JOINT VENTURE BUY‐OUTS UNDER UNCERTAINTY*

This paper provides a theory of joint venture buy‐outs in the presence of demand uncertainty. In an infinite horizon framework with demand uncertainty, we consider a foreign firm's decision on whether to form a joint venture or to open a fully owned subsidiary. Without the possibility of future share adjustment, the foreign firm enters the market through a joint venture if the host‐country firm helps to reduce the uncertainty significantly. Consequently, the firm enters at an earlier point in time compared to the situation in which opening a fully owned subsidiary is the only option to the firm. The possibility of future share adjustment in the joint venture further increases the incentive to speed up foreign investment. Although the possibility of share adjustment results in a joint venture buy‐out and can reduce the future profits of the host‐country firm, it may increase host‐country welfare by attracting foreign investment at an earlier point in time. We show the implications of learning in the joint venture.     

Wealth Inequality and Intergenerational Links

Previous work has had difficulty generating household saving behaviour that makes the distribution of wealth much more concentrated than that of labour earnings, and that makes the richest households hold onto large amounts of wealth, even during very old age. I construct a quantitative, general equilibrium, overlapping-generations model in which parents and children are linked by accidental and voluntary bequests and by earnings ability. I show that voluntary bequests can explain the emergence of large estates, while accidental bequests alone cannot, and that adding earnings persistence within families increases wealth concentration even more. I also show that the introduction of a bequest motive generates lifetime savings profiles more consistent with the data.     

城乡物流一体化背景下供应链协同管理研究

供应链协同是增强供应链整体竞争的重要手段。城乡物流一体化下供应链具有复杂性、动态性和离散性的特点。为改善城乡供应链的协同效果,文章从战略层、管理层及操作层三个层面提出了供应链协同的管理对策。     

Branding from the inside out at Yahoo!: HR's role as brand builder

Every day, thousands of companies spend millions of dollars to build external brand identity and customer loyalty. Branding implies more than just selling a product or service; the best companies create a strong emotional connection between the message and the product. The brand attaches meaning, the lifestyle, the transformation, the potential, the joy, and the fulfillment to the product. Today, competing for employees is as difficult as competing for customers; building employee loyalty is as important as building customer loyalty; and treating employees right is the key to treating shareholders right. Here we discuss what Yahoo! has done to build its strong branding image. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Marktanalyse en markttheorie

Summary The introduction of expectations in market theory has increased its dynamic nature and realism. It is argued that only the incorporation of historical time in the theory will suggest the market development patterns needed by analysts. Dynamic market theory can usefully be based on the development stages of the product cycle. The scope of such a theory is much wider than is currently acknowledged. It comprises entrepreneurial theory, the theory of profits, competition and industrial change, and provides the building blocks of a theory of international business. The application of methods of analysis in the various stages of market development is mentioned.

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Rede, uitgesproken bij de aanvaarding van het ambt van lector in de bedrijfshuishoudkunde aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam op 27 april 1971. Prof. Dr. P. Hennipman heeft door zijn critische opmerkingen wezenlijk bijgedragen tot de formulering en nuancering van het gegeven betoog.     

Marriage seasonality and the industrious revolution: southern Sweden, 1690–18951

In this article we study the evolution of marriage seasonality in relation to economic change, particularly connected to changes in labour supply and work intensity of the kind implied by the ‘industrious revolution’. The focus is on southern Sweden in 1685–1894, which was a period of agricultural transformation and early industrialization, when we would expect to see an increase in work intensity. The analysis is based on about 120,000 marriages from 117 different parishes. The analysis shows that the seasonality of marriage changed dramatically over time, from a classic grain production pattern, with a marriage peak in late spring and a marriage trough at harvest time, to a much more even seasonality, although with the appearance of a very strong peak in December. This change affected rural rather than urban areas, and was present regardless of differences in institutional settings, and for almost all occupational groups below the elite. The changed seasonality pattern is consistent with increasing work intensity over the year, leaving only the weeks around Christmas as a low season. In addition to the increase in work intensity, the privatization of marriage and the availability of time and resources were also important factors in the changing seasonality pattern.     

Problematizing 'Innovation' as a Critical Project

Based on research experience within US corporations, this paper examines the rhetoric and practices of organizational and technological 'innovation'. Our aim is to identify discourses of innovation as a site for critical studies. Two cases are used to illustrate ways in which initiatives launched in the name of change are based in traditional cultural frames that work in practice to conserve existing institutional orders. We close with some observations on alternative, indigenous sources of innovation and the conditions required to sustain them.