A new perspective on the competitiveness of nations

The capability of firms to survive and to have a competitive advantage in global markets depends on, amongst other things, the efficiency of public institutions, the excellence of educational, health and communications infrastructures, as well as on the political and economic stability of their home country. The measurement of competitiveness and strategy development is thus an important issue for policy-makers. Despite many attempts to provide objectivity in the development of measures of national competitiveness, there are inherently subjective judgments that involve, for example, how data sets are aggregated and importance weights are applied. Generally, either equal weighting is assumed in calculating a final index, or subjective weights are specified. The same problem also occurs in the subjective assignment of countries to different clusters. Developed as such, the value of these type indices may be questioned by users. The aim of this paper is to explore methodological transparency as a viable solution to problems created by existing aggregated indices. For this purpose, a methodology composed of three steps is proposed. To start, a hierarchical clustering analysis is used to assign countries to appropriate clusters. In current methods, country clustering is generally based on GDP. However, we suggest that GDP alone is insufficient for purposes of country clustering. In the proposed methodology, 178 criteria are used for this purpose. Next, relationships between the criteria and classification of the countries are determined using artificial neural networks (ANNs). ANN provides an objective method for determining the attribute/criteria weights, which are, for the most part, subjectively specified in existing methods. Finally, in our third step, the countries of interest are ranked based on weights generated in the previous step. Beyond the ranking of countries, the proposed methodology can also be used to identify those attributes that a given country should focus on in order to improve its position relative to other countries, i.e., to transition from its current cluster to the next higher one.     

Wages,implicit contracts,and the business cycle: Evidence from a European panel

We study the joint behavior of hours and wages over the business cycle in a unique panel of 13 European countries, and document significant history dependence in wages. Workers who experience favorable market conditions during their tenure on the job have higher wages, and work fewer labor hours. Unobserved differences in productivity, such as varying job quality, or match-specific productivity are not likely to explain this variation. The results instead point to the importance of contractual arrangements in wage determination. In economies with decentralized bargaining practices, such arrangements resemble self-enforcing insurance contracts with one-sided commitment (by the employer). On the other hand, in countries with strong unions and centralized wage bargaining, wage behavior is better approximated by full-commitment insurance contracts. The co-movement of hours and wages further confirms a contractual framework with variable worker hours. Despite the strong prevalence of contracts in Europe, however, the elasticity of labor supply is considerably smaller compared to the U.S. labor market.     

Efficiency of the plate-number-based traffic rationing in general networks

Road space rationing based on vehicle plate numbers restricts vehicle access to a network based upon the license number on pre-established days. It has been used in some large cities especially when there are some major events. This paper analyzes the efficiency of road space rationing schemes by establishing the bounds of the reduction in the system cost associated with the restricted flow pattern at user equilibrium in comparison with the system cost at the original user equilibrium. The bounds are established under the general traffic equilibrium model formulated as variational inequalities and illustrated with a simple example.     

Travel and Leisure Services Preferences and Patronage Motives of Older Consumers

The population is aging and the number of people over 55 (older consumers) is increasing. Firms which recognize the importance of the older consumer segment can use this demographic change to their advantage. However, the older consumer market is more heterogeneous than the younger consumer market when it comes to preferences, motives, and spending patterns. Travel and leisure services are no exception. This study reports the result of a large‐scale study that examined the responses to travel and leisure services and patronage motives of different age and lifestyle groups. The results suggest several marketing strategies that would be most appropriate for reaching older consumers of travel and leisure services.     

Anticipating intended users: prospective sensemaking in technology development

How do developers and designers of a new technology make sense of intended users? The critical groundwork for user-centred technology development begins not by involving actual users’ exposure to the technological artefact but much earlier, with designers’ and developers’ vision of future users. Thus, anticipating intended users is critical to technology uptake. We conceptualise the anticipation of intended users as a form of prospective sensemaking in technology development. Employing a narrative analytical approach and drawing on four key communities in the development of Grid computing, we reconstruct how each community anticipated the intended Grid user. Based on our findings, we conceptualise user anticipation in terms of two key dimensions, namely the intended possibility to inscribe user needs into the technological artefact as well as the intended scope of the application domain. In turn, these dimensions allow us to develop an initial typology of intended user concepts that in turn might provide a key building bloc towards a generic typology of intended users.     

Sea turtle interactions with Hawaii's longline fishery: an extended multi-objective programming model incorporating spatial and seasonal dimensions

The numerous discussions regarding the advantages and disadvantages of Turkey's becoming a member of the Customs Union has been inconclusive. The empirical analysis that mostly focus on the changes in the volume of trade without much regard to the conjectural changes have also been insufficient. This study attempts to shed light on this issue in a formal analysis of Turkey's international trade by empirically accounting for the changes before and after the Customs Union Agreement (CUA). In doing so, we explicitly account for the concurrent changes in the macroeconomic environment that may have affected Turkey's trade with the rest of the world. Our empirical findings indicate that CUA has not only positively impacted on Turkey's trade, but also led to changes in the behaviour of both exports and imports with regards to their responsiveness to underlying variables.     

Earnings Manipulation and the Cost of Capital

The widespread use of accounting information by investors and financial analysts to help value stocks creates an incentive for managers to manipulate earnings in an attempt to influence short‐term stock price performance. This paper examines the role of earnings management in affecting a firm's cost of capital. Using an agency model with multiple firms whose cash flows are correlated, we demonstrate that the extent of earnings manipulation varies across the business cycle. Depending on a firm's earnings profile, it can have stronger incentives to overstate its performance in good times or in bad times. Because of this dependence on the state of the economy, earnings manipulation can influence a firm's cost of capital despite the forces of diversification.     

标准成本制度:日本的经验与启示

在日本国的企业会计实践中,现代管理会计的应用相当普遍,但传统管理会计中的标准成本制度时至今日依然相当活跃.其在制定和实际应用标准成本制度时的一些主要特点,诸如成本计算制度形式、成本计算目的、成本差异的账务处理、成本分摊基准的选择等方面,均对仍处于经济转型时期、管理会计实践与国际水平相比差距甚大的我国有着诸多启示.学习和借鉴日本制定和推广标准成本制度的成功经验,制定和推广一套适应我国企业经营管理的标准成本制度体系,是快速地改进我国管理会计实践、加强我国管理会计实务应用的现实需求和理性选择.     

基于GEF的图形编辑器技术研究

GEF可用于模型开发图形化表示和编辑环境。本文分析了GEF与MVC映射机制,研究了GEF设计模式,探讨了其关键技术和事件流,介绍了一种基于GEF的图形编辑器。本研究有助于实施基于GEF的编辑器。     

The interaction between foreigners' trading and emerging stock returns: Evidence from Turkey

Using monthly foreign flows data on Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) and employing a structural VAR model, we analyze the interaction between foreigners' trading and emerging stock returns. In contrast to most of the available theory and repeated previous findings on other markets, foreign investors negative-feedback-trade with respect to past local returns in ISE, however only in rising markets and especially under macroeconomic instability. Net foreign flows forecast future market returns, but not individual stock returns. Price impacts are permanent, suggesting that foreigners' trading incorporates information. Overall, results reject previous conclusions that foreigners are uninformed positive feedback traders: rather, they are a heterogeneous group dominated by sophisticated investors able to rationally adjust their trading style in line with the market's prevailing characteristics.