NATIONAL TELEVISION AND THE MARKET FOR LOCAL PRODUCTS: THE CASE OF BEER*

Information technology lowers the cost of distributing information to dispersed consumers. Because national firms reap larger benefits from new media than firms serving only local consumers, media innovations may reduce the market for local products. This paper considers the effect of television on the market for local beer. Using market‐level data on television penetration, local breweries and brewery production from 1945–1960, results show that increases in television penetration are associated with fewer local breweries and less local beer production. The results indicate that the industrial organization of media markets can affect the structure of markets for local products.     

TIME CONSISTENCY AND SELLER COMMITMENT IN INTERTEMPORAL MOVIE DISTRIBUTION: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF THE VIDEO WINDOW*

We study the determinants of the ‘video window’ (the interval between a movie's theatrical and video releases), based on a sample of 1,157 films released on video between 1988 and 1997. For subsets of films having shorter theater run lengths (1 to 17 weeks), windows were generally longer than, and largely invariant to, measures of the time required to exhaust the theater market. One interpretation of our results is that U.S. movie distributors resolved a time consistency problem by coordinating their behavior to maintain longer windows than would have otherwise resulted, but different explanations are also plausible.     

CASE STUDY: ECONOMIC VIABILITY OF COMPONENT MANAGEMENT FOR A NEW DESIGN

This paper explores the viability of standardization of design and manufacturing techniques to expedite product development and control design proliferation using an example of a leading transport refrigeration unit manufacturer. As an incremental approach to implementing standardization in a product development environment, a conceptual framework for component management decision support system is presented to build a case for its technical feasibility. The primary objective of this research case study is to provide an economic justification for implementing the proposed system. A three level decision making hierarchy is proposed with economic optimization for levels 1 and 2 representing standardization of system modules and capacity decisions for a product line respectively and thermodynamic optimization for level 3 representing control systems to keep the system dynamically balanced in changing environments. Other potential applications amenable to classification are identified.     

THE EFFECT OF AUCTION FORMAT ON EFFICIENCY AND REVENUE IN DIVISIBLE GOODS AUCTIONS: A TEST USING KOREAN TREASURY AUCTIONS*

This paper measures the efficiency and revenue properties of the two most popular formats for divisible goods auctions: the uniform‐price and discriminatory auction. We analyze bids into the Korean Treasury auctions which have used both formats. We find that the discriminatory auction yields statistically higher revenue. Unlike previous work that uses data from only one format, we are able to compare the efficiency properties of the two formats. We find that the discriminatory auction better allocates treasury bills to the highest value financial institutions. However, the differences in revenue and efficiency are not large because the auctions are very competitive.     

THE INFLUENCE OF ECONOMICS ARTICLES ON BUSINESS RESEARCH: ANALYSIS OF JOURNALS AND TIME TRENDS*

This article examines the influence of economics on business research using citation data. The share of economics in citations from business is 10.78% until 1995, but only 6.95% for 1996–2003. Four potential explanations for this decline are discussed: interdisciplinary spillover of research is slower than within a discipline; the increasing use of mathematics in economics made economics less useful for business scholars; economics articles are by their nature more long‐lived than business articles; business has grown recently more quickly than economics. The data support the second and fourth explanations. Different research spillover occurs but lasts no more than two years.     

INVESTMENT ANALYSIS FOR AUTOMOTIVE ELECTRONICS MANUFACTURING: A CASE STUDY

Investment opportunities for electronics manufacturing can create many challenging components within the standard context of economic analysis theory. First, most of these operations are dependent on significant capital investment with short analysis periods due to technological obsolescence. These problems are compounded with the reality of short product lives and fluctuating consumer demands. Perhaps the most challenging environment for electronics manufacturing is that of automotive electronics. These facilities are typically faced with similar manufacturing issues common in all electronics production but have the added difficulty in meeting very stringent quality and reliability requirements in a globally competitive market. This case study investigates the challenges in evaluating investment options in electronics manufacturing and pays specific attention to those issues that are most common to the automotive electronics market. In addition, the analysis investigates various sensitivity issues related to these investment opportunities and investigates an alternative investment option for a flexible manufacturing process.     

THE EFFECT OF TECHNOLOGICAL IMPROVEMENT ON CAPACITY EXPANSION FOR UNCERTAIN EXPONENTIAL DEMAND WITH LEAD TIMES

We formulate a model of capacity expansion that is relevant to a service provider for whom the cost of capacity shortages would be considerable but difficult to quantify exactly. Due to demand uncertainty and a lead time for adding capacity, not all shortages are avoidable. In addition, technological innovations will reduce the cost of adding capacity but may not be completely predictable. Analytical expressions for the infinite horizon expansion cost and shortages are optimized numerically. Sensitivity analyses allow us to determine the impact of technological change on the optimal timing and sizes of capacity expansions to account for economies of scale, the time value of money and penalties for insufficient capacity.     

企业间互供石脑油价格研究

企业间互供石脑油受计划经济、相关产品价格、石脑油质量标准及供货时间的影响,供需双方存在许多矛盾,关键在于石脑油价格。根据定价原则确定企业间互供石脑油的价格。尽快制定石脑油质量标准,调节７０＾＃汽油消费税,使石脑油与７０＾＃汽油价格差别趋于合理化,才能真正发挥集团优势。     

A MODEL FOR DETERMINING THE AVERAGE SERVICE LIFE OF EQUIPMENT*

In summary, we might say that an attempt has been made to trace the major thinking and the major contributions in the field of inventory-control analysis, from its inception in 1912 through the present. Raymond's monumental work, which effectively rounded out the “classical” approach, but left much to be desired, has been discussed. Also noted was the renewed interest in the subject, largely under the impetus of the work of Arrow, Harris and Marschak. The intervening and subsequent work has been traced in some detail