New Product Development For Service Companies

It is well known that services differ from manufactured goods in a number of significant ways. Services are largely intangible, produced and consumed simultaneously, heterogeneous and perishable. These differences can lead to changes in service management. Christopher J. Easingwood has investigated how new products development practices in service organizations may reflect these differences. He has profiled practices found in a sample of service companies in the United Kingdom on topics ranging from idea generation to post-launch assessment, together with the strategic role and organizational location of new products. A number of special characteristics of the new product activity in services companies are identified. For instance, the number of new product introductions may be restricted due to customer and staff confusion when faced with a proliferation of service products. Test markets are used primarily to ensure the proper functioning of the service rather than to provide a base for a national sales projection. These and other characteristics appear to be appropriate adaptations to the special features of services. They are part of a pattern that shows some of the ways that service companies have adapted the new product development process to meet unique problems in the service environment.     

Joint oligopsony-oligopoly in the U.S. leaf tobacco market, 1924–39

The leaf tobacco marketplace is highly organized. Prior to 1940, the few large tobacco companies controlled that organization explicitly. The question is whether this organization set oligopsonistic leaf prices or minimized production and transaction costs. A model of joint oligopsonyoligopoly shows that pricing of cigarettes and leaf tobacco was unified: oligopolistic cigarette pricing was sufficient to curtail both cigarette production and leaf purchases. The companies could just bid in the market for the leaf necessary for that cigarette production rate.Prima facie, the organization was not for oligopsony coordination. The implied econometric model of pricing fits observed behavior well.Malcolm Boyd, Dennis Carlton, John Garen, Stephen Karlson, Li Way Lee, An-loh Lin, Robert Miller, Stephen Spurr and the referee have given me thoughtful, perceptive and useful comments. I am pleased to acknowledge their involvement without implicating them in whatever errors remain.     

流通股股东在股权分置改革中是否获得了财富增值？

本文的主要的日是从事后的角度分析流通股股东的股票财富在股权分置改革前后的变化.股权分置改革方案的提出和表决是流通股股东和非流通股股东之间的一个讨价还价过程,利益分配取决于双方的谈判力量.统计结果显示,从总体上看,流通股股东的财富在股改前后获得了7%的增值.非流通股比例、股改批次、控股股东性质、市净率是影响流通股股东获得财富增值的主要因素.虽然非流通股比例越大,非流通股股东支付的对价股票也越多,但是,流通股股东享受的财富增值却越低.非流通股比例与对价水平之间正的相关性掩盖了非流通股股东少付对价的事实.总的来说,对价方案是在维持流通股股东股改前后的财富不受损的基础上制定的,而不是补偿流通股股东历史上对上市公司的投入.     

The problems of supplying water to third world cities: Bulawayo's water crisis

The current drought in central and southern Africa has focused attention on issues relating to the provision and supply of potable water. In the case of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city, there is the very real prospect that water supplies may be exhausted before the onset of the next rainy season. This paper explores the background to this problem and shows how poor planning, financial constraints, and political intransigence have failed to keep pace with a policy aimed at the provision of water to the inhabitants in this expanding urban environment Alternative sources of supply. in particular a pipeline to the Zambezi River, are also investigated.     

A re-examination of the forward exchange rate unbiasedness hypothesis

A Re-Examination of the Forward Exchange Rate Unbiasedness Hypothesis. — This paper applies the Phillips and Hansen estimation and inference procedures to re-examine the hypothesis that the forward exchange rate is an unbiased predictor of the future spot exchange rate. The results indicate that the 90-day forward exchange rate is not an unbiased predictor. However, the 90-day forward and future spot exchange rates are cointegrated. Only for the U.K. pound/U.S. dollar exchange rate is there an error correction representation. Overall, however, the evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that risk-averse agents in the forward foreign exchange market form expectations rationally.