What Happened to the Chilean Economic Miracle?

Chile's 8-year experiment in free markets achieved spectacular advance. Its success was hailed by market economists and its failure by economic dirigistes. Was the failure inevitable or accidental? What are the lessons for other less-developed countries? Tim Congdon condemns the critics for focussing on the symptoms but ignoring the causes.     

Economic Efficiency and Productivity Growth in the Post-Privatization Chilean Hydroelectric Industry

Chiles hydroelectric industry was privatized in 1985, but required to operate within a regulatory framework designed to achieve a competitive outcome. A centralized dispatch center was established to ensure production at minimum cost, subject to constraints on minimum release and minimum reservoir stock. A reluctance to rapidly reduce the industry work force may also have existed. We develop a constrained cost-minimization model for thermal and hydro generation to obtain the shadow price of water and to determine the qualitative effect of these constraints on allocative efficiency. Using panel data from 1986–1997, we assess the economic efficiency of the hydro industry by estimating a stochastic distance frontier and price equations from the dual cost-minimization problem. We find dramatic increases in technical change and productivity change, with positive efficiency change for all years but the last. We also observe a dramatic decline in allocative inefficiencies over our sample period. The share of hydro generation from run-of-river and thermal plants relative to reservoir plants has increased, presumably in reaction to the water release and reservoir stock constraints, reducing the relative over-utilization of capital to water from the pre-1985 regime. Further, the over-utilization of labor to capital and water has fallen over time. However, considerable allocative inefficiencies remain, consistent with our finding of industry-wide scale economies. Substantial cost savings would result if technical and allocative efficiency were eliminated.JEL Classification: L94, D24     

ICT Adoption and Heterogeneity in Production Technologies: Evidence for Chilean Retailers*

The adoption of information and communication technology (ICT) can have far‐reaching effects on the nature of production technologies. Because ICT adoption is incomplete, especially in developing countries, different groups of firms will have different production technologies. We estimate a latent class stochastic frontier model, which allows us to test for the existence of multiple production technologies across firms and consider the associated implications for efficiency measures. We use a unique data set of Chilean retailers, which includes detailed information on ICT adoption. We find three distinct production technologies. The probability of membership in a more productive group is positively related to ICT use.     

The random-time binomial model

In this paper we study a binomial model with random time steps and explain how to calculate values for European and American call and put options. We prove both weak convergence of the discrete processes to the Black–Scholes setup and convergence of the values for European and American put options. Computational experiments exhibit a smooth convergence structure and suggest that we can obtain a quadratic order of convergence via an extrapolation procedure. Approximations to jump-diffusions are straightforward.     

“瑞贝卡”的好榜样——林茜：一个眼神我就知道他想做什么

马云开门见山地对林茜说:“我希望你能留下来。给我一个机会,也给你自己一个机会,你做什么样的决定我都会支持你。”     

The German model in danger

The German high‐skills/high value‐added economy has long been the Mecca for supporters of the European social model. So long as Model Deutschland was thriving the notion of Social Europe was a plausible political project. But Germany is facing a range of economic problems—the aftershock of reunification, high unemployment and internal and external pressures to reform its stakeholder system of economic organisation. Some of these developments strike at core assumptions of the German model. This article reviews the extent to which the German model is in danger and teases out the implications for the wider European economy.     

The econometric forecasting model of Czechoslovakia

Conclusion The result of the construction, estimation, testing and forecasting uses of the VVS-2 model testify to the expediency of using comprehensive econometric models in socialist economy. The VVS-2 model expresses at a satisfying rate of accuracy the quantitative relations between the fundamental indicators of Czechoslovak economy and has produced satisfactory results also in calculating short-term forecasts. Some new methods and computer programs that have been developed and employed for model estimation may be considered a contribution towards the development of applied econometrics in socialist countries.At the Computing Research Centre, United Nations D.P. in Bratislava, research work has continued on the development and improvement of further comprehensive econometric models. Within this framework the VVS-2 model will be permanently reestimated and possibly also extended and re-specificated according to the practical needs of macroeconomic analysis and planning.Authors are indebted to Professor Anton Klas, director of the Computing Research Centre, United Nations D.P., for creating very favourable conditions for the research work.     

The evolving Portuguese model of HRM

In Europe, despite the process of European integration and the globalization of world markets, considerable differences can still be detected in the way organizations manage people and the role played by the HR function. But, while there has been considerable debate over the introduction of HRM in countries like the UK, less attention has been paid to countries like Portugal where the role of HRM remains under-researched. This paper reports the findings of a project aiming to make sense of the concept of HRM in Portugal. Results from a survey of companies found an extensive use of the HRM label among Portuguese organizations. The function seems to have gained some influence at the top and reached some degree of strategic integration, but there is an apparent reluctance to devolve HR responsibilities to line managers. The HR function appears to be playing the specialist role as a means of overcoming the credibility gap. Based on the findings of the current and previous research, an attempt is made to outline a Portuguese HRM model.     

The camp model for entrepreneurship teaching

Moving people from their normal work place or school environment to a camp site can be an efficient means for team building, creativity training and innovation boosting purposes. The camp model is increasingly used in the entrepreneurship education field as a supplement to classroom teaching. Some camps focus at the generation of ideas while others focus at the turning of ideas into concepts and rudimentary plans. By means of in-depth studies of three quite different camps, all demonstrating convincing results, the learning outcomes, pedagogies and principles for camps are identified and discussed.     

烟草物流的“北京模式”——访北京市烟草专卖局（公司）副总工程师金涧

北京烟草物流中心组建于2004年7月,隶属于北京市烟草专卖局(公司),负责全市卷烟的仓储、分拣和配送工作.2007年,北京烟草物流"卷烟仓储、分拣、配送自动化系统"研究成果荣获中国物流与采购联合会科技进步一等奖;2008年,北京烟草物流项目申报国家科技进步奖,并被中国物流与采购联合会评为"中国物流示范基地",成为全国和烟草行业首家获得国家级物流示范基地资质的物流单位.     

The pyramid model of school management

Models of organizational management are presented in the literature and in the managerial practices of recent years. They are aimed to improve organizational governance, and to enhance organizational overall efficiency. The common denominator for most, if not all these management models is that they generally focus on a single aspect, or on a very limited number of aspects of the organizational conduct whereas running an organization is a highly complex undertaking, incorporating a large number of functions and processes. School principals tend to adapt out-of-school management process, usually adapting them from the business world. And therefore we can see that the educational system at all and the school system in particular, implement business management methods. This research indicates that school principals are well aware of all the school management processes and procedures. The important contribution of this research, which is based on the unique contribution of the multi-faceted theory, is acknowledging the work of the school principals as a pyramid which its base is composed of essential consensus procedures and its three sided indicate three major school management process. We suggest that this pyramid will be called “The Pyramid Model of School Management”. The various management processes that built this pyramid are based on mutual aims and consensus of the school team to reach these aims. The consensus of the aims is essential, and with out it, the school cannot exist as an affective organization. Choosing when to take a various management action is a feedback based, and situation-based conduct. It is also shown in this research that school principals distinguish between three major management processes which we recommend that they will be called the “pyramid sides” and include: results management, human resources management and general resources management. The three groups are bounded by the “core of management” which we recommend that will be called the “pyramid base”. The pyramid base is connected to each and every phase of the life cycle of the organization, to each process and each result. It includes the school targets and aims which all the school team has to agree upon and there must be an un-doubtful consensus about them.     

A new non‐randomized response model: The parallel model

Despite certain advances for non‐randomized response (NRR) techniques in the past 6 years, the existing non‐randomized crosswise and triangular models have several limitations in practice. In this paper, I propose a new NRR model, called the parallel model with a wider application range. Asymptotical properties of the maximum likelihood estimator (and its modified version) for the proportion of interest are explored. Theoretical comparisons with the crosswise and triangular models show that the parallel model is always more efficient than the two existing NRR models for most of the possible parameter ranges. Bayesian methods for analyzing survey data from the parallel model are developed. A case study on college students' premarital sexual behavior at Wuhan and a case study on plagiarism at the University of Hong Kong are conducted and are used to illustrate the proposed methods. © 2014 The Authors. Statistica Neerlandica © 2014 VVS.     

城市资本存量模型分析

文章研究城市资本市场中资本存量的问题,建立了城市人均资本存量模型,反映了资本存量与各影响因素的相关关系.利用该模型对上海市的人均资本存量进行了分析.该模型具有预测作用,有助于城市管理主体制定城市发展政策.     

The entrepreneurial process: an integrated model

In this study, a model for examining the process of how a person becomes an entrepreneur was developed by integrating planned behavior theory (PBT) with motivation-opportunity-ability (MOA) theory. The model posits that motivation, opportunity, and ability affect entrepreneurial intentions through personal attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. A sample of 258 valid questionnaires was collected from entrepreneurial training-course participants in Taiwan. Based on this sample, a structural-equation analysis reveals several interesting results. First, personal attitude and perceived behavior control have a direct effect on entrepreneurial intentions. Second, subjective norms indirectly affect entrepreneurial intentions through personal attitude and perceived behavior control. Third, motivation affects entrepreneurial intentions through personal attitude and perceived behavioral control. Fourth, ability exhibits a directly positive association with entrepreneurial intentions, and indirectly affects entrepreneurial intentions through perceived behavioral control. Fifth, subjective norms affect entrepreneurial intentions through personal attitude and perceived behavioral control. These findings suggest that our model provides more information than those offered by PBT or MOA in understanding the process of becoming an entrepreneur.     

The random coefficients logit model is identified

The random coefficients multinomial choice logit model, also known as the mixed logit, has been widely used in empirical choice analysis for the last thirty years. We prove that the distribution of random coefficients in the multinomial logit model is nonparametrically identified. Our approach requires variation in product characteristics only locally and does not rely on the special regressors with large supports used in related papers. One of our two identification arguments is constructive. Both approaches may be applied to other choice models with random coefficients.