HOW LARGE A COAL INDUSTRY?

In a dispute which has so far lasted nine months, neither side has attempted to advance its cause by reasoned argument. "Negotiations" have made little head way against a starting position of non-negotiable demands, so that the dispute has settled into a trial of strength. In October's Economic we described the back ground to the dispute; here we attempt to go a stage further by presenting estimates of the number of people who can profitably be employed in the industry. We show that the number is crucially dependent on the price of coal and the costs of producing it. It also depends on which definition of 'uneconomic pits' is used, and what definition of marginal (avoidable) costs. We recommend using a strict definition of 'uneconomic' but a generous interpretation of avoidable cost, and suggest that on this basis the current level of profitable employment in the industry is some 160,000. However, future employment prospects depend on how coal prices move in relation to costs of extraction.     

新零售背景下河北省零售业供给侧改革的路径研究——以石家庄为例

零售业供给侧改革是推动零售业转型发展的巨大动力.文章运用文献研究法和实地调研法研究河北省零售业供给侧改革的路径.通过分析新零售背景下河北省零售业供给侧改革存在的问题,提出新零售背景下河北省零售业供给侧改革的路径,即由要素驱动模式转变为创新驱动模式、以消费者为导向、零售业精准定位、调整零售业供给结构、线上线下一体化的全渠...     

Reverse Pricing and Revenue Sharing in a Vertical Market

Advancing in information technology has empowered firms with unprecedented flexibility when interacting with each other. We compare welfare results in a vertical market (e.g., manufacturers and retailers) for several types of pricing strategies depending upon the following: (1) which side (retailers or manufacturers) chooses retail prices; and (2) whether there is revenue sharing or linear pricing between the two sides. Our results are as follows. Under revenue sharing, retail prices (and thus industry profits) are higher if and only if they are chosen by the side featuring less competition. Under linear pricing, however, retail prices are higher if they are chosen by the side featuring more competition (for linear demand functions). Relative to linear pricing, revenue sharing always leads to lower retail prices, higher consumer surplus and social surplus. However, the comparison on industry profits depends on the demand elasticity ratios. Revenue sharing raises industry profits when the elasticity ratios are small, but the results are reversed when the elasticity ratios are large. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Statistics at the Australian Bureau of Statistics

This paper outlines the ICT statistical developments that the ABS has undertaken over recent years. These developments have been on both the supply side (ICT industry) and the demand side (use of IT by sector). The content of ABS ICT surveys has changed significantly over the last few years and are expected to develop further in line with industry changes and emerging policy needs.
Recent developments in household collections have been the inclusion of IT use questions in the 2001 Census of Population and Housing and in various ABS social surveys such as Children's Participation in Culture and Leisure Activities. Annual business IT use surveys are now conducted and include topics such as Internet commerce and IT security. Biennial ICT industry surveys are conducted to provide data on ICT production, imports and exports, ICT industry employment, performance and structure information. An Internet activity survey is run every six months and provides regional Internet access details and infrastructure details on Internet service providers.
A major development for 2002–03 will be the compilation of an ICT satellite account. ABS intends to produce an ICT Information Development Plan to guide its future statistical development work in the ICT field.     

Building a Strong Foothold in an Emerging Market: A Link Between Resource Commitment and Environment Conditions*

ABSTRACT This study examines how MNEs align resource commitment with environmental conditions (challenges and opportunities) when they invest in a foreign emerging market. MNEs often face a dilemma in allocating resources to this environment: without this commitment, they cannot build a strong competitive foothold; yet with over‐commitment, there is excessive economic exposure. Our analysis of MNEs in a major emerging market suggests that resource commitment is an inverse function of market uncertainty and this inverse link is stronger for less strategically proactive MNEs. Resource commitment is also an increasing function of market opportunities and this function is stronger for firms emphasizing demand‐side (as opposed to cost‐side) gains. In addition, in a highly volatile industry, resource commitment is negatively associated with cultural distance, but in a relatively stable industry, it is positively associated with cultural distance. And finally, as foreign subsidiaries become older, the influence of cultural distance on resource commitment is weakened.     

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.     

产业中总成本领先厂商的唯一性分析

总成本领先战略是波特提出的三种基本竞争战略之一。他认为,产业中的总成本领先者是唯一的,但并没有给出严格的推导和证明。本文将结合经济学和反垄断法中的相关理论,就产业中总成本领先厂商是否唯一展开论证。     

STOCK‐FLOW INTERACTIONS,DISEQUILIBRIUM MACROECONOMICS AND THE ROLE OF ECONOMIC POLICY

This paper presents the ‘KMGT’ (Keynes–Metzler–Goodwin–Tobin) portfolio model and studies its stability properties. The approach to macrodynamic modelling taken here extends the KMG model of Chiarella and Flaschel (2000) , focusing in particular on the incorporation of financial markets and policy issues. The original KMG model considered three asset markets (equities, bonds and money) but depicted them in a rudimentary way so that they had little influence on the real side of the model. The only financial market influencing the real side of the economy was the money market (via an LM curve theory of interest). Here Tobin's portfolio choice theory models the demand for each asset in such a way that the total amount of assets that households want to hold equals their net wealth, which is a stock constraint attached to portfolio choice. There is also a flow constraint, that the net amount of assets accumulated (liabilities issued) by one sector must equal its net savings (expenditures). The Tobinian macroeconomic portfolio approach characterizes the potential for financial market instability, focusing on the interconnectedness of all three markets. The paper goes on to study the potential for labour market and fiscal policies to stabilize unstable macroeconomies.     

Explaining Performance Changes in Newly Privatized Firms

Much debate has been generated about whether privatization tends to enhance firm financial performance. The research presented here seeks to identify the strategic choices that differentiated firms with superior post-privatization performance from those with inferior post-privatization performance. Using agency theory as a theoretical foundation, it is hypothesized that superior post-privatization firm performance will be associated with (1) the government not retaining a significant stock holding, (2) changes in leadership, (3) management stock options being initiated, (4) employee head count being reduced, and (5) the company being restructured financially. The sample draws from 41 privatized firms from six industry classifications and 15 countries. To accommodate comparisons of small subsamples, non-parametric statistical methods are used. Controlling for size, industry and country (economic/regulatory effects), the hypotheses are generally supported except for the one relating to headcount.     

新时代旅游审视:文化赋能、品牌塑造与高质量发展

随着新时代人民美好生活需要向往与日俱增,实现旅游高质量内涵式发展成为急需突破的产业升级问题。基于此,本文以文化旅游融合发展观为视角,探索了新时代旅游产业利用文化资源禀赋塑造品牌形象实现高质量发展的科学机制。根据企业管理人员、导游、讲解员、民宿业主以及研究学者的深度访谈调研数据,进行了实证分析探索。研究发现,文化赋能和供给侧模式能正向影响旅游产业的品牌塑造,并通过品牌塑造的中介作用正向影响旅游产业的高质量发展;以需求侧为导向的文化赋能更具效能,而以供给侧为导向的品牌塑造则更易形成。因此,新时代的旅游产业需要合理应用供给侧与需求侧路径,引导文化赋能与品牌塑造过程,进而实现高质量发展。     

The interplay between organizational and national cultures: a comparison of organizational practices in Canada and South Korea using the Competing Values Framework

This paper examines the concept of organizational culture using the Competing Values Framework (CVF) in organizations from six different industries in Canada and South Korea. The Competing Values Framework (Quinn and Rohrbaugh, 1983; Quinn, 1988) is used to compare organizational cultures of similar firms and their HRM in the two countries. The data reported are from thirty-nine Canadian and forty Korean organizations. The findings show that, even though some aspects of organizational culture are related and can be attributed to the differences between the national cultures (Korean versus Canada), industry and contextual variables do contribute to a significant extent to the perception of organizational culture. In addition, the analysis reported here shows that other organizational aspects that are closely related to organizational culture (organizational climate and leadership) have significant associations with national cultures as well as industry and contextual factors. The aspects of organizational context under study included size, age and ownership of the firms, uncertainty and unpredictability of the environment, organizational support for training and unionization. Implications of the study for cross-national research, and for the use of competing Values Framework are discussed.     

Regional Efficiency Wages: Are They a Source of Real Earnings Differentials?

This paper investigates the role of spatial efficiency wage premiums as a partial explanation for both inter-industry and geographic wage differentials. The empirical approach is based on an analysis of panel data for six select manufacturing industries operating within specific (U.S.) states. Besides testing for the existence of a regional "wage curve," this research adds to the evidence on traditional determinants of spatial wage differentials. An explicit treatment of regional cost-of-living conditions is unique to the analysis; also, industry wage structures are accounted for in explaining regional wage differences. The findings here contribute to an initial body of evidence on regional efficiency wages. The empirical evidence indicates that the relationship between regional wages (nominal or real) and the local unemployment rate is much more complex than implied by the wage curve.     

European response to issues in recycling car plastics

This paper discusses the issue of recycling of plastics in the automobile industry which has gained importance due to the proposed European Commission regulation on End-of-Life Vehicles (ELVs) where the EC sets targets on the percent recyclablity or reusability of a car by the year 2015. This proposed regulation puts pressure on the car manufacturers to increase the recyclable and/or reusable components of their product. Plastic poses a critical challenge as on one hand it is necessary to meet the customer demands related to esthetics, light weight and the technological advantages, while on the other hand it is a hurdle in achieving a higher percent recyclability of the ELVs.A closer look on this issue from Europe is necessary as it is expected to set the trend in car recycling regulations all over the world. However, there are many related economic issues that have to be kept in mind while thinking of recycling of plastics (or other components) from ELVs. Tough regulations may not have the solution to the environmental question as the issue has ramifications outside the automotive industry and outside Europe.The significance of plastics in the automotive industry, the proposed ELV directive from the EC and the economic effects of the same, along with the future concerns is discussed here. Further, the paper takes a brief look at the environment in the Indian sub-continent which is considered an emerging market and is flooded with car manufacturers from all over the world, and where issues like recycling are still to attract the attention of the government and the local population.     

An agency theory perspective of the Israeli labor market segmentation: Past,present, and future

In this paper we use agency theory to present a process of the dichotomization of the Israeli workforce into two structures, each representing distinct organizational cultures. The first structure is the private sector, led by the high-tech industry; a model where the principal has strong control over the activities of the agent. The second is the public sector, an opposing model in which the principal has virtually no control over the activities of the agents and as a result, the effectiveness within this sector deteriorates. We argue that such conflicting systems cannot exist side by side without affecting each other and we suggest a role for human resource management (HRM) in future developments. Within the public sector it is the responsibility of the principal, the Israeli government, to gain more control over the agent and employ professional HRM systems for this purpose.     

这些年,我们一起追手机

今天,手机行业突然闯进了一群陌生人,他们既不懂TFT与AMOLED屏幕的区别,也不知道高通和联发科的处理器都有哪些特点,却不停地指手画脚。他们说,他们懂互联网。这个世界到底怎么了?其实,这不过是跨界革命的必然结果。纵观各个产业的发展历程,跨界往往与很多大的创新联系在一起。最典型的就是横跨科技界和文艺界的史蒂夫·乔布斯和他所领导的苹果公司了。没有音乐和消费电子的跨界,iPod不会诞生;没有通信和互联网的结合,iPhone也不可能取得如此大的成功。在这个十倍速的年代,行业界限已经变得越来越模糊,随时都有可能进来个陌生人解构整个行业。     

Economies of diversification in the US credit union sector

Significant scale economies have been recently cited to rationalize a dramatic growth in the US retail credit union sector over the past few decades. In this paper, we explore another plausible supply‐side explanation for the growth of the industry, namely economies of diversification. We focus on the fact that credit unions differ among themselves in the range of financial services they offer to their members. Since larger credit unions tend to offer a more diversified financial service menu than credit unions of a smaller size, the incentive to grow in size may be fueled not only by present scale economies but also by economies of diversification. This paper provides the first robust estimates of such economies of diversification for the credit union sector. We estimate a flexible semiparametric smooth coefficient quantile panel data model with correlated effects that is capable of accommodating a four‐way heterogeneity among credit unions. Our results indicate the presence of non‐negligible economies of diversification in the industry. We find that as many as 27–91% (depending on the type and the cost quantile) of diversified credit unions enjoy substantial economies of diversification; the cost of most remaining credit unions is invariant to the scope of services. We also find overwhelming evidence of increasing returns to scale in the industry.     

Foresighting FLOSS (free/libre/open source software) from a developing country perspective: The case of Turkey

Since free/libre open source software (FLOSS) promotes collaboration and contributions from different parties in software production and innovation processes, it can create a unique opportunity for developing countries, by generating an innovative capability in software technology. To benefit from this opportunity, it is important to understand the strategic factors and future trends that affect the development of an efficient FLOSS economy in developing countries.This paper aims to examine the strategic factors and future trends that are likely to affect the development and deployment of FLOSS in Turkey. Based on the internal and external factors identified through the practice of technological foresight, a SWOT analysis will be carried out to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for Turkey in creating a competitive software industry that can benefit from the advantages of FLOSS. Accordingly, with regard to the required technical infrastructure, an innovative/competitive business climate, skilled human resources and support for institutional structures, policy suggestions are outlined here that could be usefully implemented by government, industry and universities.     

TEAMS BETWEEN HIERARCHY AND COMMITMENT: CHANGE STRATEGIES AND THE ‘INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT’*

The main objective of the article is to put forward a broader resource-based view, outlining the influence exercised by the ‘internal environment’on the conception and implementation of teamworking strategies in two multinational automobile companies. While the influence of various external contingent factors — industry, product, technological environment — is often considered in the literature, the role of a firm's internal resources is mostly neglected. the publicity of greenfield-site teamwork arrangements and the concurrent lack of ‘grounded’research has nurtured the idea that within the same industry environment, a best model of teamwork can be identified. One implication of the resource-based view presented here is that a best model of teamwork may have little relevance for many established companies, where the choice to embrace such a model does not exist. the article analyses companies’approaches to accommodating business policy objectives within their existing structural and historical constraints, including traditional modes of control, management style, and company culture. the article thus identifies firm-specific rather than nation-specific variations within the same industry environment.     

Environmental management and the “soft side” of organisations: Discovering the most relevant behavioural factors in green supply chains

Anchored in the resource‐based view theory, the objective of this research is to empirically analyse the behavioural factors affecting the green supply chain management (GCSM) performance in a fast‐growing emerging economy by taking an empirical data set of 101 responses from personnel in the mining sector. Behavioural factors in green supply chains are still a critical challenge—not yet a well‐explored academic subject—when the focus is on the mining industry of emerging economies like India; the lack of studies in this field could be a factor preventing the Indian mining industry becoming more green. In terms of methodology, original survey data were processed through AMOS 4.0, adopted for assessing the causal connection among the six constructs, that is, top management support, teamwork, workplace culture, resistance to change, green innovation, and green motivation. We further explore the input from the human side of GCSM by highlighting that top management support and green motivation are the most crucial behavioural factors that influence GCSM in the Indian mining sector. The study will be helpful for mining companies because it will enable them to identify the areas that require their attention for enhancing GCSM performance related to behavioural aspects.     

Assessing efficiency and innovation in the 3PL industry: an empirical analysis

ABSTRACT

The Third-party Logistics (3PL) industry is facing both important growth rates and increasing competitive pressure. 3PL providers are required to continuously sustain a more and more competitive cost structure (i.e. efficiency) and develop capabilities to improve their services (i.e. innovation); hence, the evaluation of these key success factors is considered a key issue. This paper develops a quantitative analysis of 71 Italian 3PL providers by using Data Envelopment Analysis to jointly assess efficiency and innovation. Furthermore, through a case study research, it corroborates the quantitative results by investigating the strategies of best-in-class companies. Results allowed identifying 13 3PL providers as efficiency leaders and 6 as leaders from both the efficiency and the innovation side. Their input composition indicates a diversification of the business models. A breakdown of the analysis by size and industry focus, along with empirical evidence on the strategies enhancing efficiency and innovation, is also provided.