Book Reviews

Practitioners provide reviews of four recent books. K. G. Peeples finds that Mass Customization by B. Joseph Pine describes a trend to replace mass production with a more responsive and tailored approach. She reports that this emerging direction applies to both manufacturing and service firms. It offers numerous benefits to both the supplier and the customer, such as greater variety, lower cost, and more responsive availability. Next, Martha Dohm examines Corporate Venturing by two academics, Zenas Block and Ian MacMillan. She finds it to be a useful primer on this important subject, although lacking in recent practical examples.
The final two reviews are of books that cite, in part, examples from the same high-technology firms, but cover these from very different perspectives. Vic Prushan assesses Winning in High- Tech Markets by Joseph G. Morone. He reports that this book is built around three detailed case studies, from which four lessons are drawn for corporate managers. Jimmy Loon reviews Lightning Strategies for Innovation by Willard I. Zangwill, another academic. He says that the book offers a seven- step process that primarily will be of value to the less experienced practitioner.     

Evidence on the internal labor market during a process of rapid economic growth

We examine the nature and extent of labor market segmentation in Brazil through a survey of 82 modern sector firms in São Paulo. Hiring, training and promotion patterns are found to differ significantly between occupations and a key to understanding these patterns is the nature of skill acquisition, particularly ‘learning on the job’. Furthermore the presence of skill- specificity and internal labor markets for supervisory personnel provide a possible explanation for why relative wages have widened during Brazil's period of rapid economic growth.     

The role of wealth in the money demand function: A comment

This paper raises two criticisms with respect to the result advanced by Ando and Shell according to which money demand should be independent from wealth variations. First, it is shown that, even within the assumptions of the Ando and Shell model, there is in general a range of wealth variation over which money balances respond positively to wealth. Second, the result of those authors is criticized on the basis that it essentially derives from an inadequate comparative statics experiment on asset demands.