Contrasting Developments in UK Energy Regulation: Retail Policy and Consumer Engagement

This article explores the role of regulation as a supporting institution for an energy market. Two aspects are examined: first, the role of regulation in promoting a competitive market for the retail supply of energy, and second, the role of regulation in providing access to the transmission and distribution networks, assumed to be monopolies, that provide services for the retail suppliers. UK regulation promoted retail energy competition until 2008, but in that year changed direction, and since then has been restricting retail competition. In contrast, UK regulation since 2008 has encouraged more customer engagement in the network part of the energy sector. This offers the prospect, at least, of the emergence of a form of competition and choice in the process of setting price controls.     

British Bus Deregulation: Competition and Demand Coordination

Our framework formally explains some of the recent curious events surrounding deregulation of the British local bus industry. The winner-takes-all nature of this market induces competitive providers to engage in predatory or preemptive behavior in scheduling and pricing. Unlike previous works, we explicitly model consumers' responses to firms' schedule announcements. We show that the market is unstable if demand is uncoordinated, but stable otherwise. Our results highlight the important role played by demand-coordinating mechanisms in local bus markets and our results suggest that pure-strategy Nash equilibria exist in models à-la-Hotelling (1929) whenever demand is effectively coordinated.     

PRICE EFFECTS OF SHOPPING HOURS REGULATION: EVIDENCE FROM GERMANY

This article investigates the price effects of shopping hours legislation in order to evaluate empirically the theoretical argument that such regulations protect consumers from price increases. The paper first provides a review of the literature; it then analyses the data prior to and following the liberalisation of German shopping hours regulations in 2006 and 2007 in order to estimate the effects of these changes. The article finds that liberalisation resulted in a fall in prices. This conclusion adds to a growing body of literature suggesting that shopping hours regulations entail significant economic costs.     

Segmented Labour Markets: Theory and Evidence

This paper examines the possibility of accepting the labour market segmentation approach as a valid alternative to the classical and neo-classical analysis of labour markets. It consists of three main parts. The first part contains a historical analysis of both the distant and recent origins of the labour market segmentation hypothesis. Part two outlines the central ideas of both segmentationalists and radical theorists who attempted to explain the fragmented nature of labour markets and the importance of institutional and social influences upon pay, employment and mobility of individual workers between different labour market sectors. The third part examines the case for labour market segmentation using four alternative techniques and discusses the issue of mobility among different labour market segments. It is thereby concluded that the lack of agreement among the segmented labour market theorists on both theoretical and methodological issues has prevented them from developing a consistent and convincing argument based on verifiable empirical evidence to validate their thesis.     

Platform Owner Entry and Innovation in Complementary Markets: Evidence from Intel

This paper explores Intel's strategy with respect to complements. We find that, as the literature predicts, Intel's entry decisions are shaped by the belief that it does not have the capabilities to enter all possible markets, and thus that it must encourage widespread entry despite the fact that potential entrants (rationally) fear Intel's ability to "squeeze" them ex post. We explore the ways in which Intel addresses this issue, highlighting in particular the firm's use of organizational structure and processes as commitment mechanisms. Our results have implications for our understanding of the dynamics of competition in complements and of the role of organizational form in shaping competition.     

石家庄品牌商业创新与发展

随国家经济体制改革,我国零售市场发生了翻天覆地的变化,使得一批批曾经红火一时的品牌商业经过激烈的市场洗礼被淘汰出局,仅有少数企业始终保持着极强生命力。通过对石家庄品牌零售商业的演进轨迹分析,展开自主创新与商业生命力的探讨,进而对零售商业自主创新策略选择进行研究并提出建议。     

论高校水电管理的实践与创新

当前水电管理改革需要进入更高级的阶段——水电管理商品化。高校的水电消耗和管理是一个很复杂的过程，与各单位的工作性质、环境、条件等诸多因素有关，有时指标量的核定并不能完全反映一个部门水电消耗的客观实际，所以单一地靠指标化管理已不尽完善，随着高校后勤社会化改革的进一步深入，水电管理商品化已成为必然的发展趋势。     

石家庄品牌零售商业创新与发展研究

随国家经济体制改革,我国零售市场发生了翻天覆地的变化,使得一批批曾经红火一时的品牌商业经过激烈的市场洗礼被淘汰出局,仅有少数企业始终保持着极强生命力.通过对石家庄品牌零售商业的演进轨迹分析,展开自主创新与商业生命力的探讨,进而对零售商业自主创新策略选择进行研究并提出建议.     

Product Market Competition,Skill Shortages and Productivity: Evidence from Canadian Manufacturing Firms

In this paper, we estimate the impacts of product market competition and skill shortages on the productivity level performance of Canadian manufacturing firms. We use firms perceptions of their competitive environment from the Statistics Canada 1999 Survey of Innovation to measure product market competition and skill shortages. We argue in the paper that such perceptions are important for productivity level performance. After controlling for other factors, we find that product market competition has a positive impact on the performance of medium-sized and large-sized firms, and that skill shortages have a negative impact on the performance of small-sized and medium-sized firms.Jel Classification: L0, O0     

DEA and Dynamic Yardstick Competition in Scandinavian Electricity Distribution

Multi-period multi-product regulatory schemes for electricity distributors are presented, based on cost information from a productivity analysis model and an agency theoretical decision model. The proposed schemes are operational and demonstrate considerable advantages compared to the popular CPI-X revenue cap regulation. The schemes avoid arbitrariness, excessively high or negative informational rents as well as ratchet effects and they promote rapid productivity catch-up by making full use of available data. More generally, the paper contributes to the theoretical unification between firm-based Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) productivity models and micro-economic reimbursement theories.JEL Classification: D24, D82, L12, L51, L94     

Industry Dynamics and Competition from Low‐Wage Countries: Evidence on Italy

This article analyses the effect of competition from low‐wage countries on domestic activity, using data on 230 Italian manufacturing sectors between 1995 and 2007. It finds that low‐wage import penetration is negatively related to employment and other measures of activity. The effect is significantly smaller in more skill, capital and R&D‐intensive sectors and in more vertically differentiated sectors. There is also evidence of significant effects of low‐wage competition through inter‐industry linkages: employment is negatively related to low‐wage import penetration in downstream sectors but positively related to low‐wage import penetration in upstream sectors.     

Hospitals’ strategic behaviours and patient mobility: Evidence from Italy

This study explores the behaviour of hospitals in Lombardy in attracting patients from outside the region and investigates the effects on the quality of care to regional patients, where treatment of the latter is constrained by a budget cap while extra-regional patients represent an unconstrained source of revenue. The data suggest that hospitals use waiting time and length of stay to attract extra-regional patients. Regional patients in both private and public hospitals with higher proportions of extra-regional patients are characterized by lower mortality rates and reimbursement costs. These results suggest that the market for extra-regional patients has no negative effects on resident patients. Finally, the pattern of reimbursement for extra-regional care generates a financial flow in favour of wealthier regions, exacerbating the North–South divide in the National Health Service. Some form of regulation for extra-regional mobility is advisable to reduce the gap.     

连锁零售业冷链物流管控模式创新研究

冷链物流管控模式创新是连锁零售企业实现低温食品安全目标的重要途径。在分析连锁零售企业冷链物流管控模式创新的必要性基础上,文中提出了冷链物流管控模式创新内涵和特征,并从理念、组织结构、技术、流程、人力管理五个方面概括了冷链物流管控模式创新的方法和内容,结合冷链物流管控模式创新在上海可的便利店有限公司的实践,说明了评价冷链物流管理模式创新的经济效益和社会效益指标。     

顾客服务在现代零售业中的现状及对策研究

零售业的顾客服务是指帮助顾客解决问题为使其满意而开展的活动,它伴随于商品销售的全过程,是为促进商品销售而给顾客提供的无形产品,在现代零售业中发挥着越来越重要的作用。但我国零售业的服务水平并不高,大多数的零售企业都存在着服务理念错误、服务标准不规范、服务执行不到位、服务形式陈旧等问题。零售企业可以通过树立正确的服务理念、建立高效的服务标准、提高一线员工的服务水平和不断创新服务体系等措施提高企业的零售服务水平。     

实体零售业互联网创新演进机理--基于适应性营销能力的多案例研究

互联网创新已成为数字化时代实体零售业业态演进的主要目标。众多实体企业面临着从传统店铺零售转型为互联网零售方式的转型难题。本研究基于适应性营销能力理论,探讨了实体零售业从互联网转型战略到互联网转型项目实施过程,并构建了实体零售业互联网演进能力迁移的理论框架。研究发现:①适应性营销能力是解释实体零售业演进能力迁移的关键,实体零售企业互联网演进过程可以按照"互联网战略导向→适应性营销能力→组织政治策略→绩效"的关系进行表述;②实体零售业转型的主要战略是互联网市场导向和互联网技术导向,战略选择是基于企业自身资源基础和相对优势的分析;③实体零售业组织在互联网创新的角色具有双面性,即鼓励创新又适当妥协。研究结论进一步丰富了零售业演进理论和适应性营销理论的相关研究,对当前互联网环境下企业如何实施互联网战略转型具有实践指导意义。     

Pressure of Competition to Listed Companies in Commodity Market and Selection of Financial Leverage

As revealed by some competition of commodities supplied foreign experts, the financial leverage has an impact on the market by different listed companies, and low financial leverage implies a competitive edge but high financial leverage is liable to fail in business operation. Viewing from such an angle, the low financial leverage is in fact a conservative financial behavior, which means a reasonable selection. Generally, Chinese listed companies prefer financing from offering equity shares, which is regarded as a reasonable selection weighing both gains and risks. However, based on an analysis of the pressure of market competition to the listed companies of various industries and how they select their own fit/ancial leverage, it is found that there is an extremely unmatched phenomenon in China＇s capital market, i.e., the keener the commodity market competition is, the higher the financial leverage of listed companies will be. Therefore, the over-financing from offering equity shares is coexisting with under-financing from offering equity shares in China＇s capital market at present, and both lead listed companies to low efficiency.     

从系统角度看物流企业竞争机制创新——以快递业为例

近年,国内物流产业发展迅速,处于实物分配阶段向物流整合阶段过渡的时期。市场需求的趋同,使得物流企业之间竞争更加激烈。物流企业传统的竞争机制主要是依赖于价格竞争,但是单一的价格竞争正面临着越来越多的不足。从系统的角度看,可以分别基于系统资源的整合、系统流程的改善、系统需求的提升、系统规则的调整、系统范围的扩大等五个方面,来进行物流企业竞争机制的创新。     

我国现阶段零售业发展面临的问题及建议

我国本土零售企业发展迅速,从20世纪90年代中期开始,零售业态爆发了一场迅速的革命。不到10年的时间,我国的零售业从只有柜台式百货商店的单一业态发展为多种业态并存竞争的格局。随着我国加入WTO,零售业全面向外资开放,本土零售企业面临的竞争变得更加激烈。零售企业在迅速发展中也出现了许多问题。文中对我国零售业发展中的问题进行分析,并在微观层面上提出若干对策。