Cross‐country Relative Price Volatility: Effects of Market Structure*

Using annual data on nine manufacturing sectors of 18 OECD countries, the article studies the implications of market structure for cross‐country relative price variability. It is found that, in accordance with predictions from a standard markup pricing model, reductions in market competition, along with increased nominal exchange rate volatility, are associated with greater variability of cross‐country relative prices. The market structure also has similar effects on components of cross‐country relative price variability. The empirical findings are robust to the inclusion of various control variables and alternative sample specifications.     

Global and political strategies in deregulated industries: the asymmetric behaviors of former monopolies

In deregulated industries former monopolies often adopt asymmetric behaviors: these firms impede the entry of foreign competitors in their home market, especially using defensive political strategies, and, at the same time, aggressively develop international strategies in foreign markets. To account for this behavior, I develop a game theoretic model involving three players: the former monopoly, its home government, and the host government of the country into which the firm wants to enter. I show first that there are in fact different asymmetric strategies that former monopolies can use in such a setting, and that a global strategy cannot always be implemented by those firms because of cooperation issues between the two governments. I also study the conditions under which these issues can be solved and show that this can happen only when the firm develops a political strategy that integrates both defensive and offensive activities. Overall, this paper therefore argues that asymmetric strategies are not always adopted to maintain monopoly rents but are also dictated by the nature of the international relationships between the governments involved. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Identifying Trade Structure and Macroeconomic Caveats: The Post‐crisis of Korea

First, this article introduces unit value box in addition to Azhar, Elliott and Milner's industry trade box in identifying the post‐crisis trade structure of Korea. Dynamic movements of total trade, net trade, intra‐industry trade and export‐import unit values complete the systematic analysis of trade patterns at both the aggregate and disaggregate levels. Second, macroeconomic caveats are conveyed for a small open economy to recover after the crisis, including likely but unforeseen trade disputes.     

Inter‐state dynamics of invention activities, 1930–2000

We study the dynamics of the cross‐section distribution of patents per capita for the 48 continental US states from 1930 to 2000 using a discrete‐state Markov chain. We test for and find evidence in favor of the (knowledge) convergence hypothesis. The distribution of patents is converging to a limiting distribution that is significantly more concentrated than its initial distribution. States in the extreme are more mobile than states in the middle of the cross‐sectional distribution and are likely to move to the middle. However, the rate of convergence to the limiting distribution is ‘slow’. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How much does the business group matter in Korea?

We partition the variances of profits of the companies associated with Korean business groups into business group‐specific effects, industry effects, and affiliate company‐specific effects, which roughly match corporate‐parent effects, industry effects and business unit effects, respectively, in the extant literature. We find substantial corporate‐parent effects (here, business group effects) along with industry effects and business unit effects (here, affiliate company‐specific effects). This finding may indicate that business groups play an important role in developing countries by circumventing market inefficiencies. Our results also suggest that these effects tend to be smaller in large business groups and to decrease over time. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Vertical externality and strategic delegation

This paper examines the effects of vertical externality generated by the upstream monopoly on the incentives that owners of competing downstream firms give their managers. It is shown that the introduction of the upstream monopoly may have significant effects on the incentive schemes for the downstream firms' managers. In particular, it is shown that in equilibrium, each owner obtains the simple Nash equilibrium outcome regardless of the mode of competition (quantity or price) in the downstream market. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

戴尔直销模式成功的背后-供应链的敏捷

系统分析了戴尔公司供应链的运作情况,从信息和实物两个角度详细阐述了戴尔公司供应链的优越和高效。对戴尔公司采购、生产、销售和服务进行了完整的阐述。揭示了戴尔公司供应链系统的敏捷。     

新加坡、挪威管理外汇储备的经验及启示

本文对新加坡、挪威在积极管理外汇储备方面的经验进行了比较分析,提出了改进我国管理外汇储备的建议,包括流动性管理和积极管理应在监管上严格分开;根据国家战略,积极管理的程度可更加自由和灵活;外汇储备资金可根据需要在流动性管理和积极管理之间划拨。     

Consumer product search and purchase behaviour using various retail channels: the role of perceived retail usefulness

The purpose of this study was to examine the influences of consumers' perceptions of retail usefulness for product information search and their previous purchase satisfaction on their frequencies of product information search and product purchase behaviours for apparel products. These relationships were investigated in five retail settings – Internet shopping, catalogue shopping, television shopping, local retail shopping, and non‐local retail shopping. One hundred seventy‐six students in a US Midwestern university provided usable responses. The results of causal model analyses showed that the proposed model fits the data well for all five retail channels. Consumers who perceived a certain retail channel more useful for product information search searched for product information more frequently via that retail channel, and purchased products more often via that retail channel. Consumers who were more satisfied with apparel purchases from a retail channel purchased the products more frequently via that retail channel. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

Health care regulation and the operating efficiency of hospitals: Evidence from Taiwan

Using data from the Annual Survey of Hospitals compiled by the Department of Health in Taiwan for years 1994 through 1997, we employed Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to evaluate the impact of a National Health Insurance (NHI) Program on the operating efficiency of district hospitals in Taiwan. We find that, on average, efficiency of district hospitals in Taiwan decreased following the implementation of the NHI Program. Our results are robust to the inclusion of control variables that have been shown to affect hospital operating performance in prior research, and alternative efficiency measurements.