Small-Sample Forecasting Regression or Arima Models?

Univariate models offer the most convenient options for forecasting and ARIMA models are still the most popular among them. The ARIMA modelling, however, requires long data series. This paper shows that a regression model may be estimated with a far greater efficiency in very small samples compared to the corresponding ARIMA model. As a result the larger information set used in a regression model may compensate for the small sample size and improve the forecast efficiency substantially. Three applications which utilize autoregressive forecasts on the exogenous variables highlight the gains in forecast efficiency in small samples from regressions over the ARIMA models.

     

Principles vs. Practice in New Product Planning

The product planning practices at nine large companies in the electronics industry are described and examined in the light of three principles derived from modern management practice. Major deviations between principle and practice are revealed. Close examination of the firms' new product activities suggests that the deviations stem from the inherently complex nature of the process and the premium it places on the need to manage it effectively. Suggestions for improving product planning performance are made. These relate to the need to make the process more uniform and systematic, to improve the guidance provided by strategic planning, and to obtain greater input to the process from marketing research.     

Boston Research Center for the 21st Century

The first annual Global Citizens Awards of the Boston Research Center for the 21st Century were presented to Elise Boulding and John D. Montgomery. The introductory remarks of Albert Carnesale and Kevin P. Clements are here reported with the acceptance speeches of the two honorees.     

Einzelbesprechungen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Planning for the baby boomers' healthcare needs: a case study

Will the impact of baby boomers, as they age, be a bonanza or a bust for the healthcare system? A range of perspectives prevail, from increasing in-patient admissions capacity to accommodate the sheer numbers, to the creation of a variety of healthcare services and delivery channels that address their unique requirements. This case study presents a top 100, regional hospital's approach to this dilemma. The strategic marketing process using segmentation, targeting, and positioning (STP) was employed to guide the administration's planning and decision making.     

Self-organized criticality in evolutionary systems with local interaction

This paper studies a stylized model of local interaction where agents choose from an ever increasing set of vertically ranked actions, e.g. technologies. The driving forces of the model are infrequent upward shifts (‘updates’), followed by a rapid process of local imitation (‘diffusion’). Our main focus is on the regularities displayed by the long-run distribution of diffusion waves and their implication on the performance of the system. By integrating analytical techniques and numerical simulations, we come to the following two main conclusions. (1) If non-coordination costs are sufficiently high, the system behaves critically, in the sense customarily used in physics. (2) The performance of the system is optimal at the frontier of the critical region. Heuristically, this may be interpreted as an indication that (performance-sensitive) evolutionary forces induce the system to be placed ‘at the edge of order and chaos’.     

The Effects of Local Government Expenditure and Property Taxes on Investment*

The effect of local government property taxes and expenditures on investment in housing and manufacturing plant and equipment is analyzed in theoretic model and tested empirically. An investment model of firm behavior is developed and implications regarding the effects are deduced. These implications are tested in a single equation model of investment in single- and multifamily structures and capital investment in manufacturing in eleven urban cities and their eighty-nine suburbs. Tentative conclusions that additional municipal expenditures increase investment and a higher effective property tax rate diminishes it are supported and that cities have on average exhausted the net benefits of increasing balanced budgets.