Taking the Lab to the Field: Experimental Tests of Alternative Mechanisms to Procure Multiple Contracts

The first part of the paper reports the results from a sequence of laboratory experiments comparing the bidding behavior for multiple contracts in three different sealed bid auction mechanisms; first-price simultaneous, first-price sequential and first-price combinatorial bidding. The design of the experiment is based on experiences from a public procurement auction of road markings in Sweden. Bidders are asymmetric in their cost functions; some exhibit decreasing average costs of winning more than one contract, whereas other bidders have increasing average cost functions. The combinatorial bidding mechanism is demonstrated to be most efficient. The second part of the paper describes how the lab experiment was followed up by a field test of a combinatorial procurement auction of road markings.     

中国和国际林产品贸易对森林保护和人民生计的影响

分析了中国林产品进出口的总量、结构、变化、增长趋势及对相关国家和地区人民生计的影响,提出了作为进口国消费国、生产国和加工国应采取的措施。1997年到2005年间,中国林产品进口总量折合原木材积增长了两倍多,从0.40亿m3增长到1.34亿m3,进口额也翻了一番。2005年,俄罗斯、马来西亚、印尼、泰国、巴布新几内亚列中国总木质林产品进口前5名,进口额占71.6%;加拿大、印尼、俄罗斯、智利、美国列纸浆进口前5位,进口额占77.6%;美国、日本、香港、欧盟是中国林产品出口的主要目的地。中国迅速增长的林产品贸易对国际社会也有消极影响,导致不可持续采伐、非法采伐等问题,但中国只是全球产业链上的一环,来自美国、欧盟和日本的购买者和零售商也负有不可推卸的责任。中国应认清其在国际林产品贸易中的关键地位,加快其林业部门的改革步伐,推动本国的林产品生产和供给,实现可持续的林业发展。     

Dual discounting in climate change mitigation in the forest sector

The efficiency of potential climate change mitigation is predicated on future costs and benefits and thus heavily influenced by the discount scheme. Dual discounting involves discounting carbon and monetary values differently; stand level modeling efforts show that it improves the profitability of afforestation projects. However, these stand level results may not hold across other age classes and stocking levels. Using a partial, spatial equilibrium model of the Norwegian forest sector, we analyze the impacts of a dual discounting scheme on climate change mitigation efforts. Dual discounting results in less mitigation efforts in the first decades but substantially higher long-term mitigation efforts.     

Income inequality,unemployment, and suicide: a panel data analysis of 15 European countries

One of the reasons behind the re-negotiation of the Lomé Convention, resulting in the Cotonou Agreement, was the alleged inability of the trade provisions of Lomé to increase the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries' market share of the European Union (EU) market. The Cotonou Agreement may lead to the more advanced ACPs being granted future market access to the EU under a generalized system of preferences (GSP), in conformity with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. To this end, this paper makes a comparative analysis of the effects of the EU's Lomé Convention and GSP on exports of developing countries using a gravity type of model. The results indicate positive and statistically significant export effects of the both the Lomé Convention and the GSP. The export effects are greater in case of the Lomé Convention throughout the study period running from 1973 to 1992. In addition, the paper illustrates the EU country distribution of the export effects and shows that Belgium and The Netherlands are the EU countries that most have increased their imports from the developing countries under both the Lomé Convention and the GSP.     

Interorganizational cost management in the exchange process

This paper explores interorganizational cost management (IOCM) practices in the exchange process. IOCM can be defined as buyers’ and suppliers’ coordinated efforts to reduce costs. Past research has primarily argued that such practices depend on component characteristics, relationship characteristics, and characteristics of the transaction. Based on a study of three buyer–supplier relationships, this article also finds variations in IOCM practices between six main activities in the exchange process. In this process, the supplier's management accounting is found to be more important than recognized by prior research. The deepest collaboration around IOCM issues and the greatest joint use of suppliers’ management accounting in the three cases typically occurs in earlier activities in the exchange process, including supplier selection, joint product design and joint manufacturing process development. In later activities in the process, during full-speed production as well as in product and manufacturing process redesign, suppliers’ managerial accounting plays a lesser role in our study.     

On the role of the RBV in marketing

This short note contains some reflections on the relationship between the resource-based view of the firm (RBV) and marketing. I focus on the main proposition of the RBV—that a firm should focus on what it can do better than others—and argue that it has implications for almost all marketing activities and that much thinking in the field already is consistent with it.     

Vertrauen als Problem. Anhaltende Finanzkrise?

Die Finanzkrise hat zu einem tiefen Misstrauen der Marktteilnehmer untereinander geführt. Vor der Krise herrschte hingegen ein übergro?es Vertrauen in das System, die einzelnen Institutionen und die Anlageberater. Mittlerweile muss der Staat als Vertrauensgeber einspringen. Doch wird hier nicht einfach das Risiko aus der Wirtschaft in die Gesellschaft überw?lzt?     

Tenants' participation — A study of residential service planning

During recent years there has been a large interest in residential service in Sweden. Several experiments and investigations have been carried out concerning various service facilities in residential districts and attempts to let the tenants themselves participate in the planning of this service. One of the most comprehensive projects is the one that was conducted in the district of Högaholm in Malmö. This article reports from an evaluation of the planning procedure in this district, where opinions and wants of the tenants have been continually collected in order to make the residential service as good as possible. The article mainly comprises a presentation of how the tenants participated in the planning process, an analysis of the reasons why this planning failed in some respects and a comparison to other research in this field.

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Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit schwedischen Erfahrungen mit der Berücksichtigung von Mieterwünschen. Dem Versuch, Bewohner an der Planung ihrer eigenen Wohnumwelt zu beteiligen, war bereits eine Reihe von Untersuchungen gewidmet. Eines der umfassendsten Projekte ist im Gebiet von Högaholm in Malmö durchgeführt worden. Der Aufsatz berichtet über die Vorgehensweise bei der Planung in diesem Gebiet, bei der die Wünsche und Vorstellungen der Bewohner systematisch erfaßt wurden, um die Anlagen des Wohngebietes möglichst gut daran anzupassen. Er schildert vor allem, auf welche Weise die Bewohner in den Planungsprozeß einbezogen wurden, analysiert dann die Ursachen dafür, daß die Partizipation in mancher Beziehung fehlschlug, und zieht Vergleiche zu anderen Forschungsergebnissen.

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Jerker Nilsson is a Research Assistent at the Department of Business Administration, University of Lund, PO box, S-220 05 Lund 5, Sweden. He wishes to express his thanks to Britt Pedersen, who is a Lecturer at the Department of Building Function Analysis at the Lund Institute of Technology. Britt Pedersen has not only given valuable advice for this article, but she has also been deeply involved in the Högaholm experiment of residential service.     

E-Business Adoption by SMEs--Prerequisites and Attitudes of SMEs in a Swedish Network

The context for this research is the transformation process of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from traditional (t-) businesses toward e-businesses and the accompanying development of the knowledge and competence among employees. SMEs constitute a great part of the Swedish industry and economy. This and the fact that they have special prerequisites concerning human and technology resources makes SMEs an interesting research focus when looking at the transformation process toward e-business. The aim of this research is to investigate SMEs with the purpose of designing, implementing, and evaluating information technology-supported activities that will allow SMEs to approach e-business. This article presents results from parts of an ongoing study, that involves seven SMEs. This study will be conducted in two main phases: first, informative and preparatory activities and second, business transformation and competence development activities. This article focuses on the first phase of the study, but an insight in its current status and further research is given. The underlying prerequisites for SMEs as well as the research approach are described. A working model is presented that illustrates stages of maturity for taking an enterprise toward e-business. The last sections present the research design, that is, planning, actions, observations, and reflections of the study up until now. New actions to take are discussed at the end of this article.