基于成本差异的最佳贸易与产业政策选择

本文讨论了存在成本差异的第三国市场模型的最佳贸易与产业政策选择问题，讨论了社会成本和私人成本、本国和外国成本差异情况下的Cournot竞争和Bertrand竞争的情况。本文发现，在Cournot竞争下，政府首先行动时，当政府基金影子价格低于4／3时，政府对出口进行补贴，并且本国越有成本优势，补贴越高，补贴的利润转移效应越大；当政府基金影子价格高于4／3时，政府对出口征收出口税，且本国越有成本优势，征税越多。在Bertrand竞争下，当政府先行动时，对出口征收出口税；当政府后行动时，对出口进行补贴。当本国企业具有劣势时，事后补贴是最佳政蓑。     

基于UG的滑动式车门运动模型建立

滑动式车门的运动主要沿着车身侧围运动。因此,滑动式车门的运动相对铰链式车门的运动复杂,这就给设计带来了很大困难。由于三维设计软件的发展,可以在设计阶段通过建立虚拟的运动模型来指导设计。文章介绍通过运用UG NX5.0软件来建立某款车型的滑动车门运动模型,并对其应用进行分析。     

基于UG的滑动式车门运动模型建立

滑动式车门的运动主要沿着车身侧围运动。因此,滑动式车门的运动相对铰链式车门的运动复杂,这就给设计带来了很大困难。由于三维设计软件的发展,可以在设计阶段通过建立虚拟的运动模型来指导设计。文章介绍通过运用UG NX5.0软件来建立某款车型的滑动车门运动模型,并对其应用进行分析。     

Sensitive translations: Sensitive dimension and knowledge within two craftsmen's workplaces

In our paper we address the issue of the relations between knowledge and the sensitive dimension by taking into account and comparing the contribution to the production of a chair deployed by two craftsmen working within the Italian design furniture industry sector.Relying on an ethnographic account of their work, we have been able to describe in detail the way in which the interaction among the bodies of the two craftsmen and those of the artifacts they contribute to develop takes place and gives way to innovation.By taking into account the role of bodies and the sensitive dimension we outline a contribution to Actor-Network Theory and its theory of knowledge.Indeed, in this article we propose a model of working knowledge in order to account for corporal interaction on the workplace. In our model there are two axes to describe the interactions among bodies. In the first one interaction moves from detail to the whole. In the second, interaction moves from an engaged position to a disengaged one. In so doing, we are able to draw a space of corporal knowledge. The craftsman's skill lies in his/her capacity to move within this space and to let knowledge grow while moving within it.     

Reprint of “Sensitive translations: Sensitive dimension and knowledge within two craftsmen's workplaces”

In our paper we address the issue of the relations between knowledge and the sensitive dimension by taking into account and comparing the contribution to the production of a chair deployed by two craftsmen working within the Italian design furniture industry sector.Relying on an ethnographic account of their work, we have been able to describe in detail the way in which the interaction among the bodies of the two craftsmen and those of the artifacts they contribute to develop takes place and gives way to innovation.By taking into account the role of bodies and the sensitive dimension we outline a contribution to Actor-Network Theory and its theory of knowledge.Indeed, in this article we propose a model of working knowledge in order to account for corporal interaction on the workplace. In our model there are two axes to describe the interactions among bodies. In the first one interaction moves from detail to the whole. In the second, interaction moves from an engaged position to a disengaged one. In so doing, we are able to draw a space of corporal knowledge. The craftsman's skill lies in his/her capacity to move within this space and to let knowledge grow while moving within it.     

Leadership Education Across Disciplines: The Social Science Perspective

The current article makes a distinction between pedagogical delivery and “disciplinary foundations” in our approaches to leadership studies. Although the liberal arts are helpful in the delivery of leadership content in the classroom, it is argued that the content, at its core, remains a social science enterprise. Therefore, leadership programs should help students understand how leadership works as a social phenomenon. The current article shows how the McDonough curriculum moves students beyond leadership training (with its focus on skill building), using a social science–based working definition of leadership. Leadership education provides the opportunity to organize the curriculum using the social science lenses. By moving the focus away from the leader and examining instead the complex interaction of multiple components, a deeper understanding of how leadership works under different contexts, influenced by a variety of societal norms and values can be obtained.     

Matching and semi-parametric IV estimation, a distance-based measure of migration, and the wages of young men

Our paper estimates the effect of US internal migration on wage growth for young men between their first and second job. Our analysis of migration extends previous research by: (i) exploiting the distance-based measures of migration in the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth 1979 (NLSY79); (ii) allowing the effect of migration to differ by schooling level and (iii) using propensity score matching to estimate the average treatment effect on the treated (ATET) for movers and (iv) using local average treatment effect (LATE) estimators with covariates to estimate the average treatment effect (ATE) and ATET for compliers.We believe the Conditional Independence Assumption (CIA) is reasonable for our matching estimators since the NLSY79 provides a relatively rich array of variables on which to match. Our matching methods are based on local linear, local cubic, and local linear ridge regressions. Local linear and local ridge regression matching produce relatively similar point estimates and standard errors, while local cubic regression matching badly over-fits the data and provides very noisy estimates.We use the bootstrap to calculate standard errors. Since the validity of the bootstrap has not been investigated for the matching estimators we use, and has been shown to be invalid for nearest neighbor matching estimators, we conduct a Monte Carlo study on the appropriateness of using the bootstrap to calculate standard errors for local linear regression matching. The data generating processes in our Monte Carlo study are relatively rich and calibrated to match our empirical models or to test the sensitivity of our results to the choice of parameter values. The estimated standard errors from the bootstrap are very close to those from the Monte Carlo experiments, which lends support to our using the bootstrap to calculate standard errors in our setting.From the matching estimators we find a significant positive effect of migration on the wage growth of college graduates, and a marginally significant negative effect for high school dropouts. We do not find any significant effects for other educational groups or for the overall sample. Our results are generally robust to changes in the model specification and changes in our distance-based measure of migration. We find that better data matters; if we use a measure of migration based on moving across county lines, we overstate the number of moves, while if we use a measure based on moving across state lines, we understate the number of moves. Further, using either the county or state measures leads to much less precise estimates.We also consider semi-parametric LATE estimators with covariates (Frölich 2007), using two sets of instrumental variables. We precisely estimate the proportion of compliers in our data, but because we have a small number of compliers, we cannot obtain precise LATE estimates.     

Statistical inference for moving‐average Lévy‐driven processes: Fourier‐based approach

We consider a new method of semiparametric statistical estimation for the continuous‐time moving‐average Lévy processes. We derive the convergence rates of the proposed estimators and show that these rates are optimal in minimax sense.     

The Influence of Uncertain Job Location on Urban Form and the Journey to Work

Standard urban models assume residents never think about their next job. More likely, the individual value of a given home and the choice of commute length are based not only on the current job site, but also on the expectation of where future jobs will be and the likelihood of both job separations and residential moves. The first factor lessens the value of access to the present job, while the second determines the opportunity cost of moving. Both sets of factors lead to flatter rent gradients and more sprawl than predicted by standard theories. The analysis further suggests that relatively stable jobs are likely associated with relatively shorter commutes. Past studies of the regional balance of jobs and housing, of “wasteful” commuting, of differences in the length of commute by gender, and of spatial tests for discrimination in housing and local labor markets have neglected these considerations, and may yield biased results as a consequence.     

Convexity and duality properties of a quadratic intraregional location model

This paper has two main purposes. The first one is to analyse the convexity and duality properties of a quadratic intraregional location model that has been developed for long-term indicative planning in the Stockholm region. The second one is to review the results of Koopmans and Beckmann (1957) about the inadequacy of a linear price system in sustaining an optimal assignment of plants to locations when the costs of transporting intermediary commodities are taken into consideration. At the outset a model is formulated which is a transposition of a continuous Koopmans-Beckmann model into the urban scene. It is shown that this quadratic programming model is non-convex in all practical cases of interest, due to the simple fact that transportation costs increase with distance. A modification of the model is proposed in which the centralising transportation cost criterion is traded of against a decentralising so called congestion cost which penalizes over-exploitation of urban space. It is shown that the modified model tends to be convex. In the light of these results Kuhn- Tucker theory is used to derive a set of conditions that will ensure that the optimal solution is stable relative to all potential moves by individual decision-makers. This result forms the basis for the conclusion that the failure of the price system in the Koopmans-Beckmann model is rather due to properties of the quadratic criterion function than the integral restrictions on the variables.     

Wages, Welfare Benefits and Migration

Differences in economic opportunities give rise to strong migration incentives, across regions within countries, and across countries. In this paper we focus on responses to differences in welfare benefits across States. We apply the model developed in Kennan and Walker (2008), which emphasizes that migration decisions are often reversed, and that many alternative locations must be considered. We model individual decisions to migrate as a job search problem. A worker starts the life-cycle in some home location and must determine the optimal sequence of moves before settling down. The model is sparsely parameterized. We estimate the model using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1979). Our main finding is that income differences do help explain the migration decisions of young welfare-eligible women, but large differences in benefit levels provide surprisingly weak migration incentives.     

GMM estimation of spatial autoregressive models with moving average disturbances

In this paper, we introduce the one-step generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation methods considered in Lee (2007a) and Liu, Lee, and Bollinger (2010) to spatial models that impose a spatial moving average process for the disturbance term. First, we determine the set of best linear and quadratic moment functions for GMM estimation. Second, we show that the optimal GMM estimator (GMME) formulated from this set is the most efficient estimator within the class of GMMEs formulated from the set of linear and quadratic moment functions. Our analytical results show that the one-step GMME can be more efficient than the quasi maximum likelihood (QMLE), when the disturbance term is simply i.i.d. With an extensive Monte Carlo study, we compare its finite sample properties against the MLE, the QMLE and the estimators suggested in Fingleton (2008a).     

Strategic Moves and Organizational Survival in Turbulent Environments: The Case of Spanish Banks (1983–97)*

abstract The main purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of ‘strategic moves’ (or strategic change) on the likelihood of organizational survival in a population of firms which has undergone radical transformations in its environment. To this end, we propose and test two competitive hypotheses which are the result of two other theoretical perspectives about the consequences of strategic change: the adaptation view (classic strategic management and dynamic capabilities) and the ecological approach. While from the former, in general, it is assumed that strategic change has a positive effect on the likelihood of organizational survival, from the ecological approach, it is frequently argued that attempts at reorganization in general and strategic change in particular tend to be associated with an increase in the likelihood of organizational extinction. The sample used to test the two proposed hypotheses is the Spanish bank population over the period 1983–97. The results confirm the positive and significant effect of strategic moves (or strategic change) on the likelihood of organizational survival, in line with the conclusions of the adaptive perspective and other empirical research carried out in different settings. This paper introduces two important methodological innovations: (a) the definition and measurement of ‘strategic moves’ (or strategic change) by using a new cluster algorithm, the MCLUST; and (b) the control of the non‐observable heterogeneity using panel data models for ‘probit’ regression.     

Mobility and optimal tenure choice

In this paper, we offer a dynamic model of the optimal tenure behavior of an individual who faces the possibility of moving multiple times during his lifetime. We also investigate the lifetime effects of such factors as income tax, property tax, transaction costs, and mortgage rates on the household’s tenure choice. The agents in the model utilize a genetic algorithm, a probabilistic search approach, to determine their optimal lifetime tenure choice path. The agents are forward looking in that they anticipate such possible events as changes in jobs, marital status, household size, or dissatisfaction with current residence. Our results suggest several housing policy implications and explain some of the empirical findings in the literature.     

Optimal promotions of competing firms in a frictional labour market with organizational hierarchies

We study optimal promotion decisions of hierarchical firms, with one junior and one senior managerial position, which interact in a search and matching labour market. Workers acquire experience over time while being employed in a junior position and the firm has to determine the experience level at which the worker receives a promotion which allows her to fill a senior position. Promoted workers move to the senior position in their current firm, if it is vacant, otherwise they search for senior positions on the market. The promotion cut-offs of the competing firms exhibit strategic complementarity, but we show that generically a unique stable symmetric general equilibrium exists. We find that stronger competition among firms leads to later (earlier) promotions if the initial number of firms is small (large) giving rise to an inverse U-shape relationship. In the presence of two skill groups, stronger competition among firms reduces the importance of skill differences, so the gap in wages and promotion times decreases with the number of firms. The model is compatible with empirical evidence that high-skill workers are promoted faster than the low-skilled and that internal promotions are more frequent than cross-firm moves to a higher hierarchical position.     

Economic Design of EWMA Charts with Variable Sampling Intervals

Control charting is a graphical expression and operation of statistical hypothesis testing. In the present paper, we develop the economic design of the variable sampling intervals (VSI) exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) charts to determine the values of the six test parameters of the charts (i.e., the sample size, the long sampling interval, the short sampling interval, the warning limit coefficient, the control limit coefficient, and exponential weight constant) such that the expected total cost is minimized. The genetic algorithm (GA) is applied to search for the optimal values of the six test parameters of the VSI EWMA chart, and an example is provided to illustrate the solution procedure. A sensitivity analysis is then carried out to investigate the effects of model parameters on the solution of the economic design.     

Must Sell

Why are moving sales a successful and widespread phenomenon? How can it be optimal for a seller to disclose her low valuation for the item to be sold? We propose an explanation based on the “lemons problem” in bargaining with asymmetric information about quality. Disclosing a low valuation signals that there are significant gains from trade, so that trade takes place when it wouldn't otherwise, and all agents are made better off.     

Urban density and pupil attainment

We explore the association between urban density and pupil attainment using three cohorts of pupils in schooling in England. Although—as widely recognised—attainment in dense urban places is low on average, this is not because urban environments disadvantage pupils, but because the most disadvantaged pupils with low average attainments attend the most urbanised schools. To control for this, we exploit changes in urban density faced by pupils during compulsory transition from Primary to Secondary school, and measure educational progress at the end of the Secondary phase, relative to attainment at the end of Primary schooling. Our results suggest that there are small but significant benefits from education in schools in more densely urbanised settings. We detect this density advantage even amongst pupils moving relatively short distances between Primary and Secondary schools within urban areas, so we cannot attribute it to broad urbanisation effects experienced by pupils making rural–urban school moves. A more likely explanation lies in greater school choice and competition between closely co-located educational providers.     

Optimal technology choice in a dynamic-stochastic environment

The issue of technology management has become particularly relevant to operations planners as a result of the introduction of new, computer-aided process technologies in recent years. At the same time, the fields of economics and management science have developed a number of models and paradigms for technology management and equipment replacement. In this article we present a model structure that builds on this theory and that is directed toward providing insights into the particular issues associated with fixed versus variable cost trade-offs.A fairly general, dynamic, stochastic model is presented. This model links production planning with technology selection in a direct manner. The model computes optimal production plans in the face of uncertain demand in the course of evaluating the costs and benefits of each technology alternative. The key result of the article concerns conditions for the optimality of moves to lower variable cost technologies.     

Organizational De‐development*

ABSTRACT Organizational decline prompts leaders to downsize, reducing the size of the workforce in an attempt to cut costs. This paper discusses some of the dangers of downsizing in which organizations experience an unanticipated and unwanted loss of core competencies. An alternative to downsizing is offered, showing how organizations can ‘de‐develop’ by slowly and deliberately moving to a lower order of organized complexity, retaining essential core competencies and supporting functions. To produce a ‘soft‐landing’ that preserves core competencies, a new identity is forged and connections to the new identity are uncovered. The connections point out what must be preserved, such as a crucial channel for key products, for the new identity to survive and flourish. The de‐developed organization preserves customers, products, markets, channels, revenue sources, alliances, skilled people, ways to organize, and/or image crucial to the new strategic identity before letting go of the remaining customers, products, etc. The paper identifies conditions under which de‐development can be desirable and suggests a ‘devolutionary’ process that points out some of the key moves needed to reduce organized complexity and realize a soft landing.