Flexibility: The next competitive battle the manufacturing futures survey

Over the past 4 years research teams from INSEAD (Fontainebleau), Boston University and Waseda University (Tokyo) have administered a yearly survey on the manufacturing strategy of the large manufacturers of the three industrialized regions of the world. In this paper the results for the 1986 survey are compared. One of the most striking results of that year's survey is the emphasis some of the more advanced manufacturers put on their efforts to overcome the trade-off between flexibility and cost efficiency. In particular for the Japanese respondents these attempts become clear. Europeans and North Americans are not yet seizing the opportunity to cut costs through rapid production and design changes, and are focusing more on traditional cost reduction programmes and the improvement of quality. This might mean that they are preparing the basis on which they can built to obtain added value from flexible automation. If this is the case then the Japanese are clearly ahead.     

Switching to Continuous Trading and its Impact on Return Behavior and Volume of Trade

The study investigates changes that occurred following the transfer of 29 stocks in Israel from a single daily auction to a more continuous-like trading system. On average, the standard deviation of daily market model residuals decreased, and trading volumes increased. This suggests that continuous trading promotes end-of-day price efficiency and better suits investors' trading-mechanism preferences. An interesting phenomenon observed is that the noisiness of end-of-day prices decreases immediately after the transfer, while volume rises only later on. This constitutes evidence that adding rounds of trade contributes to price accuracy even when trading volumes do not increase.     

Book Reviews

Louis T. Wells Jr., Third World Multinationals, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1983, pp. viii + 206. $17.50.

O van den Muizenberg, P. Streefland, and W. Wolters (eds), Focus on the Region in Asia, Rotterdam: Erasmus University Comparative Asian Studies Program, 1982, pp. 349.

Brian Wawn, The Economics of the ASEAN Countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, London: Macmillan, 1982, pp. ix + 180. A$48.00.

Anthony H. Chisolm and Rodney Tyers (eds), Food Security: Theory, Policy, and Perspectives from Asia and the Pacific Rim, Toronto: Lexington Books, D. C. Heath and Co., pp. xx + 359. $39.50.

Marcel Bonneff. Françoise Cayrac-Blanchard, Pierre Labrousse, Jacques Leclere. Denys Lombard, Monique Zaini-Lajoubert, Pantjasila: Trente Années de Débats Politiques en Indonésie. Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de I' Homme, Etudes insulin-diennes/Archipe1 2, 1980, pp. viii + 427, illustrations, index.

Hans P. Binswanger, Robert E. Evenson, Cecilia A. Florencio & Benjamin N. F. White (eds). Rural Houshold Studies in Asia, Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1980, pp. 369. US$28.00.

Ida Bagus Mantra, Population Movement in Wet Rice Communities, Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press, 1981.

A. Fujimoto (ed.), Socioeconomic Study of Rice Farming and Marketing in Indonesia: A Case Study of Gadingsari, Central Java, Tokyo: Nodai Research Institute, Tokyo University of Agriculture, 1982, pp. 139.

Wilbert Gooneratne (ed.), Labour Absorption in Rice-based Agriculture: Case Studies from South-east Asia, Bangkok: International Labour Office, Asian Regional Team for Employment Promotion, 1982. US$5.00.

Zainab Bakir and Chris Manning (eds), Partisipasi Angkatan Kerja, Kesempatan Kerja dan Pengangguran di Indonesia (Labour Force Participation. Work Opportunities and Unemployment in Indonesia), Yogyakarta: Pusat Penelitian dan Studi Kependudukan, Universitas Gadjah Mada. 1983.

Soeharsono Soemantri, Study of Indonesia's Economically Active Population, 2nd edition, Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press, 1982.

Priyono Tjiptoherijanto, M. Yasin, Bakir Hasan, Djunaedi Hadisumarto (eds). Sumber Daya Manusia, Kesempatan Kerja dan Pembangunan Ekonomi (Human Resources, Job Opportunities and Economic Development), Jakarta: Lembaga Penerbit Fakultas Ekonomi Universitas Indonesia, 1982.     

Workers' compensation and injury duration: evidence from a natural experiment

This paper examines the effect of workers' compensation on time out of work. It introduces a "natural experiment8 approach of comparing individuals injured before and after increases in the maximum weekly benefit amount. The increases examined in Kentucky and Michigan raised the benefit amount for high-earnings individuals by approximately 50 percent, while low-earnings individuals, who were unaffected by the benefit maximum, did not experience a change in their incentives. Time out of work increased for those eligible for the higher benefits and remained unchanged for those whose benefits were constant. The estimated duration elasticities are clustered around 0.3-0.4.     

Restructuring Soviet Transport: a Study in Similarities and Contrasts

The nation states created by the disintegration of the former Soviet Union inherited transportation systems ill suited to the needs of market economies. Technologies were often outmoded, too energy intensive and not well adapted to the on–time delivery of small shipments characteristic of a modem consumer society. Furthermore, similarly to much of the rest of the Soviet economy, the transport sector was burdened with unwieldy and diffxcult–to–manage vertically integrated monopolies that were largely unresponsive to customer needs. Policies to solve these problems will vary from mode to mode. For water and highway transport, simple pro–competitive policies that emphasize easy entry, little regulation and prompt privatization should be appropriate. Because of network coordination and specialized infrastructure requirements, rail and air transport will need less fragmented approaches. One positive aspect of the transport situation in the former Soviet Union, slightly reducing the pressures for immediate reforms, the substantial capacity put in place by the old regime–a consequence of the former command/control economy being one of the most transport intensive in the world