Distinguishing between Equilibrium and Integration in Spatial Price Analysis

This article introduces a new spatial price analysis methodology based on maximum likelihood estimation of a mixture distribution model incorporating price, transfer cost, and trade flow data. This method permits differentiation between market integration and competitive market equilibrium and derivation of intuitive measures of intermarket tradability, competitive market equilibrium, perfect integration, segmented equilibrium, and segmented disequilibrium. One can also use these estimates to derive semiparametric measures of time-varying regime probabilities to track changing market conditions. An application to trade in soybean meal among Pacific Rim economies demonstrates the usefulness of the method.     

Supply chain cost management and value-based pricing

Continued deflationary trends in many markets around the world are creating greater pressure for cost reduction in order that margins can be maintained. Customers and consumers are increasingly value driven and consequently less brand or supplier loyal. In this challenging world, there is a growing recognition that creative pricing strategies combined with effective supply chain management provide opportunities for significant cost reduction and increased profits. This paper presents evidence to support this viewpoint and suggests an approach to supply chain alignment that can enable cost reduction opportunities to be identified and higher profits to be achieved through collaborative strategies.     

The false promise of technological determinism: the case of enterprise resource planning systems

According to software vendors and consultants, Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERPs) transform the nature, structure and management of work regardless of organisational context. This paper contests this technologically deterministic view of organisational change by demonstrating the role that discourse plays in the social construction of ERPs.     

Monetary policy in interdependent economies: A game theoretic approach Matthew B. Canzoneri and Dale W. Henderson MIT Press, 1991, 133 pp.

This article reviews the recent book by Matthew Canzoneri and Dale Henderson on international monetary policy. The review discusses the basic model used by the authors to illustrate the welfare losses that arise as a result of non-cooperative behavior and the proposed solutions for moving closer to the socially optimal cooperative solutions. The proposed solutions are then examined in detail and the reviewer asks whether these solutions accurately describe the way he believes cooperation has occurred in the last two decades. Finally, this work is compared to recent research on policy cooperation that does not have game-theoretic foundations.     

ESTIMATION AND SELECTION BIAS IN MEAN-VARIANCE PORTFOLIO SELECTION

Much research has focused on the problem of selecting portfolios without the benefit of parametric measures of risk and return. In this paper, a Monte Carlo technique is used to isolate the extent and nature of the problems introduced by this practice. The technique is employed in the context of classical statistical methodology without permitting short sales. It is shown that using estimators of expected return and risk not only obscures parametric values, but also affects portfolio composition in the Markowitz framework. In this study, these two components of bias are isolated and measured.     

The economic performance of cities: A Markov-switching approach

This paper examines the determinants of employment growth in metro areas. To obtain growth rates, we use a Markov-switching model that separates a city's growth path into two distinct phases (high and low), each with its own growth rate. The simple average growth rate over some period is, therefore, the weighted average of the high-phase and low-phase growth rates, with the weight being the frequency of the two phases. We estimate the effects of a variety of factors separately for the high-phase and low-phase growth rates. Growth in the high phase is related to both human capital and industry mix, while growth in the low phase is related to industry mix only, specifically, the relative importance of manufacturing. Overall, our results strongly reject the notion that city-level characteristics influence employment growth equally across the phases of the business cycle.     

Smallholders download and share videos from the Internet to learn about sustainable agriculture

Of 1,211 farmers and their representatives registered on www.accessagriculture.org, 142 participated in an on-line survey in November 2017, designed to learn farmer’s opinions of Access Agriculture, an NGO which hosts a digital platform where anyone can watch or download videos and other information for free. These farmer learning videos all convey practical information on sustainable agricultural innovations, to encourage farmer experiments. Previous experience showed that smallholders liked having their own copy of videos (e.g. on DVD), but this study showed that farmers are now starting to find their own way to the internet to pro-actively search for information. Although some farmers learn about on-line videos by social contacts, most of the farmers found the videos on www.accessagriculture.org by surfing the web. This suggests that limitations of reaching farmers with traditional forms of video distribution (e.g. DVDs and village screenings) will be partly overcome by the Internet. Youth have become the new information brokers for communities, as elders may lack the digital technology skills needed to use the Internet to get agricultural information. To share videos with other community members, youth will benefit from additional tools, such as an app, to allow easy download and sharing with limited data consumption.