ON THE BIASES IN FOREIGN TRADE INDICES*

Starting out from the observation that both imports and exports may be viewed as the difference between domestic consumption (use) and production, static standard theory of biases in consumption and production indices is brought to bear upon trade indices: Laspeyres tends to overrate when applied to imports and to underrate when applied to exports; for Paasche, the opposite holds true. Hence, terms of trade tend to be underrated (exaggerated) when based upon Laspeyres (Paasche) price indices. The problem of extending these conclusions to the case of changes in production frontiers and preference maps is discussed. When homotheticity is absent, correlation between price and quantity relatives may upset the simple conclusions. This is of special importance in the large-country situation. Dynamics further complicate the situation. A cobweb mechanism in exports may thus reverse the static results.     

A work role perspective of accountants in local government service departments

In most of the largest U.K. local authorities the financial control function is highly centralised with no qualified accountant or controller located in each spending department. There now may be the beginnings of a trend towards employing accountants within service departments. The paper analyses how this new segment of public sector accounting appears to be becoming established, how the role of these accountants is being developed and the contrasting occupational values of accountants in service departments and those in the finance department. It is also shown how the existence of a strong accounting profession in local government can lead to different aspects of both the financial control structure and process in comparison with central government such that research results on the latter may not automatically hold at local level.     

Innovation,firm size,and firm age

This paper uses a new data set on innovation output to assess the degree to which the level of innovation in manufacturing firms is influenced by firm size and firm age. Indicators of innovation output used are the number of new products introduced as a function of firm sales and the proportion of firm sales obtained from products first introduced in the previous five years. While the evidence is mixed, the results tend to indicate that it is possible to separate the effects of age and size in assessing the level of innovation. Both firm size and firm age tend to be inversely related to innovative output.     

Business and national priorities for industrial development: Intersectoral consensus in Israel

This study describes a survey of experts chosen from Industry, Labour, and Government in Israel, who ranked and scored three business and four national goals in the context of industrial development. The business goals represented profitability, capital use and growth potential. The national goals involved human resource utilization, added value, foreign exchange conservation, and export of technologically advanced products. The findings support a hypothesis of consensus on goals and goal priorities between different sectors of the Israel economy, despite what might appear to be their divergent special interests. The findings also indicate overall consensus with respect to a balance between business and national goals. The study concludes that this consensus is the result of the need to respond to environmental threats and uncertainties which has created a sense of mutual interdependence among the sectors.     

Outcomes of voting and planning: Condorcet,Weber and Rawls locations

The paper is concerned with the comparison of the locations of a facility resulting from voting and planning procedures. It is shown that a voting location exists and coincides with that minimizing the total distance covered by the users to go to the facility when the transportation network contains no cycles. For a general network, least upper bounds on the ratio of the social values of the voting and planning locations are given in the cases where the total or the maximal travelled distance is minimized.