Innovation and the creation,development and destruction of markets in the world machine tool industry

In the 1970's the Japanese machine tool builders began to create and develop, first in the US and later in Europe, new markets for computer-numerically controlled (CNC) machine tools. Their control-technology innovations rendered the machines of their US competitors obsolete. Consequently, many US and German machine tools builders, who saw their markets being destroyed by their larger Japanese competitors in the late 1970's, were forced to exist the industry in the mid 1980's. This study identifies the main characteristics of the world machine tool industry, describes the evolution of the world machine tool industry from the early 1960's, and analyzes the effect of Japanese innovation on US and German machine tool markets.     

Many leaders make light work in banking innovation projects

This paper reports the results of a study into leadership of new service development projects in consumer banking in the UK. It endorses the findings of previous research which shows more than one leader involved in major innovation projects, but highlights the importance of leadership team-working to successful projects. Furthermore it discusses the critical role of the senior leader in setting a leadership style for project leadership teams. The study found a power sharing (empowerment) approach in successful projects together with greater involvement by top management.     

A stress test of fairness measures in models of social utility

Summary. Current social utility models posit fairness as a motive for certain types of strategic behavior. The models differ, however, with respect to how fairness is measured. Distribution models measure fairness in terms of relative payoff comparisons. Reciprocal-kindness models measure fairness in terms of gifts given and gifts received. Reference points play an important role in both measures, but the reference points in reciprocal-kindness models are conditioned on the actions available to players, whereas those in distributive models are not. Data from an ultimatum game experiment that stress tests the kindness measure is consistent with the distributive measure. Data from an experiment that stress tests the distributive measure is inconsistent with the distributive measure, but moves in the direction opposite that implied by the kindness measure. A measure that combines relative payoff comparisons with a reference point conditioned on feasible actions provides a first approximation to our data.Received: 12 August 2002, Revised: 27 November 2003, JEL Classification Numbers: C78, C91, D63. Correspondence to: Axel OckenfelsBolton gratefully acknowledges the support of the National Science Foundation. Ockenfels thanks Alvin Roth and the Harvard Business School for their generous hospitality, and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft for their support through the Emmy Noether-program. Both authors gratefully acknowledge the hospitality of the Making Choices project at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research, University of Bielefeld during the summer of 2000. We also thank an anonymous referee and seminar participants in Bielefeld, Boston, Columbus, Harvard, and Jena for helpful comments.     

Two-dimensional Bernstein polynomial density estimators

A Bernstein polynomial estimator for f_nN(x, y) for an unknown probability density functionf(x, y) concentrated on the triangle ={(x, y): 0x, y<1,x+y<1} or on the square =(x, y):0 x, y 1 is developed. As a measure of quality the exact order of magnitude for the pointwise mean squared error is established. It is seen that the quality of these Bernstein polynomial estimators is comparable with the quality of the so-called kernel estimators. Further for such estimators uniform weak consistency results and central limit theorems are developed.     

Regionalisation and regionalism in world trade

The growing importance of regional integration, particularly in the Triad of Western Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific region, is not always regarded as positive, but is also criticized because of the dangers involved for free world trade. What effects on world trade are to be expected? Can the new world trade order limit the possible risks?     

Does globalization affect growth? Evidence from a new index of globalization

The study develops an index of globalization covering its three main dimensions: economic integration, social integration, and political integration. Using panel data for 123 countries in 1970–2000 it is analysed empirically whether the overall index of globalization as well as sub-indexes constructed to measure the single dimensions affect economic growth. As the results show, globalization indeed promotes growth. The dimensions most robustly related with growth refer to actual economic flows and restrictions in developed countries. Although less robustly, information flows also promote growth whereas political integration has no effect.