An economic analysis of deferred examination system: Evidence from a policy reform in Japan

We investigate how a deferred patent examination system promotes ex-ante screening of patent applications, which reduces both the number of granted patents and the use of economic resources for examinations, without reducing the return from R&D. Based on a real option theory, we develop a model of examination request behaviors. Exploiting the responses of Japanese firms to recent policy reform, we find that the shortening of the allowable period for an examination request significantly increases both eventual and early requests, controlling for the blocking use of a pending patent application. This effect is stronger in technology areas with higher uncertainty. These results support the importance of uncertainty for an applicant and of ex-ante screening.     

Matsushita v. Zenith: An economic analysis

The Supreme Court erred by deciding that the proposition — that the Japanese television manufacturers, the defendants inMatsushita, had acted as independent competitors — had greater plausibility than the plaintiffs' charge that they had conspired to depress U.S. prices and take a large part of the U.S. market. Independent competitors would not have exported to the U.S., where prices were much below those in the home market. Moreover, the record evidence showed collusion in both the home and U.S. markets. Intent was also shown by the construction of large capacity to supply the U.S.Professor of Economics, New School for Social Research. I was co-author of Horace J. DePodwin, David Schwartzman, and Marcio Teixeira, "Economic Study of the Japanese Television Industry, prepared for plaintiffs' counsel in the Japanese Electronic Products Litigation, M.D.L. 189, Civ. Nos. 74–2451 and 74–3247 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, September 1979 [hereafter referred to as the DePodwin Report]. The present article is based on David Schwartzman,The Japanese Television Cartel: A Study Based on Matsushita v. Zenith (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1993).     

实行精细化管理提高企业经济效益

为适应社会主义市场经济条件下煤炭企业发展需要,义煤集团供电分公司提出了以“堵塞漏洞、节支增收、严字当头,细微处入手”的精细化管理模式,并采取相应措施加以实施,通过近三年的实践,改变了粗放型管理模式,使企业的管理日趋完善,基本实现了制度化、标准化、规范化和人性化.供电分公司依靠自身管理,多项经济技术指标创出了历史最高水平,经济效益连年攀升,为义煤集团的不断发展做出了巨大贡献.     

East European feed grain imports: An economic analysis

The economic factors influencing feed grain imports of East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary were analysed by the authors for the 1961–1974 period. They used an economic framework usually applied to trade behaviour of market economics but found it applicable to the centrally-planned countries studied. Imports were significantly affected by international grain prices, domestic grain and livestock production, and government policies toward agriculture.     

ICTs quality and technical efficiency: An empirical analysis

In 1987, Robert M. Solow hinted at the computer age and productivity statistics puzzle. While this puzzle persisted for many years, a growing literature has picked it up to examine the effect of ICTs on technical efficiency. However, this literature has focused mainly on quantity-based ICTs measures, which have come under severe criticism in recent times. We advance this literature in this paper by shifting the focus of analysis to quality-based ICTs measures; in this case, Internet quality. We also extend the literature by examining how the envisaged relationship between ICTs quality and technical efficiency is conditioned by a country's unique attributes. Our results show a significantly positive effect of ICTs quality on technical efficiency. We also find that the technical efficiency gains associated with ICTs quality are higher in skill-abundant countries, countries that engage more intensively in cross-border trade, have stronger contracting institutions, and are endowed with well-functioning and well-developed financial markets that ensure greater efficiency of capital allocation. We find a network effect in the nexus between ICTs quality and technical efficiency. That is, the marginal effect of ICTs quality on technical efficiency increases as the number of Internet users expands. We discuss the policy implications of our findings.     

Producing biodiesel from soybeans in Zambia: An economic analysis

Facing a huge fiscal burden due to imports of its entire petroleum demand in the face of ample supply of agricultural land to produce biofuels, Zambia has recently introduced a biofuel mandate. However, a number of questions, particularly those related to the economics of biofuels, have not been fully investigated yet. Using an empirical model, this study analyzes the economics of meeting the biodiesel mandate using soybean oil. The study finds that meeting the biodiesel mandate would reduce social welfare, mainly because of the welfare loss to fuel consumers and net reduction in foreign exchange earnings due to soybean oil imports. However, if Zambia increases its domestic soybean supply, as well as oil yield, soybean-based biodiesel is likely to be welfare-beneficial. The country’s welfare is found to be the highest under expanded soybean production and its domestic processing but with no biodiesel mandate.     

Economy size and performance: An efficiency analysis in the telecommunications sector

The existing empirical evidence on the relationship between economy size and performance has been inconclusive. This paper employs stochastic frontier analysis to estimate economic measures of efficiency for the telecommunications sectors of 139 economies and examine their relationship with economy size. Simultaneously, it controls for the effects of competition in telecommunications, privatization of state-owned providers, independent regulators, and the quality of political institutions on sector performance. The findings suggest that economy size has a positive but decreasing impact on sector performance. Small economies have an incentive to grow to improve sector performance, though larger size is not a sufficient condition for efficiency. Sector policy and the quality of polity may contribute significantly to sector performance.     

浅谈提高经济效益的途径

讲求经济效益是人们从事一切活动的基本原则,也是我国经济建设中的核心问题。在竞争日趋激烈的商品经济中,提高经济效益已经成为企业的中心工作。     

A new test for manufacturing industry efficiency: An analysis of the results of import licence tendering in New Zealand

One test of the relative productive inefficiency of the protected manufacturing industries found in many newly industrialising countries is the percentage by which domestic prices exceed world prices. It is suggested that these price differentials are reflected in the premiums paid for import licences under the public sealed bid tendering scheme currently operating in New Zealand. The premium results for 22 roughly compiled industries suggest that nearly three quarters (15) have estimated unit costs 40 percent or more above those of efficient overseas producers. Evidently the long-term policy of industrial diversification through protection has produced substantial resource misallocation in the economy.     

An economic analysis of standards competition: The example of the ISO ODF and OOXML standards

The objective of this paper is to analyze economic efficiency considerations of standards competition, in order to thereby enrich the discussion about the transfer of the ECMA-376-1 (Office Open XML - OOXML) standard into the ISO/IEC 29500:2008 standard parallel to the already existing ISO/IEC 26300:2006 (Open Document Format for Office Applications - ODF) standard. Based on the available economic literature we identify parameters that need to be considered in the decision for or against a competition between competing standards. The characteristics in the specific case of competition between the ODF and the OOOXML standard clearly justify the decision for two documents standards.     

Consolidation of public safety wireless networks: An options-based economic analysis of numerous scenarios

The Korean National Emergency Management Agency proposed to replace existing public safety wireless networks of 46 agencies with a nation-wide consolidated network. This study compares the public-private partnership alternative of sharing a network with the conventional alternative of building a government autonomous network. Using exploratory modeling and real option analysis which compute path-dependent values (including network effects and switching costs) of all the plausible sequential incremental investments against a wide range of future states, this study has designed adaptive investment strategies (“start robust, then adapt”) which start in the highest pay-off area, and then make investment decisions about whether to expand or switch to lower pay-off areas, based on an updated information of technology prospects and the previous-stage performances of inter-agency operational effectiveness and public-private partnership. This case study has demonstrated that well-designed adaptive investments will enhance long-term values and reduce downfalls arising from public-private partnership.     

Comparing the operational efficiency of the main European telecommunications organizations: A quantitative analysis

There are today many operators competing within the European telecommunications market. For these operators, efficiency should be considered as a key element for achieving greater revenue and enhancing market position. In this paper, comparison is made of the main European public telecommunications organizations (PTOs) in terms of their operational efficiency using data envelopment analysis, a well-known quantitative technique from operational research. The analysis is based on data provided in the edition (Communications Outlook, 1999, OECD Publication Service, Paris). The main conclusion is that full operational efficiency can equally be achieved by PTOs with large revenues as well as by others with medium and smaller revenues. Also notable is the presence of certain PTOs with full efficiency ratings which are considered here as models or benchmarks for the less efficient organizations. Finally, some implications of the findings for telecommunications management are examined at the end of this paper.     

An economic analysis of the impacts of trade liberalization on Asian dairy market

This paper develops an economic analysis of the impacts of further trade liberalization scenarios on Asian dairy markets, using a world dairy model incorporating both vertical and spatial characteristics of the world dairy sector. Japan and Korea’ producers will suffer much bigger losses from trade liberalization than other countries in the region; Japan and Korea’s producers get much more protection from trade distortions than from domestic subsidy. India is a potential competitive exporter if Asia is liberalized. China and India are potential competitive exporters under global free trade. South East Asia and other South Asian countries remain importers under free trade. Greater trade liberalization around the world increases exports for potential exporters and/or ease importing pressure for potential importers. The increasing order of competitiveness of Asian dairy economies sectors is found to be Japan, Korea, South East Asia, other South Asia, China and India. China and India consumers would lose from world trade liberalization, but the other countries’ consumer surplus will increase.     

The influence of regulations on the efficiency of telecommunications operators: A meta-frontier analysis

The telecommunications industry has a great ripple effect on the overall national economy. However, there is no consensus about what is the optimal regulation policy for the telecommunications industry. Regulations on the telecommunications industry are different by region (i.e. United States, European Union and Asia). A number of studies have been conducted on comparative efficiency analysis for different policies that apply stochastic frontier analysis or data envelope analysis. However, these comparative studies are inappropriate because the production functions for each region are not identical. Thus, this paper addresses meta-frontier methodology, which can reflect differences in production functions. The results indicate that the United States has the highest meta-frontier efficiency in contrast to previous research findings.     

电力系统灾害对社会经济发展影响的定性定量分析

随着社会经济的发展,随着人类对电力的需求和依赖正变得越来越强烈,电力系统灾害问题也日益突出。基于此,本文从全社会的角度出发、分析了电力系统灾害对社会经济发展的影响,特别地从经济学角度,定量地分析了电力系统灾害对经济增长率的影响。     

Being the CEO's boss: An examination of board chair orientations

Research summary: Scholars have traditionally conceptualized board leadership as a dichotomous construct. A combined CEO and board chair position is interpreted as reflecting a more collaborative approach to corporate governance, whereas separate positions are interpreted as ensuring greater board control. I challenge this conceptualization and posit that a separate board chair can be oriented toward collaboration as well as—or in place of—control. I analyze newly available data from corporate proxy statements to identify these two board chair orientations and test competing perspectives on how they impact profitability growth in a sample of S&P 500 firms. The results indicate that board leadership is a more nuanced phenomenon than the extant literature would suggest . Managerial summary: What is the role of the board chair when not the CEO ? Corporate governance experts assert the board chair's role is to monitor and control the CEO . Yet, board chairs often play another, more collaborative role. Board chairs frequently provide advice and guidance to CEOs and relieve CEOs of board leadership burdens, enabling the CEOs to focus on their primary responsibilities. In this study, I examine the effect of board chair orientations on financial performance and find that, as with separating or joining the CEO and board chair positions, the profitability implications of the selected orientation are far from universal. Board chairs must consider their firm's performance context in order to get the most out of a particular approach to being the CEO 's boss . Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An economic analysis of the optimal information security investment in the case of a risk-averse firm

This paper presents an analysis of information security investment from the perspective of a risk-averse decision maker following common economic principles. Using the expected utility theory, we find that for a risk-averse decision maker, the maximum security investment increases with, but never exceeds, the potential loss from a security breach, and there exists a minimum potential loss below which the optimal investment is zero. Our model also shows that the investment in information security does not necessarily increase with increasing level of risk aversion of the decision maker. Relationships between vulnerability and investment effectiveness and two broad classes of security breach probability functions are examined, leading to interesting insights that can be used as guidelines for managers to determine the optimal level of security investment for certain types of security threats faced by risk-averse firms. Future research directions are discussed based on the limitations and possible extensions of this study.     

ICT and economic development in Taiwan: analysis of the evidence

The IT-led development strategy adopted by Taiwan has been greatly recognised by other Asian newly industrialised economies (NIEs) in their own NII initiatives. This paper discusses the impact of ICT on economic growth in Taiwan based on longitudinal data over 16 years. It highlights the joint impact of national IT capabilities and national IT investment on economic growth, and the findings imply that the payoff effect of IT investment on economic growth can be achieved only through a robust national information infrastructure that supports IT adoption and application.