有效的成本管理

本文所述的案例公司如今已不存在,成为金融危机的牺牲品。 因果：业绩与成本 案例公司是一家大型跨国集团的子公司,业务是根据订单来组装电子元件。该公司的成本波动很大,员工都是按月付薪的固定员工,因此,其利润水平取决于销售额。该公司的销售由一个跨国销售团队负责,但他们常常忽略这个小规模的子公司。当陷入经济衰退时,集团决定将其部分生产转移到欧洲去,剩下的生产外包出去以降低固定成本。     

Stock Markets,Growth, and Tax Policy

An extensive literature documents the role of financial markets in economic development. To help explain this relationship, this paper constructs an endogenous growth model in which a stock market emerges to allocate risk and explores how the stock market alters investment incentives in ways that change steady state growth rates. The paper demonstrates that stock markets accelerate growth by (1) facilitating the ability to trade ownership of firms without disrupting the productive processes occurring within firms and (2) allowing agents to diversify portfolios. Tax policy affects growth directly by altering investment incentives and indirectly by changing the incentives underlying financial contracts.     

Injured Workers' Underreporting in the Health Care Industry: An Analysis Using Quantitative, Qualitative, and Observational Data

Underreporting of occupational injuries was examined in four health care facilities using quantitative, qualitative, and observational data. Occupational Safety and Health Administration logs accounted for only one-third of the workers' compensation records; 45 percent of injured workers followed by survey had workers' compensation claims. Workers reported 63 percent of serious occupational injuries. Underreporting is explained by time pressure and workers' doubts about eligibility, reputation, income loss, and career prospects. Though aware of underreporting, managers subtly believe in workers' moral hazard behaviors.     

THE DOLLAR'S INTERNATIONAL ROLE

The dollar was the dominant international currency following World War II. However, as the international economy has changed in dramatic ways, the dollar's international role also has changed. Although the dollar's role has declined, it remains an important international currency. Furthermore, the world does not appear to be moving toward a tripolar monetary system. The dollar and the deutsche mark, not the yen, are the most important international currencies. The dollar's role has declined due to the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1973, the decline in the relative importance of the United States, and deregulation of the world financial market.     

COMPETITION POLICY FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: A LONG-RUN, ENTRY-BASED APPROACH

This paper describes key aspects of a long-run, entry-based approach to the design of competition policy for developing countries. A competition policy with the sole purpose of mitigating governmental, natural, and artificial barriers to entry best serves the goals of promoting the competitive process and fostering democracy. Freedom of entry is the sine qua non of the competitive process. Freedom of entry promotes the development of efficient, innovative firms capable of competing in international markets and ensures that market reforms will enhance social welfare.     

‘Th'ancient Distaff’ and ‘Whirling Spindle’: measuring the contribution of spinning to household earnings and the national economy in England, 1550–17701

The purpose of this article is to estimate the workforce involved in spinning from the late sixteenth century until the eve of mechanization. In addition, the potential contribution to family earnings from spinning will be examined. Just about all of the millions of yards of woollen yarn that went into making English cloth had to be spun by women and children, but this activity has not been investigated to the extent that it deserves. Spinning was a skilled occupation where there was a great demand for the best quality product. Sources exist which make it possible to make general estimates of the amount of spinning needed in the economy, and its cost. This evidence shows that employment in spinning increased dramatically from the late seventeenth century, and continued to increase until there were probably over one million women and children employed in spinning by the mid‐eighteenth century. In addition earnings increased to the extent whereby earnings from spinning could contribute over 30 per cent of household income for poorer families. This has implications for looking at trends in real wages over time, as well as for the concept of the industrious revolution.     

DISCOUNT RATE DISTORTIONS AND THE RESOURCE CURSE

Empirical evidence has suggested a “resource curse” exists, in which countries with abundant resources may have higher initial consumption but then grow more slowly. The effect appears to be dependent on a country's political structure. Theoretical models not typically accounted for historical exceptions, or have not shown the effect exists in a dynamic growth setting. We derive the resource curse effect in an optimal growth model augmented with a political process. The economy has a finite nonrenewable resource, and the government planner can choose to over‐extract natural resources relative to the efficient path by distorting the discount rate, but in so doing incurs political costs that depend on the presence of democracy. Government planners in non‐democratic countries usually have more autonomy in policymaking than those in democratic countries; therefore, the political cost is lower for non‐democratic countries. We show that the incentive for the planner to distort the extraction path is larger, the higher is the initial resource endowment. Consistent with empirical evidence, the distortion raises short‐term consumption but lowers the long‐term growth rate, and institutional differences create corner solutions that explain why some resource‐abundant countries avoid the curse. These results are robust to the inclusion of autonomous technological change.     

Information search in the mutual fund market in the U.S. A.

Sequential decision-making principles are introduced which can be applied to mutual fund investing. Specific attention is given to the nature of the mutual fund market and the expected pay-off from a low-cost information search. Empirical results are based on historical returns and information that is readily available in popular press sources. Substantial variation in historical performance was found and the pay-off from a market search was positive and substantial in many cases.     

Seeking a Single Policy for Contractual Fairness to Consumers: A Comparison of U.S. and E.U. and E.U. Efforts

The United States and the European Union both have made substantial progress toward harmonizing contractual unfairness law for consumers within their borders. To a large degree, the policies of these two largest consumer markets in the world are similar, but consumers should beware that some significant differences remain. Furthermore, differences in interpretation among member states could lead to differences within the E.U.     

Consumers' Interpretations of the Semantic Phrases Found in Reference Price Advertisements

Consumers are frequently presented with a higher reference price to compare with a lower advertised selling price. The research on reference prices has traditionally been conducted based on the implicit assumption that consumers’ interpretations of a given semantic phrase, e.g., “Regular Price/Sale Price,”are consistent across all consumers, but this fundamental assumption has never been tested. Guidelines issued by the Federal Trade Commission and the Council of Better Business Bureaus, as well as regulations enacted by approximately half of all states, appear to be based on a similar assumption. However, given the variability among consumers’ perceptions found in other areas of consumer research, it is reasonable to expect that consumer interpretations of semantic phrases may vary. Given the potential variability, a pricing claim may be deemed informative or deceptive depending on the meaning the particular consumer attaches to the claim. This article presents a discussion of the vagueness in pricing claims as a step toward evaluating deception.