Location theory of the firm under price uncertainty

This paper presents a theory of location under price uncertainty employing a general utility and production function. The analysis is also conducted by incorporating a homogeneous production function. Risk preferences of the firm are treated as an integral part of the model.     

Monopsony and the production-location decision of the firm

This paper incorporates monopsony power in one of the input markets within the context of the Weber-Moses triangular framework and examines the effect of an increase in monopsony power on the production-location decision of the firm. In particular, this paper shows that the optimum location of the firm is independent of monopsony power if the production funstion is homogeneous of degree one. However, if the production function is not homogeneous of degree one, the firm possessing monopsony power will have an incentive to move its location away from the monopsonized input market towards other markets under certain reasonable assumptions. Finally, some important policy implications are generated from the analysis.     

Production planning and inventories optimization: A backward approach in the convex storage cost case

We study the deterministic optimization problem of a profit-maximizing firm which plans its sales/production schedule. The firm controls both its production and sales rates and knows the revenue associated to a given level of sales, as well as its production and storage costs. The revenue and the production cost are assumed to be respectively concave and convex. In Chazal et al. [Chazal, M., Jouini, E., Tahraoui, R., 2003. Production planning and inventories optimization with a general storage cost function. Nonlinear Analysis 54, 1365–1395], we provide an existence result and derive some necessary conditions of optimality. Here, we further assume that the storage cost is convex. This allows us to relate the optimal planning problem to the study of a backward integro-differential equation, from which we obtain an explicit construction of the optimal plan.     

Location theory of the firm under price uncertainty : Some New Conclusions

This paper presents certain general results of my earlier location theory of the firm under price uncertainty. An expected utility maximizing firm excludes all intermediate locations between the market and raw material site.     

Communication technologies and spatial organization of multi-unit firms in metropolitan areas

Departing from traditional location theory (which treats a firm as a single-unit entity), in this paper we consider that each firm consists of multiple units that exchange information or services. Specifically, we develop a general equilibrium model of the city,in which each firm consists of a front-unit (e.g. business office) and back-unit (e.g. plant or back-office). Each front-unit interacts with all other front-units for the purpose of business communications, while each back-unit exchanges information or management services only with the front-unit of the same firm. Each firm must choose the location of its front-unit and back-unit optimally. The equilibrium spatial configuration of the city is determined as an outcome of interactions among all firms and households through competitive land and labor markets. We show that, depending on parameters, a variety of interesting patterns of metropolitan spatial organization emerges.     

从康师傅·顶通看我国第三方物流的发展

文中通过剖析十几年前康师傅因外包无法取得预期效果而被迫成立顶通物流、到后期顶通物流独立出来并发展壮大的案例，从企业内外部环境、企业行业位置、市场分工与专业化等多个动态因素角度，探讨了外部环境和企业自身状况对企业物流外包选择的影响，认为该案例实际上折射了我国改革开放以来第三方物流发展的动态历程，物流内部化的交易成本和生产成本都相对上升，而物流外包组织方式的交易成本和生产成本却相对下降。     

Product Differentiation and the Location of International Production

We analyze how product differentiation influences firms' choice between exporting and foreign direct investment. When product specifications are determined endogenously, we show that there is no symmetric solution to the product specification subgame. The cost disadvantage of an exporting firm translates into a disadvantage in product specification. Overseas production is favored if this allows the investing firm to adopt a more aggressive product specification. Our analysis suggests an ambiguous relationship among location, product differentiation, and cost and demand functions, confirmed by the existence of a parameter range for which there is no pure strategy equilibrium in location choice.     

Production location and random input price

The purpose of this paper is to develop systematically the theory of plant location for a competitive firm facing random input price. It will be shown that the impact of input price uncertainty on the firm's optimum location depend crucially upon (i) the firm's attitude toward risk, (ii) the characteristics of the production function, (iii) the structure of transport costs on inputs and output, and (iv) the type of input usages. Moreover, and more importantly, some conclusions obtained by prior studies on location theory in a certainty world can also be shown to be special cases of our more general results, but some are not justifiable in a world with random input price.     

Spatial duopoly with discriminatory pricing

The concept and existence of an equilibrium is established for profit maximizing competitors whose decisions involve choices of both delivered price schedules and firm locations. Each firm faces a production function; each is allowed to locate in the plane and to set discriminatory prices. Any transport cost function that is continuous in the firm location variable may be used. It is shown that the locations of the two firms are in equilibrium if each firm is minimizing social cost (i.e., the total cost to the firms of supplying the market with the good it demands is minimized) with respect to the opponent's fixed location.     

On the exclusion theorem'

This paper examines the locational decision of the firm in a linear space economy under increasing returns to scale and imperfect competition. All intermediate locations are excluded by the firm from its possible location without being adversely affected. This is a stronger result than Sakashita's and Mathur's which require non-increasing returns to scale and perfectness in input markets. In this sense, our paper leads to a more general version of the Exclusion Theorem.     

Agglomeration, Dispersion, and the Pioneer Firm

This paper models industry location as a process of successive stages of agglomeration, dispersion, and reagglomeration. External economies lead firms to agglomerate in an industry center. Agglomeration drives up wages in the center, compelling firms to move low-skill activities to low-wage regions. A pioneer firm provides intermediation services between outlying regions and the center. The result is a regional production network: an industry center served by high-volume production sites, where pioneers are active, and low-volume production sites, where they are not. Evidence from the Mexican garment industry supports the theory.     

Transportation rates, market structure and the production-location decision : A note

This note examines the effects of market structure on production and location decisions of an oligopolistic firm. It shows that if transportation rates are a function of quantity shipped and distance traveled, a linearly homogeneous production function is not sufficient to ensure independence between the optimum location and market structure unless (i) the elasticities of transportation rates with respect to quantity shipped are constant and identical, and (ii) the ratios of marginal products to the marginal transportation costs are equal for each input. This results is significantly different from Hwang and Mai's in the constant transportation rates case.     

Competition and innovation: The tango of the market and technology in the competitive landscape

Technology innovation can be a double‐edged sword in helping a firm to address competitive pressures. We explore the relationships among market competition, technology competition, and firms' advancement to a higher generation of production technology. Though market competition drives technology advancement as firms attempt to escape competition and technology competition also drives technology advancement as firms try to stay in the technology race, concurrent high market and technology competition lead a firm to defer advancement. We find supportive evidence with data on global flat panel display makers. Our findings shed light on how competition interacts with a firm's technology advancement decision and, in general, a firm's technology strategy.     

Optimizing Location Among Three Countries Under Exchange Rate Uncertainty: Applying Real Options

This investigation extends the Batch Process Model [Lin et al. (2002). Journal of management and system 9: 173–196] from two productive locations between two countries to establish a decision valuation model for selecting the optimal location of three productive locations among three countries, respectively. A general form with the first order of degree homothetic production functions is also considered by the rule of decision-making in the proposed model. The firm is risk neutral and this study adopts the real options approach for valuing the behavior of the transferable location among three countries. Furthermore, using Dynamic programming and Lagrange Multiplies for a continuous-Time Model Optimization Problem to get a closed form solution of the threshold value, sensitivity analysis, and some characteristic strategies of the operating method for batch process model among three countries are sought, providing for another way of thinking.     

Financial advantage,outsourcing and FDI under wage uncertainty

This paper investigates outsourcing and foreign direct investment (FDI) decisions in North–South trade under conditions of wage uncertainty. The North has a financial advantage to raise capital, but the South has the advantage of low wages. If the expected outsourcing cost is lower than the in-house production cost, some outsourcing to a Southern firm is optimal. However, outsourcing to an FDI firm is superior to outsourcing to a Southern firm as well as in-house production. This finding is consistent with the rising foreign direct investment in China by Northern firms.     

Transport rates structure,optimum location,and theory of production: Reexamination

The two-stage approach consistently to present a generalized location theory of the firm in linear space is employed. It is shown that the second-order sufficient condition for the profit-maximizing and/or cost-minimizing location problem requires that transport rates increase with distance. In the process, it is demonstrated that this approach provides a compact way to analyze the location and production decisions separately and to avoid the errors made by Mathur and others.     

LOCATION OF VERTICALLY LINKED OLIGOPOLISTS

This paper examines the geographical equilibrium of location of N vertically linked firms and its relation to the creation of an industrial cluster. In a two-region spatial economy, a monopolist firm supplies an input to N consumer goods firms that compete in quantities. When the transport cost of the input increases, downstream firms prefer to agglomerate where the upstream firm is located, to save in production cost. However, simultaneous increases in the transport cost of the input and of the consumer good or increases in the number of downstream firms lead to a relative dispersion of these firms, to reduce competition and locate closer to the local final consumer. In contrast to Mayer (2000) , when both transport costs increase, the location decision of downstream firms is based more on the geographical point that maximizes accessibility to the local final consumer than on the geographical point that minimizes the production cost.     

Testing the Porter hypothesis: the effects of environmental investments on efficiency in Swedish industry

The main objective of this paper is to test the Porter hypothesis by assessing static and dynamic effects of environmental policy on productivity. According to the hypothesis, stringent environmental regulations have dynamic effects on firm performance, and these effects eventually generate profits that offset the adaptation costs. We extend previous analyses by using unique data on environmental protection investments in the Swedish manufacturing industry as a proxy for environmental stringency. These data enable us to separate environmental protection investments into pollution prevention and pollution control. This distinction is crucial since the hypothesis claims that it is investments in prevention that have positive dynamic effects on firm performance. To test the hypothesis, a stochastic production frontier model is estimated where firm inefficiency is a function of investments in environmental protection. In general, we find no support for the Porter hypothesis within the time frame of our study, indicating that environmental regulations lead to efficiency losses. This result is even stronger in the harshly regulated pulp and paper industry.     

Production subcontracting and location

Using data from a panel of Spanish manufacturing firms, I examine factors that explain firms' production subcontracting decisions and test whether there is any evidence that production subcontracting is facilitated in areas typically associated with higher agglomeration economies. The results show that location matters. Firms in industry agglomerations are more likely to subcontract production activities. While in general, larger and older firms as well as high wage firms show a greater probability for production subcontracting, industry agglomeration particularly facilitates subcontracting for smaller and lower wage firms and it allows firms to respond to a greater degree to expansive demand conditions by taking advantage of subcontracting.     

FDI Location and Special Economic Zones in the Philippines

This paper analyzes the location behavior of foreign direct investments (FDIs) in the Philippines from 1987–1998 and points out the role special economic zones (SEZs) and infrastructure play in this location decision. The effects of real income, wages, skills, SEZs, highways and ports on the probability that a manufacturing FDI firm chooses a region are estimated using a negative binomial count model. Results yield expected signs and significant coefficients for all variables except for skills. Regressions were also run for 1987–1992 and 1993–1998 sub-periods to examine structural changes. The stark shift of investments from Metro Manila into other regions during the latter period shows some possible spillover effects of the SEZs as well as infrastructure development carried out in the previous transitional sub-period. Significant marginal effects are highest for paved highways and ports, which strongly indicate that improvement of these two regional factors increase the probability of FDI location.