The role of foreign subsidiaries in strategic decision-making in swedish multinational corporations

The paper describes how six large Swedish multinational corporations manage the task of assuring strategic integration between headquarters and foreign subsidiaries. Swedish companies are shown to address the problem in an informal way and by leaving their foreign subsidiaries a great deal of autonomy. However, in many instances the necessary integration is not assured. Cases of strategic conflict between parts of companies are analysed, characteristics of and trends in the environment of multinational corporations are identified, and theoretical considerations are applied. With this discussion as a basis, some suggestions are advanced about how to involve subsidiaries more in strategic decision making.     

WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT IN ZIMBABWE: EVIDENCE FROM A CONTINGENT VALUATION STUDY

If communities living adjacent to the elephant see it as a burden, then they cannot be its stewards. To assess their valuation of it, a contingent valuation method study was conducted for one CAMPFIRE district in Zimbabwe. Respondents were classified according to their preferences over the elephant. The median willingness to pay for the preservation of 200 elephants is ZW$260 (US$4.73) for respondents who considered the elephant a public good and ZW$137 (US$2.49) for those favouring its translocation. The preservation of 200 elephants yields an annual net worth of ZW$10,828 (US$196) to CAMPFIRE households. However, the majority of households (62%) do not support elephant preservation. This is one argument against devolution of elephant conservation. External transfers constitute one way of providing additional economic incentives to local communities.     

‘SMART GOODS’ AND MOBILE RFID A CASE WITH INNOVATION FROM VOLVO

This paper presents a case from Volvo that explores an innovative RFID solution that leverages the exiting infrastructures of mobile usage. ‘Smart goods’ is used to explain features applied through Radio Frequency IDentification, utilization of cellular networks (GSM/GPRS) and web technology together with collaboration among supply chain actors. This has reduced traditional barriers of entry. An empirical case provides the basis for evaluation from the perspectives of operational reliability, usability and productivity.     

Driving Forces behind Exiting from Farming in Western Europe

This study examines the exit process of Western European farmers. Using a simple theoretical model of structural change, we examine empirically the impact of farm characteristics, macroeconomic conditions and policy intervention on farm exits during the 1990s. Econometric estimates using regional data for 110 regions in Western Europe indicate that exits from farming are strongly influenced by farm characteristics and policy conditions. In particular, exit rates are higher in regions with smaller farms and are closely related to production structures. Exit rates are lower in regions with more part‐time farming, high subsidy payments and high relative price increases for agricultural outputs, indicating that off‐farm income and government intervention slow down structural change in European agriculture.     

Valuing urban accessibility and air quality in Sweden

This article is concerned with the implicit values of urban accessibility and air quality in Sweden. Based on the hedonic wage and rent theory, we construct an econometric model to compute such values, and illustrate their implications for regional welfare analysis. It is shown that for most Swedish cities, welfare has increased from 1986 to 1998 due to improved air quality but the positive effect is partly offset by the deteriorated accessibility in some areas. The results also indicate that the values people place on urban accessibility and air quality vary considerably across regions.     

Wage Formation and Bargaining Power during the Great Depression*

We present an econometric analysis of wage behaviour in Norway during the interwar years. The analysis is based on a panel of manufacturing industry data using GMM estimation methods. Our empirical analysis shows that wage formation in the interwar period can be understood with the help of modern bargaining theory and well‐established wage equations. We estimate a long‐run wage curve that has all the standard features of being homogeneous in prices, proportional to productivity, and with a negative unemployment elasticity. We also present some new Monte Carlo evidence on the properties of the estimators used.     

Trade protection and balance of payments problems

A model to be used for planning short-term in-patient medical care is presented. The individual clinic is treated as a production unit which produces different kinds of treated wardcases with a given technique of production (given production-cost-structure). It is assumed to maximize the yearly number of treated wardcases under the constraints of (1) The yearly demand for different kinds of treated wardcases, which is assumed to be proportional to the number of citizens within the area which the clinic serves (the clinics population), (2) The yearly budget which is assigned by public authorities and has to cover all costs as the medical care is supplied free of charge, (3) The clinics physical capacity, measured by the number of beds.

The model has been applied to the branch of general medicine using the estimated production-cost-structure at an existing clinic within this branch. The kind of information that one can get is illustrated, for example: Given a clinic with a certain technique of production (production-cost-structure) which optimizes its production in the way that the model assumes, what is the marginal effects of changes in the size of budget, physical capacity or the size of population? In the case of an existing clinic, perhaps it serves too big a population (the marginal effect of reducing this constraint is zero)? or, when establishing a given kind of clinic what is the best combination of population size, size of budget and physical capacity? How much of the demand will be unsatisfied with different combinations, i.e. how large will the queues become?     

AMERICAN EXCHANGE OPTIONS AND A PUT-CALL TRANSFORMATION: A NOTE

This note presents the following two results. First, the finite-lived American option to exchange one asset for another is transformed into a finite-lived American call, for which a large set of excellent PC-based programmes is available. And second, the finite-lived American put is transformed into acorresponding call. Thus, it is unnecessary to develop and implement a separate numerical method for the American put.