Instability in the transition from manorialism: A classical analysis

A classical economic analysis of productivity and population growth is used to explain the rise in well being during the expansion of feudalism, the emergence of class conflict, the demise of the manorial system and the establishment of precapitalism. These event are given a new interpretation which involves a specific sequence of endogenously generated economic pressures. An indeterminacy remains, however, which allows for alternative histories in particular settings of time and place through the interplay of political and other institutional forces.     

MEDICAL RESEARCH AND GENETIC RESOURCES MANAGEMENT: THE CASE OF TAXOL

Commercial development of the anti-cancer drug taxol has involved a complex set of interlocking research agreements. This paper explores the implications of such agreements and discusses diverse policy issues surrounding taxol development. Among these are forest management, species preservation, intellectual property rights, and the economics of biomedical research. Advances in genetic research increasingly have linked natural resource and technology policy issues. Institutional innovations in public/private research arrangements play a vital role in biotechnology development but are poorly understood. Policymakers need formal analyses of such agreements in order to evaluate complex research programs.     

Advantageous alliances

Previously, he was executive director of the Marketing Science Institute. He has authored 10 books and 100 articles in the areas of marketing and strategic business planning. He has received various awards, including two Alpha Kappa Psi Foundation Awards and two Harold H. Maynard Awards for the best articles published in theJournal of Marketing; in 1994 he received the Charles Coolidge Parlin Award for distinguished contributions to the field of marketing.     

Behavioral rules and sequences of macroequilibria

This paper compares the dynamic consequences of several diferent behavioral rules involving price or quantity adjustments in a temporary equilibrium, macroeconomic framework. The central rule studied is the widely practiced, cost mark-up, administered pricing rule. A competitive, quantity adjustment rule based on a target rate of return is also examined. These are contrasted with monopolistic, profit maximizing price and quantity adjusting rules. Although the analysis represents but an initial foray into the territory where the interests of behavioral and macroeconomic theories overlap, the results, which trace stagflation to instabilities in ‘permanent’, full-employment equilibrium, suggest that further work in this direction may improve our understanding of present inflationary phenomena.     

Is it real? Can we win? Is it worth doing? Managing risk and reward in an innovation portfolio

Minor innovations make up most of a company's development portfolio, on average, but they never generate the growth companies seek. The solution, says Day--the Geoffrey T. Boisi Professor of Marketing and a codirector of the Mack Center for Technological Innovation at Wharton--is for companies to undertake a systematic, disciplined review of their innovation portfolios and increase the number of major innovations at an acceptable level of risk. Two tools can help them do this. The first, called the risk matrix, graphically reveals the distribution of risk across a company's entire innovation portfolio. The matrix allows companies to estimate each project's probability of success or failure, based on how big a stretch it is for the firm to undertake. The less familiar the product or technology and the intended market, the higher the risk. The second tool, dubbed the R-W-W (real-win-worth it) screen, allows companies to evaluate the risks and potential of individual projects by answering six fundamental questions about each one: Is the market real? Explores customers' needs, their willingness to buy, and the size of the potential market. Is the product real? Looks at the feasibility of producing the innovation. Can the product be competitive? and Can our company be competitive? Investigate how well suited the company's resources and management are to compete in the marketplace with the product. Will the product be profitable at an acceptable risk? Explores the financial analysis needed to assess an innovation's commercial viability. Last, Does launching the product make strategic sense? examines the project's fit with company strategy and whether management supports it.