Megaquarry versus decentralized mineral production: network analysis of cement production in the Great Lakes region,USA

The geography of mineral resources and human settlement influences the production–consumption cycle of cement and other mined construction materials, and affects the energy, cost and environmental burden associated with these materials. Although mines that supply most construction products have traditionally been located near major points of consumption, population pressures have raised the possibility that these small, widely scattered operations might be replaced by large, megaquarry operations. This study uses network analysis to compare transportation-related energy and cost for cement production from highly centralized facilities, or megaquarries, to that from smaller production facilities dispersed throughout the Great Lakes region of the United States. Results show that a transition to megaquarries can increase transport-related energy and associated environmental impacts by almost 50%. This suggests that decisions involving the location of mining operations for construction products are best made on a regional rather than local basis.     

Local financial development and growth

Using unique, district-level, economic growth data, I investigate the connection between banking sector development, human capital, and economic growth in Indian districts. Disaggregate data helps avoid many of the omitted variable problems that plague similar cross-country studies. The data show districts to be financially constrained by the lack of local banking sector development, and the relationship may be non-linear. For districts in the sample, moving from the 75th percentile of credit/net domestic product to the 25th percentile implies an average loss of 4% in growth over the 1990s decade. The data also shows that human capital deepening can reduce the financial constraint. In a district at the 25th literacy percentile, the implied growth loss due to a constrained banking sector is twice as large as in a district at the 75th literacy percentile. The results are robust to the inclusion of various controls and changes in specification.     

Bank regulation under nonbinding capital guidelines

A one-period model of bank equity is presented in which the end of the period can be interpreted as the next regulatory examination. A capital guideline is in place that may or may not be met as the values of the bank's assets and liabilities fluctuate during the period. If the guideline is not met at the time of examination, however, equityholders bear some cost. The bank's risk-taking incentives between examinations are studied. The model suggests that higher capital guidelines may cause riskier bank behavior at some points in time, but do not imply a trend toward a riskier banking system.     

Game theory and open source contribution: Rationale behind corporate participation in open source software development

The rising participation of for-profit corporations in the development of open source software raises the question of why corporations are motivated toward this engagement. The increased participation is an observable phenomenon; many researchers and practitioners assume that the practice of community sharing does not improve the bottom line, but rather believe the practice is altruistic in nature. Our intuition is that participation offers tangible and intangible benefits to corporate participants. We show this by exploring a variety of models in game theory and use game theory as a methodological lens to explain the rationality of corporate participation in open source software development. Since game theory has evolved to include rational- and emotional-based reasons, we explore such lenses as cooperative games, metagames, coopetition, and Drama Theory. Our research question, “Why do for-profit corporations participate in the development of open source software?” was broad enough to adopt several useful perspectives to understand our data. One useful lens was game theory. In this article, we examine interview responses and field study data from corporate members of open source communities to determine how they justify devoting time and effort to community engagement. Our study makes a contribution to open source software literature by revealing that numerous rational and emotional reasons exist for corporate participation in open source software development.     

A taxonomy of business-level strategies in global industries

This study presents a taxonomy of business-level strategies in global industries. Empirical data suggest there are four broad strategies: domestic product niche, exporting high quality offerings, international product innovation, and quasi-global combination. A discussion of the characteristics and performance differentials of each strategy type is provided as well.     

Toward a contingent resource‐based theory: the impact of information asymmetry on the value of capabilities in veterinary medicine

The paper investigates the contingencies which define valuable resources in professional medical services. We identify activities with credence, experience, and search qualities in medical service industries in general, and in veterinary practices more specifically. We propose that different capabilities are needed to deliver different services and test whether the contingent combination of capabilities for particular services is linked to the performance of veterinary practices. For example, we expect that practice capabilities which help to retain clients are necessary for the successful delivery of services with experience qualities. We find evidence of performance benefits of client retention in a sample of 193 veterinary practices. We also find that in markets where competition from a new form of entrant is especially intense, an independent veterinarian’s credence activities combine with its experience and search activities to jointly improve practice profitability. Since the new entrants’ resources are mainly effective in the delivery of services with search qualities, the practice capabilities of the independent veterinarians that allow them to offer services with credence and experience qualities can be seen as a type of isolating mechanism. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.