Locating drivers in a trucking terminal network

We consider the problem of determining the home locations, or domiciles, of truck drivers for a less-than-truckload carrier. Domiciling decisions are complex, in part due to regulations and union rules restricting driver schedules, but have a significant impact on the operating costs of less-than-truckload carriers. We present an iterative scheme, using driver dispatch technology in each iteration, to allocate drivers to terminals and to determine drivers’ bids so as to satisfy union requirements. Computational experiments demonstrate the value of the iterative scheme and quantify the impact of union rules on the number of drivers required (and the resulting operating costs).     

Testing the proposed “GuidePerf” scale for tourism: performances of tour guides in relation to various tour guiding diplomas

The satisfaction perceived from the performance of tour guides (TGs) affects tour operators and other services in the tourism industry. As the tour guiding performance becomes more crucial in service quality and tourist satisfaction, education also becomes a critical tool to enhance the tour guiding performance. Using semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with seven TGs in Cappadocia/Turkey and employing content analysis of the data, the Tour Guide Performance Scale (GuidePerf) was developed in this particular study. Reliability and validity of GuidePerf were supported by exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. The scale was composed of 18 items and three dimensions, namely: “personality and efficiency,” “presentableness,” and “proficiency.” Proceeding to the next step with the approval, the GuidePerf was conducted on the tour participants (TPs) who were guided by three different TG types in terms of the education they had received. The results revealed that there is significance when “presentableness,” and “proficiency” dimensions are considered.     

Estimating a continuous time portfolio selection model: An application with UK data

An empirical assessment of a continuous time portfolio selection model is studied for the UK economy between 1970 and 1996. The estimates obtained from this study are both statistically significant and consistent with the model's predictions. The estimate of risk aversion parameter refers to low risk aversion which is consistent with the optimal risky asset holding parameter. Furthermore, the estimated parameters of the asset pricing relationship are also found to be consistent with the historical values of the stock prices. First version received: February 1998/final version received: March 1999     

Effectiveness of the reserve option mechanism as a macroeconomic prudential tool: evidence from Turkey

This article assesses the effectiveness of a novel macroprudential tool – the reserve option mechanism (ROM) – which Turkey’s central bank developed during the post-2008 period and has employed to control the risk associated with excessive capital flows. We assess how capital flows have affected economic variable changes since the introduction and usage of the ROM. Empirical evidence gathered from Turkey suggests that the tool decreases the effect of capital flow on capital flow (positive shock to capital flow dies out faster or becomes less persistent) and diminishes the effects of capital flow shocks on exchange and interest rates.     

Global Crisis,National Responses: The Political Economy of Turkish Exceptionalism

With its dilatory and piecemeal fiscal activism and uncharacteristic aversion to IMF assistance, the Turkish government's response to the global economic crisis of 2008–9 diverged considerably from prevalent trends in other major emerging market countries. Underlying this intriguing pattern were Turkey's pre-existing policy and macroeconomic constraints, cognitive lapses on the part of policymakers, and the conjunctural dynamics of domestic politics. The interplay of these factors progressively narrowed the policy space for vigorous action, leading to a motley combination of reactive initiatives that neither offered sufficient protection to vulnerable social groups nor promised sustainable growth in the long run despite rapid short-term recovery.     

When does low interconnectivity cause systemic risk?

We analysed a systemic liquidity crisis by using a unique money market data-set in which the coded identity of the counterparties of each trade is known. Contrary to recent findings, we did not observe a positive relationship between interconnectivity and systemic risk. We have concluded that our conflicting findings can be related to the degree of market concentration on the borrowing side of the funding market. High level of concentration in the borrowing side led to lower interconnectivity but higher systemic risk prior to the crisis. We conclude that measures of market heterogeneity should be used to generalize the relationship between systemic risk and interconnectivity.     

Career advancement in large organizations in Europe and the United States: do international assignments add value?

We look at the relationship between the number of assignments, the length of international assignment experience, the type of employer commissioning the international assignment, the individual's career stage at the first assignment, and career advancement: the time that the executives took to be appointed to the CEO position from the start of their career. Our sample of 1001 chief executives, based in 23 countries and affiliated with the 500 largest corporations in Europe and the 500 largest in the United States, allows us to examine important individual- and organization-level contingencies that affect the relationship between international assignment experience and career advancement. We find that international experience slows the executives' ascent to the top, longer assignments and a larger number of assignments being detrimental to their speed of ascent to top corporate positions. Further, international assignments at corporations other than the CEOs' current employer and assignments taken at later stages of executives' careers damage career advancement.     

The World Bank and Emerging Powers: Beyond the Multipolarity–Multilateralism Conundrum

The discrepancy between the increasingly multipolar world economy of the recent decades and the stubbornly limited representativeness of the organisations mandated with its governance causes much strain in global politics. Some scholars suggest that this chronic mismatch will undermine existing multilateral bodies, while others expect the present architecture to persist. This article contends that the outcomes of this challenge are institution-specific. In settings where significant operational realignments are possible within existing mandates and governance structures, the multipolarity–multilateralism conundrum could be partly mitigated. The argument is based on a thematic analysis of all IBRD-IDA loan commitments between 2002 and 2015 in the World Bank’s seven all-time top borrowers: Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico and Turkey (collectively, the Big Seven). The key finding is that while these emerging countries remain the Bank’s biggest clients, the terms of their engagement have shifted precisely along the lines where they had already differed from the rest of the Bank’s clientele: away from politically onerous governance and institutional reforms, and towards developing physical and market infrastructure while attaining social sustainability. This implicit realignment is facilitated by the Bank’s diverse policy repertoire, which allows considerable inter-regional and intra-regional variation in lending patterns to accommodate member preferences.     

A Kantian Analysis of Pricing and R & D

Review of Industrial Organization - Can cooperation offer an innovative alternative to competition among firms? This design problem is analyzed in the context of Kantian cooperation among firms in...