The dynamics of structural change: a model of economic development and urbanization

A system model is constructed for stimulating the development dynamics of a class of developing countries. The interrelations among socio-economic variables, feedback relations and the recursive relationship of intertemporal solutions are emphasized. For some plausible values of parameters and initial conditions, the model generates results generally consistent with the experience of many developing economies. Emerging from the dynamics are rapid urbanization accompanied by little industrial growth, increasingly unbalanced spatial distribution of population, ever-worsening distribution of income, unemployment and under-employment in both rural and urban areas, and other familiar features of the developing world unexplained by comparative-static equilibrium models.     

Companies and the customers who hate them

Why do companies bind customers with contracts, bleed them with fees, and baffle them with fine print? Because bewildered customers, who often make bad purchasing decisions, can be highly profitable. Most firms that profit from customers' confusion are on a slippery slope. Over time, their customer-centric strategies for delivering value have evolved into company-centric strategies for extracting it. Not surprisingly, when a rival comes along with a friendlier alternative, customers defect. Adversarial value-extracting strategies are common in such industries as cell phone service, retail banking, and health clubs. Overly complex product and pricing options, for example, may have been designed to serve various segments. But in fact they take advantage of how difficult it is for customers to predict their needs (such as how many cell phone minutes they'll use each month) and make it hard for them to choose the right product. Similarly, penalties and fees, which may have been instituted to offset the costs of undesirable customer behavior, like bouncing checks, turn out to be very profitable. As a result, companies have no incentive to help customers avoid them. Tactics like these generate bad publicity and fuel customer defections, creating opportunities for competitors. Virgin Mobile USA, for example, has lured millions of angry cell phone customers away from the incumbents by offering a straightforward plan with no hidden fees, no time-of-day restrictions, and no contracts. ING Direct, now the fourth-largest thrift bank in the United States, offers accounts with no fees, no tiered interest rates, and no minimums. In industries where squeezing value from customers is commonplace, companies that dismantle these harmful practices and design a transparent, value-creating offer can head off customer retaliation and spur rapid growth.     

Is Leader Charisma Individual-Centered or Relationship-Centered? Empirical Evidence from China

Despite the multitude of research on charisma of leaders, researchers have failed to reach a consensus on its nature. The main debate is whether charisma resides innately within a leader or it is developed from specific relationships. This paper elucidates this issue using empirical studies from China. Combining qualitative investigations and exploratory factor analysis, we find that leader charisma consists of three dimensions: love towards followers, talents and wisdom of leadership, and public virtue. The three-factor structure of charisma suggests that a leader’s charisma on the surface originates from leader’s personality and behavior but it can actually only be fully understood by integrating the relationship-centered view of charisma.     

Involuntary Unemployment: An Expository Note

This note is an effort to view the research program of Brecher and his co-workers to deploy tax incentives against involuntary unemployment in the broader context; on both the equity-efficiency trade-off in political economy, and the dual economic structure in the theoretic foundations of market equilibrium.     

The unselfish gene

For generations, we have operated on the assumption that human beings are fundamentally selfish, and so we have built systems and organizations around monetary incentives, rewards, and punishments. That hasn't always worked very well. Now the tide is starting to turn. In fields such as evolutionary biology, psychology, sociology, political science, and experimental economics, researchers are seeing evidence that human beings are more cooperative and behave far less selfishly than we have long assumed. The success achieved by such collaborative offerings as Wikipedia, Craigslist, Facebook, and open source software has, in fact, a scientific basis. Dozens of field studies have identified highly successful cooperative systems, which are often more stable than those based on incentives. Moreover, researchers have found neural and possibly genetic evidence of a human predisposition to cooperate. Evolution may actually favor people who collaborate and societies that include such individuals. Organizations would be better off helping us to engage and embrace our generous sentiments rather than assuming that we are driven purely by self-interest. We can build collaborative systems by encouraging communication, ensuring that claims about community are authentic, fostering a feeling of solidarity, being fair, and appealing to people's intrinsic motivations.     

Immigration and economic welfare: resource and environmental aspects

"The relation between immigration and the economic welfare of residents is analyzed for resource-rich economies (such as Australia) both under competitive conditions and when various distortions are present. Immigration provides efficiency gains for residents under distortion-free competition for standard 'gains from trade' reasons. Such reasons, however, tend to be ignored by immigration and 'optimal population' theorists who raise the issue of restricting immigration without explicitly referring to the distortions. In situations where distortions and externalities are present, we argue that it is generally preferable to devise policies which specifically target the distortions than to restrict immigration."     

制造业对外直接投资在中国的区位选择决策

一、引论 经典的利润最大化理论把对外直接投资(FDI)或企业在外国投资的基本动机刻划为对市场不完善的利用和运营效率上的预期收益(Hymer,1976;Kindleberger,1970)。事实上,这种动机必然涉及到企业的区位决策,即在国外寻找有利的投资地点。许多因素决定了一个国家对FDI的吸引力,其中外国企业与该国在地理上的相近和包容被认为是一项关键的外部因素(Kravis and Lipsey,1982)。 为了强调聚集经济(agglomeration economics)在城市成长过程中的影响,奎格里(Quigley,1998)     

企业商誉浅论

一、商誉是一种特殊形态的商品笔者认为商誉是经济学范畴的一个概念,应当把它放在经济学范畴来揭示其内涵和外延。那么,从经济学的角度来看,商誉的本质是什么呢?笔者认为,商誉是一种特殊形态的商品。它的价值渊源于造就、发展企业过程中部分个别活劳动的积累,其使用价值是企业生存、竞争、发展及获利能力,或者说是企业运动能力。商誉价值可以通过一般企业产品的交换实现,也可以通过企业这种特殊商