Institutional Reformation in Eastern Europe

This paper outlines the industrial relations system under postwar central planning in eastern Europe, examines the changes in these industrial relations systems during the subsequent political and economic transitions, and evaluates the micro and macro impacts of the new institutions on labor market developments during the transitions.     

Technological change and worker participation in Europe

This article analyses the extent, evaluation and strategies for the future of employees, representatives and management regarding participation in technological change. The results from interviews in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Denmark show a low level of involvement, particularly in strategic decision making, a positive evaluation of participation by practitioners and the intention to increase levels of involvement on both sides of industry.     

Interfirm cooperation and structural change in the European automobile industry

The past quarter-century has seen the rapid growth of interfirm cooperative arrangements, on a global scale. In the automobile industry, the forms of cooperation have ranged from mergers and acquisitions, with each partner firm retaining its corporate identity and brand name, to very informal strategic partnerships. Because of its past fragmentation, the consolidation of the European industry into “producer groups” has been a main feature of structural change. Arguably, this development and the formation of rent-seeking coalitions within the European Union were of greater significance than companies' purely technology-oriented cooperative ventures. As a result of the industry members' individual and collective rent-seeking, at the national and EU levels respectively, large price disparities among national markets have persisted. Regulatory barriers as well as the noncompetitive behavior of firms continue greatly to influence the automotive sector, despite the Union's ambitious vision of “Europe 92” as the final stage in the development of an open market for products and factors. Whatever benefits automobile producers may have derived from integration, it has done little so far to enhance consumer welfare.     

Economic planning of Eastern Europe and the USSR — the role of agriculture

Because of the large recent fluctuations in Soviet agricultural output, and rising consumer expectations and demand for food in East European nations, the latest five-year plans of these countries are showing an increase in the importance attached to agriculture and the food industry. The article examines the state of agriculture in the CMEA (Council for Mutual Economic Aid) countries and the probable effects of the plans on production and consumption. It appears that East European imports of grain are signs of prosperity rather than of gross inefficiency. The article indicates that grain production, and with it the trade balances, will improve significantly.     

The financing of R & D in some socialist countries of Eastern Europe

In the countries of Eastern Europe the financing of R & D represents a difficult problem in terms of economic scientific policy. In these countries it is not only a question of a simple apportionment of centrally-held financial means to subordinate institutions, but also one of supporting promising fields of science, protecting long-term and costly research programmes against risks and losses, and, above all, providing an incentive for R & D institutions to work out economically meaningful R & D results and translate them into economic practice. This last point is of particular importance in a system lacking a free market mechanism. A historical survey of the development of financing methods in the R & D field and of the numerous attempts to reform these methods will show the extent of the efforts made in Eastern Europe (whether successfully or not does not concern us here) to find an adequate solution to these problems.     

也谈石油行业的竞争与重组

判断垄断与否不能简单地根据企业规模和市场份额指标,市场效果最终要看企业行为对消费者利益的影响。石油行业是政府监管下的竞争性行业,是上下游一体化的大型跨国企业和小型专业企业并存的行业。我国石油天然气行业的市场组织特点是,资源和市场的区域性分割与局部过度竞争并存,主要原因是受政策和体制因素的影响。提高我国石油企业的竞争力要靠改进管理体制而不是扩大规模。石油石化企业进一步重组应明确几个问题：(1)做大不等于做强,重组应以效率为目标;(2)要首先将企业改革为真正的企业;(3)市场制度建设要先行;(4)下一轮重组应是企业市场行为而不是政府行政行为。健全石油工业管理体制和有序引入竞争应是今后石油天然气工业改革和重组的重点。政府要建立国家能源管理体制,实行石油战略管理;建立市场准入制度．严格执法;针对石油行业制定有关促进竞争和反垄断的政策;在自然垄断环节实行政府规制;进行石油市场供求信息服务;根据上下游各环节的技术经济特点,采取不同的监管机制。     

Flexible Work and Immigration in Europe

Immigration has risen substantially in many European economies, with far‐reaching if still uncertain implications for labour markets and industrial relations. This article investigates such implications, focusing on employment flexibility, involving both ‘external flexibility’ (fixed‐term or temporary agency and/or involuntary part‐time work) and ‘internal flexibility’ (overtime and/or balancing‐time accounts). The article identifies reasons why immigration should generally increase the incidence of such flexibility, and why external flexibility should rise more than internal flexibility. The article supports these claims using a dataset of establishments in 16 European countries.     

Competition Law and Competition Policy in India: How the Competition Commission has Dealt with Anticompetitive Restraints by Government Entities

Review of Industrial Organization - Can adoption of an antitrust/competition law substitute for a formal competition policy that lays down principles for reforming other government policies that...     

Competition in business networks

Most of those who write about marketing or strategy appear to view competition as the overarching logic of business. Commentators have usually associated competition with improved economic efficiency and customer well-being: they have regarded it as “a good thing”, at least in the abstract or when it only affects others. In contrast to the widespread interest of other researchers and the preoccupations of managers with competition, researchers within the IMP tradition have devoted hardly any attention to the issue in over thirty years of research and the term occurs only infrequently in the IMP literature.     

电子商务与企业竞争力

本文分析电子商务的特点和竞争优势,指出电子商务将对企业造成五个方面的影响和变革,提出为了提高企业竞争力发展电子商务的策略。     

Competition Policy in Africa

Review of Industrial Organization -     

竞争机制与网络产业的规制改革

能否以及如何在铁路运输、电信力、城市公用事业等网络产业引入竞争机制是我国经济体制改革攻坚阶段面临的一个重大而富有挑战性的课题。本文分析了我国网络产业现行体制的弊病以及垄断对其规模经济和范围经济的损害，就该类产业引入竞争机制，弱化其对特定传输网络的依赖，从而通过强化市场机制和厂商内在激励改进其供给效率提出了政策建议。     

ICT platforms and regulatory concerns in Europe

The rise of platforms in ICT markets invites a reappraisal of regulatory frameworks and practices. As platforms originating in entirely different sectors increasingly compete directly against each other, regulators ought to address platform competition issues regardless of their sector of origin, and taking into account the specificities of two-sided or multi-sided market business models. This paper identifies different types of such business models in ICT markets. It offers an exploration of a number of specific concerns that may arise related to specific platform types, and points at a number of instruments available to regulators to address these concerns.     

Collective Bargaining and Wage Dispersion in Europe

The level at which collective bargaining takes place is usually considered important in determining wage levels and wage inequalities. Two different situations are considered: a first in which bargaining is only ‘multi‐employer’, and a second in which it is ‘multi‐level’, in the sense that workers can be covered by both a ‘multi‐employer’ and a ‘single‐employer’ contract at the same time. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of these different institutional settings on pay dispersion. The study is carried out using the European Structure of Earnings Survey, which is a large dataset containing detailed matched employer–employee information for the year 1995. The countries analysed are Italy, Belgium and Spain. The empirical results generally show that wages of workers covered by only a ‘multi‐employer’ contract are no more compressed than those of workers covered by both ‘multi‐employer’ and ‘single‐employer’ contracts. This implies that where workers are not covered by single‐employer bargaining, they receive wage supplements paid unilaterally by their employers.     

透视垄断与竞争

一、垄断与竞争关系的再认识作为市场经济的一种内生机制,竞争和垄断不但有其存在的必然性,而且有其生存的合理性和历史的进步性。可以毫不夸张地说,现代市场经济的产生是竞争和垄断两股力量共同推动的结果,不含垄断因素的竞争或不带竞争因素的垄断从来是不存在的。要竞争就意味着垄断,要垄断也必须要进行竞争,两者的矛盾运动维系和推动着现代市场经济的运动。现在,我国电力市场的建设,是以计划经济时期形成的垄断市场为起点,经过逐步引入竞争,进而走向竞争性电力市场。在这个演变过程中,应当随时注意处理好竞争与垄断的关系,在电力市场发展…     

Competition and commercial media bias

This paper reviews the empirical evidence on commercial media bias (i.e., advertisers influence over media accuracy) and then introduces a simple model to summarize the main elements of the theoretical literature. The analysis provides three main policy insights for media regulators: (i) Media regulators should target their monitoring efforts towards news contents upon which advertisers are likely to share similar preferences. (ii) In advertising industries characterized by high correlation in products' qualities, an increase in the degree of competition may translate into a lower accuracy of news reports. (iii) A sufficiently high degree of competition in the market for news drives out commercial media bias.     

欧洲塑料包装材料市场新动态

新型聚萘二甲酸乙二醇酯（PEN）包装材料独领风骚，PEN比PET具有更优异的阻隔性，特别是阻气性和防紫外线性能，耐热性好，普通非晶态PEN热变形温度可达100摄氏度，而PET仅为70摄氏度，在饮料、啤酒、化妆品的包装方面有着广阔前景。由于采用工业化手段生产PEN已获得进展，不久的将来PEN有望大量进入包装领域，引发PET之后的又一次包装革命。