Urban residential development timing

This paper presents a dynamic model of the residential land development process with heterogeneous housing capital. Its properties under a regime of competitive developers are examined for three informational scenarios: perfect foresight, myopia and imperfect foresight. A special case is presented where different types of housing construction are halted sequentially as the land supply diminishes rather than simultaneously at the moment it is finally exhausted.     

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.     

平衡计分卡在酒店战略管理目标制定中的运用

中国酒店行业的快速增长,使得行业竞争不断加剧,包括五星级酒店在内的高端酒店市场竞争尤为激烈。每个酒店必须实施有效的战略管理,才能应对复杂的竞争环境,保持酒店长期稳定的发展。战略目标的制定是战略管理的首要步骤,只有制定全面、可衡量的、可执行的、可监控的战略目标,才能让酒店战略管理落到实处。平衡计分卡作为一种有效的战略管理工具,能够从财务、客户、内部流程、学习与成长四个维度对酒店的战略目标进行全面有效地诠释。本文以平衡计分卡为主要理论工具,试图阐述其对酒店战略目标制定中所起到的价值。通过战略地图这一重要转化方式,将酒店的目标转化为平衡计分卡的表现形式,以确保制定的目标具备均衡性、可衡量性、可控性、可验证性和前瞻性的特点。为酒店战略管理的有效实施打下坚实的基础。     

The durability of consumer durables

The life span of a product is a key component in assessing its environmental impact. Until very recently, however, product durability was far from prominent in the environmental debate. This has begun to change due to mounting concern about waste, the prospect of producer ‘take back’ schemes and the importance of quality in highly competitive international markets. This has led to product durability emerging on the business and environment agenda. This paper explores the significance of product life spans and identifies currently available data on the life-span of consumer durables. It defines product life and argues that, from an environmental perspective, optimum product life, rather than maximum product life should be the goal. It suggests that potential advantages to businesses of manufacturing and retailing products with longer life spans include improved environmental foresight (i.e. a greater responsiveness to new social trends, changes in consumer behaviour and tighter government regulations), an enhanced reputation for quality, greater potential market share and increased customer loyalty. Addressing claims that manufacturers deliberately make products with the intention that they should have life spans below the known technical potential, the paper identifies some of the influences upon manufacturers which encourage shorter product life spans. Finally, some means by which longer life products might be encouraged are proposed.     

Spatial Growth and Redevelopment with Perfect Foresight and Durable Housing

In this paper, I present a theoretical model of the spatial growth of an urban area with durable housing. I combine several assumptions that typically complicate the analysis: (i) housing developers have perfect foresight; (ii) the initial development and many waves of redevelopment are considered in each developer's plan; and (iii) the closed-city assumption is made, so that the time path of population is exogenous and that of consumer utility is endogenous. I still obtain explicit solutions for the spatial pattern of urban growth, and for the timing of the initial residential development and each successive redevelopment at each distance from the urban center. I compare perfect-foresight growth to growth with static expectations, and I examine the comparative statics of both.     

The dynamic analysis of continuous-time life-cycle savings growth models

Working with the framework of a continuous-time overlapping-generations model, this paper examines equilibrium growth paths (consistent with perfect foresight). In particular, we develop a methodology for characterizing the adjustment paths converging to new stationary states following exogenous shocks. The solution technique yields sequences of derivatives approximating the true dynamic paths and bounds for the errors of approximation. In practice, aggregating behavior over discrete-time intervals can save a great deal of effort — considerably enhancing the set of models feasible for analysis; our error bounds enable us to aggregate without compromising our results to an unknown degree.     

The Inside Track: On the Important (But Neglected) Role of Customers in the Resource‐Based View of Strategy and Firm Growth*

abstract This paper argues for the important role of customers as a source of competitive advantage and firm growth, an issue which has been largely neglected in the resource‐based view of the firm. It conceptualizes Penrose's (1959 ) notion of an ‘inside track’ and illustrates how in‐depth knowledge about established customers combines with joint problem‐solving activities and the rapid assimilation of new and previously unexploited skills and resources. It is suggested that the inside track represents a distinct and perhaps underestimated way of generating rents and securing long‐term growth. This also implies that the sources of sustainable competitive advantage in important respects can be sought in idiosyncratic interfirm relationships rather than within the firm itself.     

Existence of a competitive equilibrium in the Lucas (1988) model without physical capital

This paper considers an endogenous growth model with human capital accumulation. It gives sufficient conditions and a necessary condition for the existence of a unique competitive equilibrium with externalities. These conditions are more stringent than those which prevail for the existence of an equilibrium defined as the solution to a fixed-point problem.     

Growth,speculation and sprawl in a monocentric city

An economic theory of sprawl in a growing, monocentric city is presented. Where decision-makers have perfect foresight, leapfrog development and discontinuous land-rent functions may occur and be efficient in both an ex post and ex ante sense. Where the extent of future growth is uncertain, decision-makers become speculators and the spatial pattern of development is more complicated. Ex post inefficiency generally occurs.     

The fundamentals of land prices and urban growth

In a very simple model in which capital is durable and landowners have perfect foresight, the price of urban land has four additive components: the value of agricultural land rent, the cost of conversion, the value of accessibility, and the value of expected future rent increases, a growth premium. In rapidly growing cities, the growth premium may easily account for half of the average price of land and may create a large gap between the price of land at the boundary (minus conversion cost) and the value of agricultural land rent.     

Belief-driven growth slowdowns and zero-bounded risk-free rate

The literature presents mounting evidence that global long-run growth has been declining since the recession of 2008. Thus, to explore possible reasons for the growth slowdown and its risk-free rate and risk premium implications, this study constructs an endogenous growth model to examine the US economy before the 2008 recession and during the subsequent recovery period. The model features technological externalities that imply multiple perfect foresight balanced growth paths. In this setup, a change in agents’ beliefs may trigger persistent slumps, low interest rates, and elevated risk premium, consistent with the recent US experience. Numerically, using the Epstein and Zin preferences, the model calibration suggests that the historical data moments can be accommodated by persistent regimes and high intertemporal elasticity of substitution. Notably, the study’s simple-structured model with multiplicity and a regime-switching structure is a preliminary contribution to the field of economics, paving the way for future empirical studies.     

循环经济:生态文明的基本经济形态

循环经济是一种经济形态而非循环技术,是为解决无限的人类欲望与有限的资源环境矛盾的基本经济活动;循环经济是对市场经济的兼容而非取代,因为市场经济存在循环经济成长的基因,是市场经济发展的更高阶段;循环经济可以孕育出生态文明,后工业文明的经济形态既不是自给自足经济,也不是计划经济;与低碳经济、绿色经济、生态经济、可持续发展经济相比,循环经济立意高远、简单明了、系统全面、指向明确、包容性强,是生态文明的基本经济形态。     

A simple urban growth model with durable housing

In the last decade the static theory of residential urban location and land use has been extensively developed. The theory has generated many useful insights, but because it ignores growth and the durability of housing and urban infrastructure there are many urban phenomena it cannot explain. In this paper a simple urban growth model with durable housing, in which all builders have perfect foresight, is presented. The discussion focuses on the qualitative differences between the economics of this model, the static class of models, and a class of dynamic models in which myopic expectations are assumed.     

Evidence of sophisticated voting in a committee setting: theory and experiments

This article seeks to use laboratory experimental methods in order to investigate the extent to which decision makers employ sophisticated voting strategies. Using two experimental settings that provide very different incentives for sophisticated voting behavior, the analysis turns up little evidence that participants rely on perfect foresight when confronting lengthy voting agendas. However, these experimental results point toward members using a weaker version of sophistication when anticipating complex decision settings. The findings from this article suggest that decision makers employ only limited foresight when choosing among voting strategies.     

技术外溢与吸收能力:基于开放经济下的内生增长模型分析

通过构建中间产品种类扩张型的内生增长模型，本文探讨了开放经济条件下技术外溢与本国技术吸收能力影响长期经济增长的内在机理。对模型的竞争性市场均衡分析得到了均衡增长路径的稳态增长率，并就解的政策含义进行了讨论。模型的基本结论是：技术吸收能力的提高、人力资本积累以及适度的知识产权保护有利于长期经济增长，然而贸易开放度、技术水平差距对稳态增长率的影响效应具有不确定性。     

Fiscal Foresight,Limited Information and the Effects of Government Spending Shocks

We quantify the impact of government spending shocks in the US. Thereby, we control for fiscal foresight, a specific limited information problem (LIP) by utilizing the narrative approach. Moreover, we surmount the generic LIP inherent in vector autoregressions (VARs) by a factor‐augmented VAR (FAVAR) approach. We find that a positive deficit‐financed defence shock raises output by more than in a VAR (e.g. 2.61 vs. 2.04 for peak multipliers). Furthermore, our evidence suggests that consumption is crowded in. These results are robust to variants of controlling for fiscal foresight and reveal the crucial role of the LIP in fiscal VARs.     

Essential data for fund raising executives: what you don't know can hurt you

The collecting, maintaining and dispensing of data is not a topic for the timid. Data collection can be a fundamental tool or an insidious fifth column within an organization. Fund-raising execs and CEOs will inevitably meet this issue, either head on through foresight and planning, or unexpectedly by means of a distressed donor or angry prospect.     

Ramsey equilibrium with liberal borrowing

This paper considers a multi-agent one-sector Ramsey equilibrium growth model with borrowing constraints. The extreme borrowing constraint used in the classical version of the model, surveyed in Becker (2006), and the limited form of borrowing constraint examined in Borissov and Dubey (2015) are relaxed to allow more liberal borrowing by the households. A perfect foresight equilibrium is shown to exist in this economy. We describe the steady state equilibria for the liberal borrowing regime and show that as the borrowing regime is progressively liberalized, the steady state wealth inequality increases. Unlike the case of a limited borrowing regime, an equilibrium path need not converge in the case of liberal borrowing regime. We show through an example that a two period cyclic equilibrium exists when agents are allowed to borrow against their two period future wage income. This result is similar to the possibility of non-convergent equilibrium capital stock sequences in the model with no borrowing.     

Three eras of technology foresight

Technology has molded the industrial and information societies and will mold the molecular society of the future. The latter will encompass nanotechnology, biotechnology, and materials science. It will also lead to unprecedented convergence in the sciences and technologies. This discussion considers the unique impacts on technological forecasting and foresight accompanying each of the three societies.     

The Postal Service—Questions the Monopolies Commission Avoided

The recent report of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission on the efficiency of the postal services failed to anticipate advances in consumer demand made possible by computer technology, Ian Senior, an authority on the postal services, takes the Monopolies and Mergers Commission to task for its lack of foresight.