ON BRÓDY'S CONJECTURE: THEORY,FACTS AND FIGURES ABOUT INSTABILITY OF THE US ECONOMY

Bródy's conjecture regarding the instability of economies is submitted to an empirical test using input–output flow tables of varying size for the US economy, for the benchmark years 1997 and 2002, as well as for the period 1998–2011. The results obtained using input–output tables of various dimensions lend support to the view of increasing instability (in the sense of Bródy) of the US economy over the period considered. Furthermore, our analysis shows that only a few vertically integrated industries are enough to shape the behaviour of the entire economy in the case of a disturbance. These results may usefully be contrasted with those derived in a parallel literature on aggregate fluctuations from microeconomic ‘idiosyncratic’ shocks.     

Ethics Control Mechanisms: A Comparative Observation of Hong Kong Companies

Managers with different cultural backgrounds and under different circumstances have different views on what is acceptable ethical behaviour. This study attempts to determine whether major companies in Hong Kong share the same views as North American academics on what management ethical standards ought to be, and if so, whether any control mechanisms have been established to instill ethical behaviour within their organizations. Notable differences between the practice in these companies and those from a similar survey conducted in North America are identified and explained. The management accountant's role in the development and implementation of such mechanisms is investigated.     

Joint pricing and design of urban highways with spatial and user group heterogeneity

This paper addresses the joint optimization of capacity investments and toll charges imposed on multi-group users in monopolistic private highways within general road networks. A game-theoretic formulation is provided that leads to a nonconvex bilevel program. The proposed modeling framework handles several complex issues raised in realistic applications, such as regulations on the levels of tolls and service, and the discrete nature of highway capacity, using a genetic optimization technique. Real-application results show the importance of considering the spatial heterogeneity of prices, and the tradeoff between investments and pricing strategies in regulated private highways.     

Sunspots, GDP and the stock market

A correlation has been observed between the US GDP and the number of sunspots as well as between the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the number of sunspots. The data cover 80 years of history. The observed correlations permit forecasts for the GDP and for the stock market in America with a future horizon of 10 years. Both being above their long-term trend they are forecasted to go over a peak around Jun-2008.     

The normal, the natural, and the harmonic

Use is made of rigorous definitions for the terms normal, natural, and harmonic to reveal a number of unfamiliar aspects about them. The Gaussian distribution is not sufficient to determine who is normal, and fluctuations above or below a natural-growth curve may or may not be natural. A recipe for harmonically sustained natural growth requires that the overlap during the substitution process must be limited. As a consequence the overall growth process must experience good as well as bad “seasons”.     

Transitional Dynamics and Indeterminacy of Equilibria in an Endogenous Growth Model with a Public Input

The authors analyze an endogenous growth model with economy–wide increasing returns, in which a public input is essential for private production. Within such a framework, it is shown that a continuum of equilibria and global indeterminacy can arise for reasonable parameter values, simply due to the presence of endogenous public policy. This can potentially account for "leapfrogging" or retroceding growth experiences. It is demonstrated how fiscal policy can serve as a selection device among different convergent paths.     

Two remarks on Cournot equilibria

We describe two simple results in the theory of Cournot equilibria. The first has to do with the effect of taxation in a Cournot industry and the second describes under what conditions a Cournot equilibrium will implicity maximize an objective function. These results are probably known, but are not well known, and they seem useful enough to be worth spelling out.     

When do market games have transferable utility?

A pure exchange economy generates a “market game” in which the allocations achievable by any coalition are determined by the initial endowments of its members. Subject to certain regularity conditions, it is shown that for a market game it is possible to find utility representations for each consumer so that the game can be treated as a game with transferable utility if and only if indirect utility of all consumers can be represented in the Gorman polar form. This is the class for which aggregate demand behaves as if it were the demand of a single consumer.     

Robotics: Challenges for the human resources manager

Robots present industry with the exciting possibility of improving productivity and cutting costs. But there are other kinds of costs involved—the human costs—and it is these that the human resources manager must keep to a minimum through careful planning and implementation of the new technology.     

Creating consumer durable retailer customer loyalty through order fulfillment service operations

Manufacturers now find themselves in the position of finding new ways to remain competitive in the era of retail power. The onus rests on the manufacturer's ability to implement operational strategies that help the retailer achieve its objectives. Specifically, manufacturers that establish successful order fulfillment service can affect retailer loyalty. The overarching goal of this research, therefore, is to examine the importance to operations managers of understanding the order fulfillment needs and expectations of their retail customers and to establish the value-added role that operations management plays in developing retailer loyalty. Empirical evidence is provided on the relationships between relational order fulfillment service, operational order fulfillment service, satisfaction, affective commitment, purchase behavior, and loyalty. Such evidence not only focuses on the strategic importance of the OM discipline in manufacturer–retailer relationships, but also extends previous OM theory by taking a more complex view of the loyalty phenomenon.