A Comparative Study of the Benefits of Applying Target Cost Contracts Between South Australia and Hong Kong

This article aims to identify and analyze the key benefits of adopting Guaranteed Maximum Price and Target Cost Contracts (GMP/TCC) over and above the traditional lump‐sum contractual arrangement through an empirical questionnaire survey conducted in South Australia and compared with the findings in Hong Kong. The Mann‐Whitney U Test indicated differences in perception between the two groups of respondents on the majority of the identified benefits. The study has provided an in‐depth understanding of the perceived benefits of the GMP/TCC scheme, hence leading to a wider application of those alternative integrated procurement strategies in both regions for reference by the construction community at large.     

A Global Ex-vessel Fish Price Database: Construction and Applications

Synopsis We describe the first effort at creating a global ex-vessel fish price database, which is required for understanding the economic behavior of participants in the world’s fisheries. We demonstrate potential applications of the database by linking it to a spatially defined catch database, which makes it possible to attach landed values to species in both time and space. This is the first database available publicly where interested members of the public, researchers and managers can easily find and access ex-vessel prices of the world’s major commercial fish species. Preliminary results indicate that the average real price of a number of species have declined between 1950 and 2002. The estimated landed value of fish globally, in year 2000 dollars, was about US$24 billion in 1950. It increased steadily to about US$90 billion in the early 1970s, reached a peak of US$100 billion at the end of the 1980s, and declined to about US$80 billion in 2000. The top 15 fishing countries cumulatively account for 79% of total real landed value, with Japan leading, even though the value of its landings has been declining.      

Coping with Technological Change: The Role of Ability in Making Inequality so Persistent

This study provides an explanation to the evolution of wage inequality over the last 30 years and supports this explanation with evidence. A faster rate of technological progress introduces new unknown elements at the workplace. The need to cope with the unknown accentuates the role of ability and thus increases wage inequality within and between education groups. Inasmuch as education is an irreversible investment project the rise in within group inequality BOOSTS UP the rise of between group inequality. Guided by this theory we turn to the PSID for evidence. Using parents' education to approximate child's ability we show the following set of results: (a) Controlling for education of the child, parents' education contributed much more in the 1980s to his wage growth than in the 1970s. (b) The correlation between the parents' and the child's education increases from the 1970s to the 1980s. (c) The return to college education for an individual with no ability rents did not change—it remains steady at the 23 percent. (d) Facts (a)–(c) CANNOT be attributed to the impact of parent's income. It is parents' education and not parents' income that is more relevant for son's economic outcomes in the 1980s.     

Significant drivers of growth in Africa

We employ bootstrap techniques in a production frontier framework to provide statistical inference for each component in the decomposition of labor productivity growth, which has essentially been ignored in this literature. We show that only two of the four components (efficiency changes and human capital accumulation) have significantly contributed to growth in Africa. Although physical capital accumulation is the largest force, it is not statistically significant on average. Thus, ignoring statistical significance would falsely identify physical capital accumulation as a major driver of growth in Africa when it is not.     

Separating the Hawks from the Doves: Evidence from continuous time laboratory games

Human players in our laboratory experiment received flow payoffs over 120 seconds each period from a standard Hawk–Dove bimatrix game played in continuous time. Play converged closely to the symmetric mixed Nash equilibrium under a one-population matching protocol. When the same players were matched in a two-population protocol with the same bimatrix, they showed clear movement towards an asymmetric (and very inequitable) pure Nash equilibrium of the game. These findings support distinctive predictions of evolutionary game theory.     

The economics of markets and platforms

Advances in the study of both markets and platforms contribute to economics. Platforms are typically digital markets, although platforms can designate markets generally. So, the economics of markets and the economics of platforms are one and the same. Platforms show the critical role of intermediaries in endogenous price adjustment and market clearing. The platform model remedies problems with general equilibrium analysis by combining and extending the basic Walrasian and Marshalian market models. The analysis of platforms provides explanations for the bid–ask spread, including market power, search costs, matching costs, adverse selection, and moral hazard. The study of platforms demonstrates the importance of participation and coordination in the formation of markets. The discussion emphasizes that platforms have significant implications for the theory of the firm. The analysis further considers how platforms affect innovation and entrepreneurship.     

The impact of job embeddedness on innovation‐related behaviors

It has often been argued that low turnover leads to less innovation in organizations, not only because fewer job vacancies are available for outsiders with new ideas, but also because longer‐tenured employees might be more resistant to change. In this study, we propose that job embeddedness may actually strengthen employees' motivation to generate, spread, and implement innovative ideas in organizations. In a longitudinal study with a diverse sample, we found that job embeddedness was positively and significantly related to innovation‐related behaviors, even after controlling for demographic variables, the job attitudes, and the job perceptions that are frequently associated with job embeddedness. In addition, we found some support for the proposed moderating effects of career stage; that is, the relationship between job embeddedness and implementing innovative ideas was stronger for individuals in the mid‐ and late stages of their careers than for those in the early stage of their careers. This article concludes with directions for developing future theory. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Elasticity estimates of farmed salmon demand in Spain and Italy

In this paper, estimates of the elasticities that characterize the structure of demand for farmed salmon in Spain and Italy are reported. The demand models are specified using a Box-Cox transformation of the variables and a Hausman test is used to determine price endogeneity in the demand equations. The results show short-run unitary own-price elasticity of demand for farmed salmon in both markets, but long run estimates show significant elastic price response. Short run substitution of salmon for other fish species is not observed and, for both Spain and Italy, farmed salmon is characterized as a luxury good. Interestingly, we show that our a priori expectations about own-price elasticities being lower in smaller market areas is confirmed. Finally, the results obtained are compared to other recent results reported in the salmon demand literature.     

Planting flexibility: Implications for agricultural sustainability

There is a general belief that federal commodity programs restrict adoption of more sustainable production systems. In the 1990 farm legislation, Congress introduced limited planting flexibility to address these concerns and to reduce federal farm program costs. This program estimates the impact of planting flexibility on selected agricultural sustainability indicators and its policy implications. Results show that planting flexibility is a necessary but not sufficient condition for implementing more sustainable production systems. Other factors such as the availability of economically viable alternatives, macroeconomic conditions, and local resource and environmental concerns need to be considered. Policy reforms can help in achieving economic and environmental gains only in locations with economically viable alternatives. In other cases, increased research and development of new systems are needed to achieve desired results.