Oil and the economy: evolution not revolution

Oil price shocks have had significant effects on the U.S. economy, keeping energy supply, energy policy, and energy security always in focus. The U.S. energy industry has become more efficient and productive, with increased output despite a smaller energy sector. Since the oil price shocks of the 70s, both the impact of oil price shocks and the way we think about them have changed. The impact of an oil price shock on GDP and core inflation is much smaller in magnitude than in the past and depends on the source of the price shock. The recent shale boom in the U.S. has significantly increased oil production to a record high. The short-cycle supply response of shale producers to price changes have trimmed the peaks and troughs of oil prices in the medium term. The shale boom has lowered our dependence on foreign oil and made us less vulnerable to a classic oil supply shock, but we need to contemplate the vulnerabilities that arise from the externalities of our energy use, which will become more critical as we go forward.     

Paul Sabin. Crude Politics: The California Oil Market, 1900-1940. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. xx + 307 pp. ISBN 0-520-24198-3, $39.95 (cloth).

Champions of the oil industry have long claimed that oil isthe cheapest form of energy. Why is it so cheap? The conventionalanswer emphasizes oil’s natural abundance and the wondersof market supply and demand. Most historians who study the industryat least implicitly accept this explanation. But is not resourceabundance a socially constructed concept? Can we so easily isolatemarket forces from politics and government policy in explainingthe cost and price of oil? These     

Labor,Risk, and Uncertainty in Global Supply Networks—Exploratory Insights

Arising from widespread outsourcing and, in particular, offshoring, goods and services are increasingly provided by supply networks that rely on global logistic systems. While the risks and uncertainties involved in this strategy have been widely acknowledged in the literature on interorganizational networks and supply chain management, labor conditions and labor relations—and related human resource management issues—have thus far been neglected. Starting from a perspective that takes into consideration that global supply networks are not only confronted with calculable risks but also genuine uncertainties, we explore the conditions under which labor may constitute a source as well as a means for dealing with risk and uncertainty. The study is based on a review of the relevant interorganizational network and supply chain management literature and is informed by an investigation of International Framework Agreements (IFAs) in 10 European corporations and their supply networks. IFAs—in addition to unilateral codes of conduct—could be used to detect and cope with labor‐related risk and uncertainties. However, our findings reveal that this is not the case. This leads to some tentative theoretical conclusions and implications for dealing with risk and uncertainty in global supply networks.     

Oil volatility and the option value of waiting: An analysis of the G‐7

There has recently been considerable interest in the potential adverse effects associated with excessive uncertainty in energy futures markets. Theoretical models of investment under uncertainty predict that increased uncertainty will tend to induce firms to delay production and investment. These models are widely utilized in capital budgeting and production decisions, particularly in the energy sector. There is relatively little empirical evidence, however, on whether such channels have effects on industrial production. Using a sample of G7 countries we examine whether uncertainty about a prominent commodity—oil—affects the time series variation in industrial production. Our primary result is consistent with the predictions of real options theory—uncertainty about oil prices has had a negative and significant effect on manufacturing activity in Canada, France, UK, and US. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 31:679–702, 2011     

东北亚地区能源竞争与合作问题研究

东北亚地区各国的能源供应一直处于“各自为战”状态。随着经济全球化时代的到来,能源的生产、运输、供应与消费均被纳入国际化轨道,全球范围内争夺石油资源的竞争日趋激烈。中、日、韩三国同在东北亚地区,石油资源储量贫富不一,石油自身优势不尽相同。对区外石油的依赖,特别是对中东石油进口的依赖进一步增强,使中、日、韩三国均受到供应安全隐患的威胁,惟有加强合作,才能改善本地区的能源安全状况。中、日、韩三国能否找到能源合作的利益交汇点?阻力何在?本文将在客观分析的基础上对开展地区能源合作提出若干建议。     

On ChatGPT and beyond: How generative artificial intelligence may affect research,teaching, and practice

How does ChatGPT, and other forms of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) affect the way we have been conducting—and evaluating—academic research, teaching, and business practice? What are the implications for the theory and practice of marketing? What are the opportunities and threats, and what are some interesting avenues for future research? This editorial aims to kick off an initial discussion and stimulate research that will help us better understand how the marketing field can fully exploit the potential of GenAI and effectively cope with its challenges.     

Asian demand pushes up commodity prices

Dollar prices for industrial raw materials have increased along a wide front, and oil prices are almost as high as they were before the Iraq war. Due to the weak dollar, however, consumers in the euro area have been relatively unaffected so far. Demand for raw materials will remain strong. Must we brace ourselves for a further sharp increase in commodity prices?     

Dependence on imports in the energy sector

The Federal Republic of Germany had only just recovered from the shock of the oil crisis when the stoppage of US uranium deliveries came as a forceful reminder of the dependence of its energy sector upon supplies from abroad. Fears have been voiced that the nuclear power stations may one day be faced with supply difficulties.     

Global Upturn Shaping Germany’s Economy

The global economy is currently in a phase of sustained growth. Will higher oil prices have a dampening effect on the world economy? Has the risk of inflation increased so much that monetary policy needs to be tightened more than so far anticipated? Are there any signs that global economic imbalances are being corrected?      

Oil from Chinese deposits

From 18–25 March the United Nations’ “International Meeting on Petroleum Geology” will take place in China, a country whose oil reserves up to the mid-sixties had been judged by foreign observers to be minute and the development of her oil sector of no major importance. Today, with an annual crude output of 106 mn tons, China already ranks ninth among the world’s oil producers. And, with the prospect of a further advance towards leadership among producers and exporters of the coveted energy material, the West is showing growing interest in China’s energy potential. How real is this prospect?     

On the “Invisible Inventory Conundrum” in RFID‐Equipped Supply Chains: A Data Science Approach to Assessing Tag Performance

Recent trade reports suggest that RFID implementation continues to lag lofty projections. A primary concern is that, despite the high cost of implementing RFID systems, realized read‐rates fall short of expectations. This results in the invisible inventory conundrum whereby tagged merchandise may still not be accurately represented in inventory records. Drawing from data science to address this issue, we ask: How can directed data mining models be used to identify laboratory test performance criteria for RFID tags that operate reliably across the idiosyncratic facilities (i.e., unique DCs, warehouses, and stores) that comprise apparel retailers’ supply chains? We investigate this question by advancing a methodology that integrates laboratory test performance data, field tests of RFID tags fixed to apparel items and scanned under normal operating conditions, and the application of five directed data mining models to the integrated data set of laboratory and field test results. Our analyses of 45,416 observations show that two directed data mining models may identify—with near‐100% accuracy—laboratory test criteria that discriminate tags having 99% or greater read‐rates in the field. Accordingly, our study validates a generalizable methodology for identifying technical performance standards for tags that operate reliably within apparel retailers’ supply chains.     

Oil prices decline as concerns about supplies lessen

Expectations of shorter oil supplies in the case of a war in the Middle East pushed crude oil prices upwards for many months, but in March prices started to fall significantly even before the war against Iraq had started. Does the price peak lie behind us, and can oil consumers even hope — after the war — for a prolonged period of low oil prices?     

International portfolio diversification of real assets: An inquiry

American multinational firms have grown in size and number over the past two decades. Some of this growth has been due to the search for the valuable natural resources such as oil and copper, but the search for low cost labor also has been a factor. In addition, technological advances, especially in the drug and computer industries, have stimulated the foreign investments of many firms. Another possible— and more subtl—reason for this growth in foreign business is far different from these traditional “gains from trade”; i.e., the firms could be achieving a greater stability through an international diversification of their operations. The purpose of this study is to investigate the possible benefits of internationally diversified portfolios of real assets in reducing the variance of returns.     

Business policy,ethics and society

This section will cover (a) definition of business policy: strategic decisions in the enterprise; (b) ethical behaviour above and beyond the requirements of the law: what might this involve e.g. in respect of products and markets in which the business is prepared to operate? (c) does business have a responsibility towards ‘society’? For example, should businesses decide without being legally required to do so, to undertake activities which they think are in the national interest even if this may appear to conflict with strictly commercial interests? (d) if ethical/social decisions are required, who is to make them — at what levels of an enterprise — e.g. does the board make them all or are they also expected below board level? This section will also cover: (e) practical examples in the light of changing attitudes towards business and market behaviour in the 1980's and 1990's; (f) implications of attitudes towards corporate crime and of behaviour which may not be illegal but which may be regarded as ‘unacceptable’: this will be discussed with examples from experience in Australia and other countries. The section will first explain the meaning of the phrase ‘business policy’ and will briefly outline the kinds of strategic decision which have to be made in business enterprises. It will go on to consider whether there are things a business ‘ought’ or ‘ought not’ to do even if they are within the law. The section will illustrate these problems with examples in the light of changing attitudes towards business policy and market behaviour in the 1980's and 1990's. It will take into account some recent cases of corporate crime in Australia and elsewhere and also of behaviour which while neither against the law or outside the power of the board, might be thought ‘inappropriate’.     

Cognitive mechanisms in entrepreneurship: Why and when enterpreneurs think differently than other people

Because of their importance in creating wealth—both personal and societal—entrepreneurs have long been the subject of intensive study. Past research has focused on important issues such as: Why do some people, but not others, recognize or create new opportunities? Why do some, but not others, try to convert their ideas and dreams into business ventures? And why, ultimately, are some entrepreneurs successful and others not?Efforts to answer these questions in terms of the personal characteristics of entrepreneurs generally yielded disappointing results: contrary to what informal observation suggests, entrepreneurs do not appear to differ greatly from nonentrepreneurs with respect to various aspects of personality. As a result, a growing number of researchers have recently adopted a different approach—one emphasizing the role of cognitive processes in entrepreneurship. This perspective suggests that valuable insights into the questions posed above may be obtained through careful comparison of the cognitive processes of entrepreneurs and other persons.Whereas informative research has already been conducted within this framework, the present study seeks to expand this developing perspective by building additional conceptual bridges between entrepreneurship research and the large, extant literature on human cognition. Basic research on human cognition suggests that our cognitive processes are far from totally rational; in fact, our thinking is often influenced by a number of sources of potential bias and error. It is suggested here that entrepreneurs often work in situations and under conditions that would be expected to maximize the impact of such factors. Specifically, they face situations that tend to overload their information-processing capacity and are characterized by high levels of uncertainty, novelty, emotion, and time pressure. Together, these factors may increase entrepreneurs’ susceptibility to a number of cognitive biases.Several cognitive mechanisms that may exert such effects and that have not previously been considered in detail in the literature on entrepreneurship are examined. These include: counterfactual thinking—the effects of imagining what might have been; affect infusion—the influence of current affective states on decisions and judgments; attributional style—tendencies by individuals to attribute various outcomes to either internal or external causes; the planning fallacy—strong tendencies to underestimate the amount of time needed to complete a given project or the amount of work that can be achieved in a given time; and self-justification—the tendency to justify previous decisions even if they result in negative outcomes. Each mechanism is described, and specific hypotheses concerning its potential impact on the thinking of entrepreneurs are proposed.A final section of the article touches briefly on methods for testing hypotheses concerning these mechanisms and explores the implications of this cognitive perspective for future entrepreneurship research. This section emphasizes the fact that a cognitive perspective can provide researchers in the field with several new conceptual tools and may also facilitate the development of practical procedures for assisting entrepreneurs.     

Can We Stay Ahead of the Obsolescence Curve? On Inflection Points,Proactive Preemption,and the Future of Supply Chain Management

Great companies—like great products and great nations—have always endured a four‐stage life cycle: emergence, growth, maturity, and decline. Faster clockspeeds—enabled by compressed technology cycles and accelerated by new knowledge‐sharing routines such as crowdsourcing—are shrinking life cycles. What does this mean? Entities of all kinds now find themselves in a constant race against obsolescence. We thus ask a vital question,”Can we (as a discipline) stay ahead of the obsolescence curve?” Technological and sociological inflection points promise to change the rules of engagement. For instance, 3D printing, Big Data, and drones promise to change management practice. Budget deficits, poor skill improvement, and MOOCs promise to change academe. We discuss adaptation challenges and proactive preemption as preludes to presenting various visions of the future of supply chain management.     

Sichere Stromversorgung bei hohen Anteilen volatiler erneuerbarer Energien

Recently, concerns have been rising that the energy transition may impair the security of power supply in Germany by increasing the risk of shortages and black-outs in the long run. While power generation from volatile wind and solar energy has grown rapidly, incentives to invest in conventional back-up capacity have diminished. To respond to these concerns, the German government has adopted an energy policy reform package to strengthen the regulatory framework for the power market. But is this package appropriate to sustainably safeguard the German power supply?     

Effects of the euro on trade, capital markets and the international monetary system

The implications of the introduction of the euro undoubtedly reach far beyond Europe. How will the rest of the world be affected? What role will the euro play as an international trading, investment and reserve currency? Will it be able to function as a stabilising element in the international monetary system?     

Einfluss des Klimawandels auf die deutsche Energieversorgung

German energy supply faces a fundamental and long-term change. By the middle of the century, greenhouse gas emissions will have been greatly reduced and the global climate will start to change in a visible manner. In order to determine and to quantify the physical impacts of climate change on energy supply, a climate risk indicator for the energy industry based on a series of expert interviews has been developed. Climate change-induced risks will slightly outweigh the opportunities. The restructuring of the energy system has only minor effects, because the risks inherent to non-renewable energies, in particular those related to cooling water, are replaced by new risks, especially deriving from the use of biomass.     

Energy for the future

The Eleventh World Energy Conference 1980 was held in Munich from the 8th to the 12th of September. “Looking ahead to 2020”—the title of the energy survey published for this conference—indicates that the long-term trend was in the centre of interest. Oil is a finite resource and has to be substituted in the long run. It is the period in between which causes much concern because during this time we cannot do without oil. It is against this background that we have asked Senator Wolfgang Oehme, chairman of the board of Esso A.G., to present to us his views on this critical period of time.