INTERNATIONAL GOVERNANCE OF THE INTERNET: AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS

Economists have long recognised that government may serve as a vehicle to create and maintain monopoly power and hence generate economic rents for a favoured few. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has a government-provided monopoly of the allocation of top-level domains (TLDs) on the A-root server and so generates economic rents. The A-root server is the only computer network that links registered TLDs to the Internet. This paper uses insights of the economics of regulation and rent seeking to explain how existing technology may bypass ICANN and thus restore a competitive market in domain names.     

AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF THE CHANGING ROLE OF THE GERMAN BUNDESBANK AFTER 1983

A cointegrated VAR model describing a small macroeconomic system consisting of money, income, prices, and interest rates is estimated on split sample data before and after 1983. The monetary mechanisms are found to be significantly different. Before 1983 the money supply is controllable and expansion or contraction of money supply has the expected effect on prices, income, and interest rates. After 1983 the conventional mechanisms no longer seem to work. The empirical analysis points to the crucial role of the bond rate in the system, particularly for the more recent period.     

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURING: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF THE RELATIONSHIPS AND DIMENSIONS OF STRUCTURES IN CERTAIN FINNISH COMPANIES

The relationships of structure and structural factors at a general level are examined on the basis of data from a Finnish sample of mostly small and medium-sized industrial organizations. the sample, which consists of shoe and clothing firms, is homogeneous in terms of basic technology and industrial environment. the structural relationships are analysed from the point of view of size so that the interaction or concurrence of size and specialization is seen as a primary determinant of the systems of structural relationships. Some additional contextual variables are included in the analysis. Further, the factors or dimensions of structure reported are built on the basic variables of coordination and control. the factors are managerial supervision, the administrative component in general, including the clerical component, which is of particular importance, and impersonal mechanisms.     

THE IMPACT OF OWNERSHIP AND CAPITAL STRUCTURE ON MANAGERIAL MOTIVATION AND STRATEGY IN MANAGEMENT BUY-OUTS: A CULTURAL ANALYSIS

This study examines, from a cultural perspective, owner-managers’and other stakeholders’interpretations of the partial fusion of ownership and control through high leverage in eight UK management buy-outs (MBOs). Owner-control and debt-control are interpreted as having positive effects on managerial motivation, organizational decision-making processes and implementation of cost reduction strategies and negative ones on fundamental changes in strategy and acquisition. These interpretations accord broadly with agency theory propositions but show that owner-managers place less emphasis on wealth incentive effects and more emphasis on the enabling and facilitating roles of collective ownership and the freedom it gives from inappropriate corporate control.     

THE BUSINESS OF RECONCILIATION: ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY IN POST-CONFLICT RWANDA

In post-conflict Rwanda trade and enterprise are leading to increased levels of co-operation among former enemies. Economic interaction is providing a cost-effective alternative to state-led reconciliation programmes as a mechanism for justice and healing. Governments seeking to provide effective transitional justice and reconciliation should therefore facilitate private-sector efforts by actively working to improve the institutional environment for doing business.     

TIMELY MANAGEMENT CHANGES AS AN ELEMENT OF ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGY

This article uses the results of empirical research into the factors determining the differential success of firms in dealing with severe conditions at the industry level. A matched pairs comparison of successful and unsuccessful firms under these conditions reveals very different patterns of strategic measures taken. One of the significant differences is that the successful firms make changes in the management area very early, while the unsuccessful firms make them very late. the results are used for a theoretical reflection focusing on the following two questions: (1) Are organizations basically inert of adaptive? and (2) What is management's role in organizational change? the central theme of the discussion is that in the literature too little attention is paid to timely management changes as an element of organizational change strategies.     

MODELS OF BANKING INSTABILITY: A PARTIAL REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Abstract. This paper critically examines the theoretical literature on banking instability that has followed Diamond and Dybvig (1983). It explores the extent to which it (a) explains banking instability within a theoretical context in which financial intermediaries improve on unintermediated markets, and (b) justifies government involvement in the financial intermediation industry. It suggests that the literature has yet to provide a satisfactory theoretical basis for banking instability as such since the intermediaries which arise from it are peculiar mutual funds that bear little resemblance to real-world banks. In addition, the paper challenges the widespread belief that this literature provides a sound foundation for government involvement in the industry. It suggests that arguments for government intervention are open to objection on various grounds, the most important one being that they are inconsistent with the existence of properly motivated financial intermediation in these models.     

AN ANALYSIS OF PROJECTED URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT COSTS IN INDIA*

There is considerable apprehension concerning the cost of rapid urbanization in developing countries. However, actual costs of urbanization have seldom been computed. This paper provides a relatively simple procedure for making such cost estimates from information which is readily available from executing agencies involved in urban infrastructure projects in India. It is found that infrastructure costs are not systematically different for large and small cities. Differences in costs are more related to differences in physical factors such as geography, terrain, and climate, and especially to the different levels of service standards used. It is also found that the costs of replacement investment assume increasing significance with growing urbanization. Planning activities must therefore give greater emphasis to replacement investments than is generally the case. The main conclusion is that the cost of providing basic urban infrastructure in India can be kept within manageable limits in the foreseeable future provided that modest standards are maintained. The appropriate level of urban infrastructure investment should be roughly double the current level in India.     

THE TECHNO-ECONOMIC ECOLOGY OF CORPORATE STRATEGY

Abstract C orporate strategy is viewed as a set of guidelines or policy heuristics developed as a response to the contingencies faced by a firm. If the environment is rich in contingencies, as when it is dynamic, complex, and uncertain, the firm's corporate stratedgy is likely to be comprehensive or multi-faceted. If the environment is not rich in contingencies, as when the environment is stable or predictable, the strategy is likely to be quite limited in scope. Data from seventy-nine firms are consistent with this contingency view of corporate strategy. When the perceived importance of each of several activities is correlated with the perceived magnitudes of different forms of competition and technological change experienced by the firm, it is found that (i) the associations between these techno-economic environmental variables and the importance of these activities are generally positive; and (ii) there are striking differences, as between the techno-economic variables, in their relationships with the importance of four areas of stratedgic import that are secured by classifying these activities by function. The observed relationships are explained in terms of contingencies that the techno-economic variables may create for the firm. Plans for further research are briefly outlined.     

PRIVATISATION AND EFFICIENCY IN THE UK WATER INDUSTRY: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS*

ABSTRACTS The post-privatisation structure of the UK water industry involves the separation of environmental services from other outputs previously produced under an integrated system by the publicly-owned water authorities. This paper examines the extent to which the integrated authorities benefitted from joint production. Estimating a dynamic multi-product cost function from pooled cross-section, time-series quality adjusted data drawn from the accounts of the water authorities for the period 1979/80–1987/88, prior to privatisation, significant elements of joint production are found. Divestiture of the industry, arguably justified on other criteria, implies the loss of substantial areas of cost complimentary.     

施工用临时支架结构中支撑作用分析

施工支架是施工中常见的临时结构形式,目前我国常用的施工支架形式有扣件式,门式和碗扣式。随着建筑形式的变化,施工中高、大支架结构的使用日益广泛。由于支架是临时结构,长期以来,它的研究并没有引起人们的高度重视,其设计理论也还有很多不成熟的地方,加上工地现场管理的问题,致使在我国发生的建筑施工事故中有四分之一与支架的失效有关,造成了巨大的人身财产损失。本文利用有限元分析软件ANSYS建立了门式钢管支架的计算模型,通过对比不同支撑搭设方式下支架的极限承载力,对门式支架结构体系中支撑的作用进行了研究。研究表明支架的极限承载力与其失稳模态有关,而失稳模态是由竖向斜撑的设置方式决定的。通过改变竖向斜撑的设置,可以提高支架结构的稳定极限承载力。