A post‐Keynesian model of output,employment and monetary demand

This paper presents a simple model based on three broad Post‐Keynesian hypotheses: (1) the economic process develops over time; (2) money is endogenous; and (3) producers are price setters. To make the analysis easier we also assume (4) that firms are vertically integrated. Producers assess the expected demand and ask banks for credit in order to start production; banks create credit at the request of producers to finance the wage bill; workers buy goods sold by firms; firms must repay banks the amount borrowed plus interest and earn a target rate of profit. Since firms have created only as much purchasing power as they have advanced to workers in the form of the wage fund, equilibrium requires that there is an amount of autonomous monetary demand equal to profits and interest. Furthermore, in order to make the value of supply equal to the value of effective demand, firms will employ the number of workers necessary to create the purchasing power which, when added to the anticipated autonomous demand, enables all costs to be covered and the planned rate of profits to be attained.     

INTRODUCTION / THE STATUS OF WOMEN ECONOMISTS IN US UNIVERSITIES AND THE WORLD / THE STATUS OF WOMEN ECONOMISTS IN UK UNIVERSITIES / THE STATUS OF WOMEN ECONOMISTS IN CANADIAN UNIVERSITIES / THE STATUS OF WOMEN ECONOMISTS IN CHINA'S UNIVERSITIES

Abstract

These Explorations, by eight authors from Canada, China, the US, and the UK, examine the current status of women in economics (with an eye mainly toward their status in the academic branch of the profession). The four sections of the work analyze results of surveys that show the distribution of academic positions among women economists in universities in Canada, the UK, the US, and China. The work also provides a short history of the development of committees and groups interested in furthering the status of women in the economics profession and suggests ways to improve the efforts of such groups and the status of women economists.     

Ethnocentric tendencies amongst arts audiences

• According to empirical research, the most regular consumers of art are well-to-do, well-educated members of the social elite who, as a socio-demographic group, would not be expected to exhibit ethnocentric tendencies. Yet, curators of arts institutions and art critics have long been concerned that ethnocentrism does exist amongst visitors to museums and art galleries. This paper reports the findings of a study that investigated the ethnocentric tendencies of arts audiences in Hungary (where, allegedly, individuals are more inclined to exhibit ethnocentric bias) and England (where the opposite is said to be true). The research examined whether ethnocentrism significantly impacted upon perceptions of artworks from (i) a visitor's own country, (ii) a culturally similar and (iii) a culturally dissimilar country. Intentions to attend art exhibitions featuring artists from these countries were then explored. The empirical analysis confirmed that individuals who exhibited ethnocentric tendencies did in fact overvalue the quality of artworks from their home country. Moreover, ethnocentrism within the Hungarian (but not the English) sample had a significant impact on intentions to visit particular types of exhibition.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Transition in Importance of Service Sector in Indian Economy: 1968–69–1993℃94

The importance of service sector in terms of its share in national income/GDP has been growing progressively in Indian economy throughout the post independence period. The objective of this paper is to make an assessment of the importance of the service sector which accounts the value added originating from service sector in total value added produced, needed directly and indirectly to produce gross output in Indian economy during the period 1968–69 to 1993–94. For this purpose, an index of vertical integration has been constructed which provides a dimension-free measure of the multiplier of each industry on the value-added originating from the service sector to total value added. Empirical part of this study shows that Trade, Other services, Electricity, Railway Transport Services, Chemicals and Construction played a role of key sector in terms of importance of Service sector as input for their production throughout the study period of the Indian economy. They provided strong stimulus to the economy by inducing greater value addition to service sector. In general, services industries appear to be the highly growth- inducing sector in so far as it helps higher value addition to other industries.

     

BILATERALISM AND FREE TRADE*

We study a setting with many countries; in each country there are firms that can sell in the domestic as well as foreign markets. Countries can sign bilateral free‐trade agreements that lower import tariffs and thereby facilitate trade. We allow a country to sign any number of bilateral free‐trade agreements. A profile of free‐trade agreements defines the trading regime. Our principal finding is that, in symmetric settings, bilateralism is consistent with global free trade. We also explore the effects of asymmetries across countries and political economy considerations on the incentives to form trade agreements.     

An integrated production–distribution model for the dynamic location and allocation problem with safety stock optimization

The design and management of a multi-stage production–distribution system is one of the most critical problems in logistics and in facility management. Companies need to be able to evaluate and design different configurations for their logistic networks as quickly as possible. This means coordinating the entire supply chain effectively in order to minimize costs and simultaneously optimize facilities location, the allocation of customer demand to production/distribution centers, the inbound and outbound transportation activities, the product flows between production and/or warehousing facilities, the reverse logistics activities, etc.Full optimization of supply chain is achieved by integrating strategic, tactical, and operational decision-making in terms of the design, management, and control of activities. The cost-based and mixed-integer programming model presented in this study has been developed to support management in making the following decisions: the number of facilities (e.g. warehousing systems, distribution centers), the choice of their locations and the assignment of customer demand to them, and also incorporate tactical decisions regarding inventory control, production rates, and service-level determination in a stochastic environment. This paper presents an original model for the dynamic location–allocation problem with control of customer service level and safety stock optimization. An experimental analysis identifies the most critical factors affecting the logistics cost, and to finish, an industrial application is illustrated demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed optimization approach.     

Defining and developing competence: A strategic process paradigm

In this paper, competence is defined in operational terms as the degree to which the firm or its subunits can reliably meet or exceed objectives. Two antecedents to competence (and thus competitive advantage) are then developed and defined. These are the ‘comprehension’ of the management team working on developing competence and the ‘deftness’ of their task execution. Empirical results from a study of 160 new initiatives in 40 organizations from 16 countries suggest that: (1) it is feasible to operationalize and measure these constructs; (2) comprehension and deftness are important correlates of an organization's degree of competence as defined; and (3) a process-centered paradigm for understanding competence development shows promise.     

On-the-job training and rigidity of employment protection in the developing world: Evidence from differential enforcement

This paper analyzes the causal effect between strict employment protection regulations and the firm incentive to invest in job training of their employees. We explore a large firm level data set across several developing countries and assume that the rigidity of labor regulations affects more the investment decision of firms that faces a rigid enforcement of labor regulations. Our findings show that differences across countries in the enforcement of more rigid employment protection regulation are associated with very small differences in the investment in job training across firms. This finding is robust across several specifications and samples.     

Strategic diagnostics and management decision making: a hybrid knowledge‐based approach

A conceptual model is introduced whereby the focus is placed on environmental scanning, diagnostics and decision‐making on the basis of managerial judgement through the application of tools such as intelligent agents, hybrid intelligent systems, scenario analysis and knowledge‐based systems. The model has a critical stage as an antecedent to the strategic advice that encompasses the issues of strategic fit to purpose (theme, industry, company and strategic business unit‐driven). A number of applications dealing with these four layers are shown, as well as an illustration of hybrid intelligent systems for strategic marketing planning. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.