The impact of internet exchanges on business-to-business distribution

The authors review an incumbent business-to-business distributor of electronic components faced with the entry of more than 50 Internet-based competitors and offer an explanation for why the distributor prevailed. Underlying the explanation is an assertion that the appropriate unit of analysis is the buyer-distributor-seller triad, not the buyer-seller dyad. In the case examined, the channel activities were interrelated such that when each party calculated the costs and benefits of the activities that occurred within this three-way relationship, they outweighed the net gains from disintermediation or Internet intermediation. Particular conditions favoring the status quo included existing activities for sharing customer identification information between the distributor and the seller, a high proportion of negotiated distributor-customer contracts, and new entrants’ reliance on open technologies. While no claims are made about the generalizability of this explanation beyond the case studied, the authors believe their assertion and hypotheses may have broader applicability. Das Narayandas is associate professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School. Mary Caravella is a doctoral student in marketing at the Harvard Business School. John Deighton is the Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School.     

Projection pursuit regression and disaggregate productivity effects: the case of the Indian blast furnaces

Productivity of blast furnaces in India is studied by disaggregating the production process and the utilization process. A dimension‐reducing nonparametric approach—projection pursuit regression—is used. We find that productivity can be increased significantly by improving the quality of coal. There is no evidence that executives have a positive marginal product. The production workers have a negative marginal product for the production process and a positive one for the utilization process. But the training of executives has a positive effect whereas that of the production workers has a negative effect on productivity. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Strategic Environmental Policy with Technology Licensing

The tendency for countries to cheat on international environmental agreements has been well-documented. One reason is that less developed countries suffer technological disadvantages. While a number of authors have shown that technological transfers can solve the stability problem, real-world giveaways rarely occur. The purpose of this study is to investigate the conditions under which private licensing of pollution abatement technology, linked to cooperation on environmental policy, represents a feasible alternative. We find that, while a Pareto-improving solution exists, the licensing equilibrium is tenuous. Ironically, the more technologically advanced pollution abatement becomes, the less incentive there is for the recipient to cooperate.     

Statistical interpretation,decomposition and properties of Atkinson's inequality index

The paper contains a statistical interpretation and an interesting decomposition of the inequality index due to Atkinson.

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Riassunto Questo lavoro presenta un'interpretazione statistica in termini di medie di potenza dell'indice di disuguaglianza di Atkinson e fornisce una scomposizione di detto indice in una quota che misura la disuguaglianza tra gruppi ed una quota che misura quella all'interno dei gruppi. Si dimostrano alcuni teoremi relativi alla misura decomposta nelle sue due componenti sopraindicate.

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Versione definitiva pervenuta il 20-1-1982

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This paper expresses personal views of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of the organisations they are associated with.     

DETERMINING COST OF SALES IN THE CCA SYSTEM

The profit concept in the Current Cost Accounting system is based on the objective of maintaining “capital” in the sense of “operating capability”. This paper seeks to demonstrate that the recommended capital maintenance adjustment of the Australian Provisional Accounting Standard on “Current Cost Accounting”, as it relates to cost of sales, is inappropriate for the stated capital maintenance objective. This appears to be because operating capability is a dated concept, since it is the operating capability existing at the beginning of an accounting period which is to be maintained. An alternative adjustment for cost of sales is proposed which is consistent with the stated capital maintenance objective.     

Effects of foreign investment in the presence of unemployment

In this paper we present a simple model of unemployment in the presence of foreign investment in the traded sector. More foreign investment increases employment in the nontraded sector but may or may not increase employment in the traded sector. The effect on total employment is also ambiguous. In a two-country framework with foreign investment itself a variable, we show that foreign investment should most likely be subsidized rather than taxed. Moreover, the employment maximizing tax on foreign investment is shown to be less than the optimum tax.     

Spaghetti-Kroketten oder Karottenstaub

Interview mit dem Heimkoch und Gerontologen Markus Biedermann - Studien weisen darauf hin, dass in Pflegeeinrichtungen mindestens jeder dritte Pflegebedürftige mangelern?hrt ist. Gerade demente Menschen leiden unter Kau- und Schluckst?rungen, k?nnen nicht mehr mit dem Besteck umgehen und vergessen Hunger und Durst. Essen auch für diese Bewohner wieder zu einem sinnlichen Erlebnis zu machen, ist der Ansatz des Schweizers.