Forward to Basics in Economics

For nearly half a century since Keynes's supposed rebuttal of classical economics, economists and politicians have been pre-occupied with 'demand side' efforts to maintain full employment and output by spending more than they can raise in taxes. The evident failure of 'demand side' economics has at last reached the Keynesian economists. Some are beginning to reject 'demand side' economics as inadequate and to argue for the return of 'supply and demand'.     

Professional HRM Practices in Family Owned‐Managed Enterprises*

This study examines determinants of professional human resource management (HRM) practices within a sample of approximately 700 small to medium‐sized firms. Predictions from the agency theory and the resource‐based view of organizations lead to alternate hypotheses regarding the direct and indirect negative effects of family ownership and management on the usage of professional HRM practices. Results support predictions for both direct and indirect effects. These indirect effects occur through intermediary variables that reflect organizational complexity, such as firm size, (the presence of a) formal business plan, and HRM specialization. The findings lend partial support to both theories.     

Test procedures and test problems for least squares algorithms

Numerous test problems have been introduced in the past twenty years for the purpose of studying and comparing least squares algorithms and computer programs. This paper discusses and classifies some of the useful test problems which have appeared in the literature. A recent large scale test procedure is briefly summarized. Several neat, mathematical examples are displayed. One of these, first introduced by Läuchli, is modified so that it can be solved by the method of inverting a matrix of correlation coefficients. Comparative results from running two types of problems on several different algorithms are given which illustrate some of the factors affecting computational accuracy: choice of algorithm, scaling of the data, tolerance parameters, and iterative refinement.     

The Monetary Services Index

Professor Roy Batchelor of the City University Business School claims that conventional measures of the money supply are unsatisfactory. He proposes instead a Monetary Services Index, but concludes that the new index would be unsatisfactory as a target.     

A Study on the Indian Information Sector: An Experiment with Input-Output Techniques

It is widely recognized that rapid changes in information technology (IT) are bringing about major structural changes in the economies of the world. Information flexibility, product quality and fast response are the key factors for global competition and IT plays a critical role in these areas. Policy-makers in industrialized and developing countries view IT as a critical infrastructure to enhance their access to global knowledge, markets and capital. These views--of IT as infrastructure and as core capability for development--resonate with India's aspirations to modernize its infrastructure, transform its industry and join the global economy. Realizing the huge potential of the Indian IT industry, we make an attempt in this paper to study the extent of informatization in the Indian economy during the period 1983-84 to 1989-90 and try to identify the information intensive sectors. This paper also studies the sources of growth of the information sectors of India during 1983-84 to 1989-90 with the help of a structural decomposition analysis (SDA).     

Retail profit margins in Japan and Germany

Retail Profit Margins in Japan and Germany. — This study compares the determinants of retail profit margins in Japan and Germany. Although several studies consider the peculiarities of the Japanese society and its economic structure, the comparison in this study is the first systematic, empirical analysis of the consequences of these characteristics for Japanese retail profit margins. For this purpose, two extensive data sets are used and a mark-up relationship is tailored to examine differences in Japanese and German retail profit margins. The empirical outcomes indicate that small firms can survive more easily in Japan than in Germany. This explains the abundance of small stores in Japan.     

The intertemporal stability of the concentration-margins relationship in Dutch and U.S. manufacturing

Factors influencing price-cost margins are investigated using a rich panel data base of the Dutch manufacturing sector. Attention is devoted to the intertemporal stability of the relationship explaining price-cost margins and to a comparison with U.S. results. Our results indicate that isolated cross-section analyses can be misleading. Evidence is provided for similarities and dissimilarities between the U.S. and the Netherlands when explaining price-cost margins. Dutch margins are influenced by industry-specific factors such as sales changes, import competition, capital intensity and operating expenses. Domestic seller concentration, aggregate capacity utilization and export intensity play no distinct roles.This research was sponsored in part by the Economics Research Foundation, which is part of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. We wish to thank H. W. de Jong, Leo Sleuwaegen, David Audretsch and Aad Kleijweg for their useful comments.