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.     

Telecommunications in Central and Eastern Europe: Similarities,peculiarities and trends of change in the countries of transition

The paper overviews the current state and modernization strategies of telecommunications in Central and Eastern European countries comprising Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria. In the mid-1990s telephone density is relatively low; advanced telecommunications services are scarcely established. However, the significance of telecommunications is recognized, and therefore intensive expansion and modernization plans have been formed and a change of the legislative environment is in process. The main intention of the paper is to summarize the general features and trends in Central and Eastern European telecommunications and to derive from the experiences a possible way to harmonize the responsibilities for basic telecommunication services and the expectations for business-oriented operation.     

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.     

Trade and dietary diversity in Eastern Europe and Central Asia

In public and academic debates, the linkages between agricultural markets and nutrition across the world are vividly discussed. This paper contributes to the ongoing debate by analyzing the relationship between greater openness to trade and dietary diversity. It focuses on the post-communist countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia where trade reforms triggered growth in trade flows and foreign direct investment, which in turn affected food systems in these countries. This shift provides a natural experiment for studying the effects of trade openness on agricultural markets and consumer behaviour. Reduction in trade barriers, for instance in the context of the accession to the WTO and the EU, and the gradual integration with world markets after 1991 had implications for diets through changes in production, prices and incomes. We utilize country-level panel data for 26 post-communist countries in the period 1996–2013 to assess the effects of trade costs, agricultural trade openness and incomes on dietary diversity measured by the Shannon entropy index. The results from fixed effects and instrumental variables estimation are consistent with previous findings that income growth affects dietary diversity positively. They also provide novel evidence that trade barriers reduce variety of products available in domestic markets, in particular fruits and vegetables.     

Varieties of Multinationals: Adapting Employment Practices in Central Eastern Europe

"Home-country effects" on multinational companies' practices abroad are assessed by comparing twelve German- and U.S.-owned plants within the same sector in the "institutionally permissive" Poland, Hungary, and Slovenia. Differences are detected on functional flexibility, corporate culture and working time, but not on participation. Work organization seems more integral to national productive models than industrial relations. Moreover, considerable intramodel variation reflects product- and labor-market contingencies. The results support the interpretation of national models as internally heterogeneous and dynamic.     

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.     

Capacity development in food and nutrition in central and Eastern Europe: A decade of achievements

This article summarizes the activities performed by the Network for Capacity Development in Nutrition in Central and Eastern Europe and Balkan countries (NCDNCEE) in the past decade. The article gives a retrospective of the achievements and challenges in building capacity in nutrition research.Recognizing the lack of capacity and incoherent nutritional situation in CEE/BC, the United Nations University (UNU), Food & Nutrition Programme and the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition (SCN) encouraged the formation of NCDNCEE in 2005, which became CAPNUTRA in 2012.The network’s aim was to initiate and support tailor-made activities for capacity development in food & nutrition in research and training in CEE/BC. To identify the challenges and needs of nutrition research in the region, the network performed inventories on existence of food composition databases, food systems elements, dietary surveys, micronutrient recommendations, application of dietary assessment methods and grey literature. Further on, the network focused on the development of food composition databases and concomitant data management software, the Diet Assess & Plan platform for food consumption collection, dietary intake assessment and nutrition planning. These and other elements form the Balkan Food Platform, which underpins harmonized nutrition research in CEE/BC. Among key actions promoted by the platform are EFSA-supported dietary surveys conducted in four Balkan countries, on children and adults, in which food consumption data are collected and analysed in a harmonized way. Cooperation with FAO and active participation in international research projects enhanced the exchange of information and knowledge and brought international recognition to the CAPNUTRA network.     

Competition in the telecommunications infrastructure: Implications for the peripheral regions and small countries in Europe

Recent technological, economic and policy shifts have placed the issues surrounding future communications infrastructure development and competition at the centre of European debates in the mid-1990s. This article examines how realistic, viable or universal is the vision of competing, alternative telecommunications infrastructures and facilities, especially in the case of the smaller and less developed economies/regions. This article critically assesses the challenges posed by, and implications of, competition in the telecommunications infrastructures in the less favoured regions and smaller economies of Europe.     

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.     

Agricultural credit problems and policies during the transition to a market economy in Central and Eastern Europe

This paper assesses the problems of financing Central and Eastern European agriculture during the present transitionary period and the role of government in this process. Initially the paper looks at why credit markets work imperfectly, even in well developed market economies, focusing on problems related to asymmetric information, adverse selection, moral hazard, credit rationing, optimal debt instrument choice and initial wealth. It shows why these and related problems may cause transaction costs to be so high that credit rationing and high interest rates are rational and efficient responses by lenders to the imperfect information problems of the agricultural sector. A series of specific, transition-related issues are then discussed which have worsened these problems within the Central and Eastern European agricultural sector. The potential roles of governments in solving these issues and actual observed interventions by Central and Eastern Europe governments through credit subsidies, loan guarantees and specialised agricultural lending institutions are analysed. Finally, the paper discusses how financial market innovations have solved some of the credit market problems and derives the implications for government policies.     

Competition in telecommunications

The author examines the impact of competition from both domestic and international perspectives. He provides a critique of the pro-competition argument, although a number of advantages of competition are also outlined. The advantages are discussed in relation to equipment and services. International trends towards competition are then described and the disadvantages of such trends are debated in relation to cross-subsidization, interconnection, the telecommunications manufacturing industry, and the market structure. Finally, competition in the international arena is discussed.     

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。     

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...     

Differentiation and Competition in HMO Markets

This paper examines how differentiation among Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) affects local market competition. Most markets for HMOs appear sufficiently unconcentrated; however, differences among HMOs may make competition less intense than the number of competitors would suggest. To investigate this possibility, we distinguish HMOs that serve only local markets from those that operate regional or national networks. We analyze how HMOs of one type affect the profitability of the other using an equilibrium model of entry and product choice. While the two types of HMOs have strong competitive effects within segments, the competitive effect of differentiated firms is negligible.     

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 Policy in Africa

Review of Industrial Organization -     

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。