Bayesian estimation of manufacturing effects in a fuel economy model

The analysis of fuel economy data results in estimates of the technology utilization by manufacturer and vehicle line. The analysis employs a hierarchical Bayesian regression model with random components representing vehicle lines and manufacturers. The model includes predictor variables which describe vehicle features, such as type of transmission, and vehicle line specific measurements, such as compression ratio. Non-informative priors with novel modifications are used and the Bayes estimates are obtained by use of Gibbs sampling. The results show there is substantial variability among manufacturers in efficiently utilizing technology for fuel economy.     

Rethinking the effect of perceived fit on customers’ evaluations of new products

Prior research has demonstrated that customer evaluations of a new product are directly related to the degree to which a company’s skills are perceived to “fit” with those required to provide the new product. This finding has led to recommendations that firms focus on perceptually close new product areas. However, many firms have successfully entered perceptually distant markets. We reconcile this apparent contradiction by proposing that the effect of perceived fit on new product evaluation is not direct, but is mediated by the certainty a customer has that a company can deliver the proposed new product. Our findings indicate that, by itself, perceived fit has a positive impact on industrial product evaluations. However, the relationship between fit and new product evaluations, previously held to be direct, is instead mediated by customer certainty. That is, when the effect of customer certainty is considered, the direct effect of fit disappears. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. His research interests include management of brand equity, and competitive analysis. His research has been published inJournal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Research, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Advertising Research, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Services Marketing andPlanning Review. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests are in “marketing creativity,” and the management of mature products. Her research has been published in theJournal of Services Marketing and in the proceedings of the American Marketing Association. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.     

The job crisis in Latin America: A role for multinational corporations in introducing more labour-intensive technologies

Latin America presently faces a critical unemployment problem. A major cause has been an emphasis on ‘maximum-growth’ models and ‘sophisticated’ industrial production techniques rather than on programmes and processes which utilize human resources more fully. A variety of factors-economic, technological, political, and cultural-accounts for the proliferation of these inappropriate technologies, but possibilities exist in most industries to adapt them so as to employ more labour economically. To date, multinational corporations have done little in this field, but Latin American governments can and must prevail upon them to contribute to a resolution of the unemployment problem.     

Does austerity drive public service innovation? Evidence from shared senior management teams in local government

Shared senior management teams are a recent and radical response to financial austerity. They aim to improve the efficiency of public services without the disruption, controversy and transaction costs associated with full-blown organizational mergers. This paper assesses the adoption of this management innovation by English district councils, identifies enablers and barriers to its effective implementation, offers a preliminary assessment of its impacts, and draws out practical lessons for policy-makers.     

Public Management Reforms and Social Cohesion in Europe: The view from the top

Drawing upon data from a survey of senior public managers in ten European countries, we examine the relationship between public management reforms and perceptions of social cohesion. We find a positive connection between reforms which treat service users as customers and government openness (outward-downward reforms), and managers’ perceptions of the civic culture and social solidarity within their countries. However, for reforms, such as privatization, with an outward-upward orientation, a negative association with social solidarity is observed. The theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed.     

Testing For Efficient Contracts In Unionized Labour Markets

This paper addresses the design of empirical tests to distinguish between two competing explanations of wage and employment determination in unionized labour markets, the labour-demand and efficient-contract models. We argue that most of the tests employed are restrictive, propose an alternative non-nested approach, a central feature of which is the variation in the set of instrumental variables across the models, and provide an illustration of how it might be implemented, using data from the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey (WIRS) 1984 Panel File. The results demonstrate how the traditional approach can lead to inappropriate conclusions, and thereby emphasize the empirical importance of the specification of the instrumental variables.     

The Paper River Revisited: A Common Property Externality Exercise

The author describes a modified version of the Paper River exercise that appeared in this journal in the Spring 1999 issue. The original game was designed to illustrate the application of the Coase theorem for solving an externality problem. In the Paper River, pairs of students share a single productive resource: small pieces of paper. At question is who has the rights to the paper. The author presents a modified version of the game that retains many of the same elements from the original, but the students work in groups rather than in pairs. Doing so increases the transaction costs associated with negotiating a solution. In addition, the productive resource is common property, so property rights are difficult to establish. These difficulties make a Coasian solution more difficult but make the simulation more realistic.     

Keynes,Ricardo and the classical theory of interest

Keynes made harsh and repeated attacks on the work of Ricardo, blaming him particulary for what Keynes called the ‘classical theory’ of interest. Garegnani and others argue that Keynes' criticisms of the classical theory of interest apply to later neoclassical writers, but not to Ricardo. This paper re-examines Keynes' criticisms. It argues that Keynes attacked Ricardoapos;s theory of interest despite his awareness that Ricardo did not hold the ‘classical theory’. Moreover, Keynes not only expressed sympathy for Ricardo's understanding of interest, but his criticisms which do apply to Ricardo do not address Ricardo's theory of interest.