愿意为长期战略合作实现双赢创造条件,牺牲部分自己的利益。文章构建了供应商和生产制造型企业之间的利益分享模型,并通过算例验证了模型的有效性。     

Getting to Know You: Trust Formation in New Interfirm Relationships and the Consequences for Investments in Management Control and the Collaboration

Trust is often posited to substitute for management control in interfirm transactions. However, this raises questions of how trust arises in new relationships, and whether trust that is not based on prior experience transacting together is sufficient to persuade managers to forgo investments in management controls. We use an experiment to test whether two features of the early stage of an interfirm relationship influence a buyer's initial trust in a supplier and have consequences for subsequent investments in management controls and in the collaboration. These two features are the autonomy of the buyer's manager to choose a supplier (i.e., delegation of decision‐making authority) and the supplier's willingness to share information with the buyer. We find that the buyer manager's initial trust in the supplier is associated positively with both the autonomy to choose the supplier and the supplier's willingness to share information. Information content and supplier characteristics are held constant, so these results are novel and distinct from prior studies of the antecedents of trust. We find that higher initial trust is associated with reduced expenditures for management controls and increased investments in the collaboration. Thus, we conclude that delegation of decision‐making authority and supplier information‐sharing behavior in the early stages of a relationship influence the formation of initial trust, which has real consequences for investments in management control and in the collaboration.     

安徽新农村建设中的公共品供给制度的创新

取消农业税后,农村公共品供给紧缺的问题,成为新农村建设的瓶颈。因此,如何增加农村公共品的供给,已成为建设社会主义新农村必须关注的重要实践和理论问题。根据当前的经济和社会发展情况,文章认为,增加农村公共品的供给的关键是进行农村公共品供给制度的创新。这种制度创新,包括供给制度的创新、供给主体的创新、供给渠道及公共财政供给效率评价模型的创新。     

Costly Buyer Search in a Differentiated Products Model: An Experimental Study

This study examines whether the content of buyer information and the timing of its dissemination affects seller market power. We construct laboratory markets with differentiated goods and costly buyer search in which sellers simultaneously post prices. The experiment varies the information on price or product characteristics that buyers learn under different timing assumptions (pre‐ and postsearch), generating four information treatments. Theory predicts that price information lowers the equilibrium price, but information about product characteristics increases the equilibrium price. That is, contrary to intuition, the presence of informed buyers may impart a negative externality on other uninformed buyers. Data support the model's negative externality result when sellers face a large number of robot buyers that are programmed to search optimally. Observed prices conform to the model's comparative statics and are broadly consistent with predicted levels. With human buyers, however, excessive search instigates increased price competition, and sellers post prices that are significantly lower than predicted.     

供应商整合对新产品绩效的影响——技术不确定性的调节作用

文章研究供应商整合对新产品绩效的影响,并检验技术不确定性对二者关系的调节作用。通过大样本调查收集数据,运用结构方程模型对整体结构模型进行拟合分析和假设检验,运用分层回归分析法检验技术不确定性的调节作用。研究结果表明:灰箱供应商整合对新产品引入速度、新产品创新性均具有正向影响;黑箱供应商整合对新产品引入速度具有负向影响,对新产品创新性具有正向影响;技术不确定性对灰箱供应商整合与新产品引入速度、灰箱供应商整合与新产品创新性之间关系均具有正向调节作用;技术不确定性对黑箱供应商整合与新产品引入速度之间关系具有负向调节作用,对黑箱供应商整合与新产品创新性之间关系无显著调节作用。     

Defence procurement: theory and UK policy

Since the early 1980s, competition as a means of obtaining bestvalue for money has dominated UK defence procurement policy.This paper describes the UK defence equipment market and theprocurement problem. There are sections on the economic theoryof procurement, contracting, regulation and competition. Theconclusion evaluates UK defence procurement policy and assessessome of the policy issues for the 1990s     

基于价格契约的生产制造型企业VMI系统研究

随着生产制造型企业在中国的大力发展,大量多品种零部件库存管理变得非常重要。文章对生产制造型企业实施VMI的特点进行了分析,从供应商的利润和生产制造型企业零部件成本两个角度进行研究。供应链双方愿意为长期战略合作实现双赢创造条件,牺牲部分自己的利益。文章构建了供应商和生产制造型企业之间的利益分享模型,并通过算例验证了模型的有效性。     

Causes of repressed inflation in the Soviet consumer market, 1965–1989: retail price subsidies,the siphoning effect,and the budget deficit

This article uses material which has recently been made available from Russian archives to analyse the causes of repressed inflation in the Soviet consumer market. It finds that retail price subsidies, which increased as a proportion of state budget expenditure from 4 per cent in 1965 to 20 per cent in the late 1980s, intensified consumer market disequilibrium. The provision of these subsidies had negative effects on the market by maintaining the purchasing power of households for consumer goods and by increasing the budget deficit. The unauthorized purchase of consumer goods by enterprises tended to increase during these years also.     

Market-Channel Choices of Indonesian Potato Farmers: A Best–Worst Scaling Experiment

We present an empirical analysis of how buyer (and trader) attributes influence decisions of market participation and channel choice among smallholder potato farmers in West Java, Indonesia. We use a best–worst scaling experiment to evaluate the determinants of these decisions and gauge the influence of buyer attributes. Our latent-class cluster analysis reveals that producers have heterogeneous preferences for buyer attributes, which address classic smallholder constraints such as access to inputs, credit, and information. This heterogeneity can be somewhat explained by household characteristics and assets. The broad mass of our sample sought buyers whose attributes imply lower market risk for farmers. Yet roughly a quarter of our sample, a portion that included farmers with large, specialised farms, sought buyers who could provide inputs such as high-quality seeds.     

跨国公司对东道国企业技术创新的影响

在下游企业顺序进入市场条件下,本文分析了跨国公司对于上游企业创新动机的影响。我们的研究表明:上游企业的创新投入既取决于其国有股的比重又取决于下游企业的国别属性以及市场势力。具体而言,如果上游企业是一个私营企业,那么下游企业的国别属性不影响其研发投入。相反,倘若上游企业是一个纯粹的国有企业,那么只有当下游企业均为国外企业时,其研发投入不足,在其他情况下,上游企业的研发投入相同。假如上游企业是一个部分国有企业,那么下游跨国公司的市场势力越大,其研发动力越低。     

农村公共产品供给的基础：公共权威——对重庆东北部四季村的调查

长期以来,我们将农村公共产品供给不足归咎于外部制度环境的不平等,而忽略了村庄公共产品的自我供给能力。文章通过对村庄内部不同层面公共产品供给状况的定性考察,发现公共权威力量是保障村庄共产品供给的前提。公共权威力量能够整合村庄内外的资源,从而有效的为村庄供给公共产品,而单一的市场化供给则难以取得成功。     

地方性公共产品分权式供给的效率及优势分析

市场经济中效率是公共产品供给决策的基本准则,本文对地方性公共产品分权式供给的效率优势作了分析,指出地方政府在供给公共产品上具有资源配置优势和比较成本优势,还具有溢出效应,并认为在分权体制下通过地方自治方式确保地方政府在公共产品供给上的优先权和自主权等可以保证了地方性公共产品供给的高效性。     

中国消费者奢侈品消费特征及其营销特点研究

近年来,奢侈品在中国市场上开始活跃。但是中国市场对奢侈品的认识呈现出明显的中国特征。因此,文章首先对奢侈品的定义及特点进行深入剖析,以此为立足点来分析在市场上奢侈品的消费者购买特点,然后进一步探讨了企业应如何构建奢侈品消费的营销策略。     

新增值税条件下购货方纳税筹划理论探析

2009年新《增值税暂行条例》的实施为增值税纳税人的纳税实务提供了更大的筹划空间。对于购货方为一般纳税人而言,选择供货方的纳税筹划方法为购货价格折让率基础上的议价。而当购货方为小规模纳税人时,纳税筹划方法为最低供货价格的选择。企业可以根据既定的纳税人身份科学地进行增值税的纳税筹划,以达到少缴税或递延纳税并为企业财务管理目标服务的目的。