Application of production standards in complex organizations under uncertainty

This article explores the optimal determination of production (quantitative) standards under alternative assumptions concerning the ability of complex organizations to adjust variable inputs as the price of output becomes known.The model allows for transaction costs associated with ex ante and ex post input acquisitions (e.g., contracting for labor services). When such input transaction costs are not observable by top management, pecuniary incentive schemes based on ex post performance are considered. We show that standard-based compensation schemes can be built into the ex post optimization model so that the profit-maximizing production standards and the incentive designs are simultaneously determined.     

Consumer responsiveness to price differentials: A case for insurance industry deregulation

Proponents of deregulation have suggested that several industries should lose their antitrust exemptions and operate within a competitive atmosphere. An important assumption underlying deregulation arguments is that consumers will respond to price differentials in a manner that encourages price competition among supplier firms. This assumption is of special concern in the regulated fields of property and liability insurance. The intangibility of these products, the relatively long-term purchase commitments, and the intimate relationships between insurance and consumers' perceptions of risk raise substantial questions concerning individuals' reactions to price competition. In this study the amount of annual premium savings required to switch companies and the relationships between consumer characteristics and intended switching behavior were examined. The results suggest that a substantial segment of insurance buyers would change firms given modest price reductions. The size of this segment, along with the attitudinal and demographic characteristics of this group, indicates that price competition is a viable strategy in a deregulated insurance industry.     

Price elasticity and bid-ask price spreads in the treasury bond market

Typical analyses of transactions costs in the bond markets explain these costs in terms of yield, term to maturity, coupons, and issue size. However, these analyses do not recognize the price elasticity of bonds to interest rate movements, which provides better measures of market risk and bid-ask price spreads. Elasticity or duration and issue size together display stronger associations with bid-ask price spreads than do the traditional variables. The association is also less subject to multicollinearity of the independent variables. Finally, stepwise regressions show that coupon and yield data add no information about bid-ask price spreads not already impounded in the duration statistic. This casts doubt on the nonduration arguments often used to support these variables as separately meaningful in transactions cost analyses.     

DEMAND UNCERTAINTY,MONOPOLY WITH TWO-STAGE INPUT DECISIONS,AND CORPORATION TAXES

This paper attempts to investigate the effects of changes in the lump sum tax and the profit tax rate on the input, output and price decisions of the risk averse monopoly under demand uncertainty. It is assumed that, while the monopoly must determine its capital ex ante, it may modify the output and price determinations through adjusting its labor ex post. As the results of its analysis, the paper presents the new propositions with respect to the corporation taxes which have never been shown in both the deterministic models and the models which exclude the possibility of two-stage input decisions, even under demand uncertainty.     

A Framework for Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)

ABSTRACT

Vertical co-ordination of business-to-business relationships figures prominently as an effective response to inter-firm dependence. Current empirical works based on transaction costs economics, however, have scantily examined whether the alignment of inter-firm coordination really serves governance efficacy and lowers transaction costs. This study focuses on the transaction costs efficacy of vertical co-ordination in industrial purchasing relationships. Building on transaction costs arguments and related works within marketing and contingency theory, the author explores whether vertical co-ordination is an effective means to adapt to technologcal and economic inter-firm ties.

This research examines in particular possible impacts the buyer's manufacturing technology and deployment of specific assets on the governance efficacy of vertical co-ordination. Empirical findings from a survey of 171 industrial buying firms demonstrate that when asset specificity is substantial, increased vertical co-ordination reduces ex post transaction costs. Further, the governance efficacy of inter-firm co-ordination turned out to be more evident in purchasing relationships among buyers with flexible manufacturing technology (e.g., order based industries) than was the case in process production with high workflow rigidity.     

从石油对国民经济的推动作用看我国石油的进出口贸易

国际原油价格一路走高，随着我国经济的高速增长，我国的石油消费量大幅增长，对石油需求的依存度也相应增加。2007年石油进口依存度由2006年的49％进一步提高。据统计，2007年中国经济GDP增长11．4％，而石油向来被喻为“经济血液”，高速增长的经济背后很多产业部门都要靠石油及各种能源拉动运转。本文运用投入产出法实证分析石油对我国其他产业的拉动作用，进而对我国的石油进出口贸易及能源消费提出一些政策建议。     

Some factors determining municipal revenue bond interest costs

This paper tests for variations in risk premiums on municipal revenue bonds that are related to the geographic location of the issuer, the issue's second rating, and secondary collateral provisions. The empirical findings indicate that investors required risk premiums that depended on local economic conditions. Issuer borrowing costs were also shown to be related to factors that cause or reinforce segmentation of the tax-exempt bond market.     

Turkey: Toward EU Accession

The purpose of this paper is to study selected aspects of Turkish accession to the EU. Joining the EU will require that Turkey attains macroeconomic stability, adopts the Common Agricultural Policy, and liberalizes its services and network industries. Furthermore, joining the EU will require Turkey to adopt and implement the whole body of EU legislation and standards – the acquis communautaire. According to the EU membership criteria, new members must be able to demonstrate the ‘ability to take on the obligations of membership including adherence to the aims of political, economic and monetary union’. Thus Turkey will be expected to adopt the euro when it is ready to do so, but not immediately upon accession. Integration will boost allocative efficiency in the Turkish economy which in turn will make the country a better place to invest. Furthermore, Turkey will reap the benefits from monetary integration and from migration of labour to the EU. But the welfare gains will have a price, and the price will be the adjustment costs associated with the adoption of the acquis communautaire. The final section of the paper considers the effects of accession on the EU in terms of migration and budgetary effects.     

Efficiency and ownership: evidence from Japanese credit cooperatives

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used to estimate the overall efficiency and productivity growth of credit cooperatives in Japan during 1992–1996. Overall efficiency is decomposed into output technical efficiency and input allocative efficiency. Twenty percent of all credit cooperatives in Japan are foreign owned with more than 90% of those owned by Koreans. The history of institutional discrimination against Koreans in Japan suggests that ownership might affect efficiency. The empirical findings suggest that foreign-owned cooperatives are more efficient and experienced greater productivity growth during the period.Keywords: Input allocative efficiency; DEAJEL classification: G2     

Strategic partnering between new technology based firms and large established firms in the biotechnology and micro-electronics industries in Belgium

There is an increased emphasis on New Technology Based Firms (NTBFs) and on Strategic Partnerships. The number of strategic partnerships between large, established firms and NTBFs has multiplied over the past few years, due to a growing trend towards technological and marketing relationships between large and small firms. In this contribution, the strategic — predominantly technology —partnering (also referred to as interfirm technology cooperation) experiences of a small number of Belgian NTBFs in the biotechnology and micro-electronics industries will be analysed. The analysis presented here derives from the regionspecific technology policies in Belgium.A multiple case study design was chosen to develop an understanding of the impact of strategic partnering on New Technology Based Firm-survival and growth in Belgium. To improve the reliability of conclusions in the research presented here, a small number of cases will be investigated for the construction of a theoretical model.     

Consumer Welfare and Inefficiency Among Regulated Industries

While the issue of efficiency on the side of production is still not a settled question, it is generally agreed that competition is more conductive to efficiency—both allocative and X—than monopoly. When the monopoly is regulated, i.e., receiving a rate of return less than it would if left unregulated but greater than the market rate of return, both allocative and X-inefficiency result. Since the degree of inefficiency amounts to a tax on consumers, the question of inefficiency in production has a twin companion in the form of consumer welfare losses. This is particularly true for many public utilities upon which low income families spend a large proportion of their income. The quasi tax that the regulated monopolist exacts neither generates a flow of public goods nor increases returns to shareholders. It is a particularly burdensome levy because the rate structure is highly regressive.     

Changing input costs in competitive markets with variable quality

This article analyzes the impact of changing input prices on quantity, quality and price in a competitive market. Quality is represented by means of a utility-bearing characteristic for which the household technology is linear. The impact of a change in input prices depends, in ways elucidated in the article, on demand and on firms' profit- maximizing tradeoffs between quantity and quality. Conditions are presented under which an increase in input prices leads to a decrease in output price and an increase in quantity (this with or without inferior inputs), an increase in price and quality and a decrease in quantity, and other outcomes.     

生产性服务资源集聚模式会影响制造业资本回报率吗？

文章在测算出生产性服务资源三类集聚程度的基础上,运用空间计量方法首次深入剖析集聚模式对制造业资本回报率的作用机制,并进一步从时间异质性和距离异质性视角刻画上述机制。得到的结论主要有：首先生产性服务资源自身集聚及其与制造业协同集聚均有助于制造业资本回报率的提升,生产性服务资源与农业的协同集聚则会对制造业资本回报率产生负向冲击,这一负向冲击主要产生于2012年后;其次虽然生产性服务资源与制造业协同集聚对制造业资本回报率的作用力大于生产性服务资源自身集聚,但生产性服务资源与制造业协同集聚对制造业资本回报率正向作用的显著性上限为300公里,地理距离对生产性服务资源自身集聚正向效应的制约力则不显著;最后就业密集度、人力资本深化和生产率提升均有助于制造业资本回报率的提升,研发投入对制造业资本回报率的作用力不显著,中国制造业资本回报率持续提升还有赖于劳动者技能提升和技术进步。     

A Frontier Approach to Testing the Averch–Johnson Hypothesis

The mathematical programming technique Data Envelopment Analysis is used to test the famous hypothesis of Averch and Johnson that utility regulation leads to overuse of capital because the regulated firm earns a return s greater than its cost of capital r, an implicit capital subsidy resulting in allocative inefficiency. Technical and allocative inefficiency are based on cost and production frontiers from 337 electric generating plants using 1970 data, and r is based on the Capital Asset Pricing Model. Significant capital overuse and general failure to minimize costs is detected, but a second‐step regression analysis finds no relationship between the overuse and the s–r subsidy. A small updated data set covering the period 1980–2004 suggests that overuse of capital is no longer a problem, a result that may be owing to recente deregulation and restructuring.     

Pricing Strategies of Software Vendors

Due to the economic characteristics specific to the software industry, pricing concepts existing in other industries cannot be transferred without adaptation. Therefore, this article provides an overview of pricing models for software. In this context we discuss the six parameters formation of prices, structure of payment flow, assessment base, price discrimination, price bundling, and dynamic pricing strategies. Furthermore, we refer to recent software delivery models, such as Software as a service. The results are based on literature research and empirical studies.     

论政府隐性担保对我国证券市场微观效率的影响

政府隐性担保机制是我国证券市场运行的基础,也是市场风险聚集的根源。这种隐性担保通过一系列制度性安排造成市场主体过于追求市场隐含的政策性租金而忽视对市场价值体系的培育与发现,造成市场事前筛选和事后监督机制失效,使投资者决策面临更加不稳定的环境,增加了市场的不确定性。     

效率演进视角下中国服务业行业发展异质性分析

文章运用超越对数生产函数的随机前沿模型,对1990-2012年间中国服务业TFP进行了详细分解,从效率演化的视角对各行业发展的异质性现象及其内在机制进行了分析。研究结果表明,我国服务业技术效率受政府财政支出、市场化改革的影响显著,进出口贸易和外商直接投资在技术结构交互式影响下,显著水平有所提高。服务业TFP增长的主导力量逐步由技术效率改进转变为技术进步,但技术进步缓慢且技术效率水平低下,服务业经济增长粗放型特征仍然明显。由于体制性障碍以及深层次问题的存在,导致服务业各行业配置效率和规模效率改进水平低下,部分行业的规模效率呈现出持续恶化的现象。     

Modelling the asymmetric responses of price level to oil price changes in Qatar

This paper inspects the asymmetric effect of oil price on prices level in Qatar. To achieve that, we proceed by employing a nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach on data during the period 1990Q1–2014Q4. The estimation results show evidences of an incomplete and asymmetric influence of oil price on price level in the long term. Moreover, we find that price responses to negative changes in oil price is greater than its response to positive changes. Given Qatar’s economic features, a decrease in oil price could cause lower imports and production prices and consequently a substantial influence on domestic prices level. However, the lower effect of positive oil price changes on consumer prices can be explained by the subsidies system, the consumption patterns, and the exchange rate regime.     

Accounting and economic returns in British coal mining: The Carlton Main colliery, 1872–1909

Various estimates, both ex ante and ex post, have been produced of the accounting rate of return on investments in the late nineteenth-century coal industry, with some ex post figures also being calculated for individual firms engaged therein, such as the Consett Iron Co. Ltd. No one, however, has previously tried to calculate the economic rate of return from investing in a single coal mine over the duration of its life. In this article we examine both accounting and economic rates of return for the Carlton Main colliery, from its sinking during the 1870s through to its closure in 1909. Our results enable us to judge the accuracy of previous estimates of returns for the late nineteenth-century coal industry, and of contemporary estimates of the potential rate of return in coal mining. We also offer insights into the efficacy of using accounting rates of return as an indicator of the economic rate of return during that period.     

浙江私营经济的发展前景

回顾浙江私营经济发展历史轨迹,从马克思主义的基本理论出发,对其发展前景进行探讨。浙江私营经济今后发展将体现在以下几个方面:私营经济将会出现一个长期发展的势头;私营经济将由第三产业为主向多产业化经营领域扩展;私营经济将由经营行为短期化向投资行为长期化转轨;私营经济将向科技型方向发展;私营经济将由家族式管理走向现代化管理;私营经济将向混合型经济结构转变;私营经济将由区域内发展转向跨地区、跨国界发展。