Competition for versus on the Rails: A Laboratory Experiment*

European countries and Japan are contemplating more competition in passenger rail service. In the Netherlands, the Ministry of Transport was assigned responsibility for making a recommendation to Parliament for choosing between competition for the rails and competition on the rails. The Ministry commissioned the experiments reported here to acquire better understanding of the properties of the alternative policies. Competition on the rails involves allocation of rights to use station and time‐slot routes by price bids in a combinatorial auction. Competition for the rails involves allocation of rights to regional monopolies by fare‐structure bids for supplying a prespecified minimum schedule.     

Pyrrho's lemma,or have it your way

A simple lemma is derived to support the claim that regression models can be manipulated to a very large extent: by simply adding one regressor one can obtain essentially every set of desired regression coefficients and predictions as well ast-values and standard errors. Consequently, if the product of a specification search is not shown to be generalizable, a sceptical attitude towards its validity is well-founded.     

Local Responsive Talent Management for Foreign Multinational Enterprises in China

China evolves with amazing speed to be a leading player in the world economy. However, the transformation from isolated centrally planned to internationally open market economy during the past 25 years has occurred so fast that the change in the mindset and the adaptation of new modern business practice is still in progress. Foreign multinational enterprises in the mainland of China responded to the resulting shortcomings of Chinese professionals and managers by covering the key position in the organization by their own resources or managers from neighbor Asian countries. In this qualitative study, a new local responsive talent management concept for foreign multinational enterprises with expatriated managers was proposed under special consideration of the cultural business environment in China. The establishment of a learning firm culture with advanced training system to compensate the drawbacks of Chinese professionals was outlined. The coverage of the key positions in the organization by Chinese professionals with established social network and optionally supported by temporary foreign advisors was proposed to improve the firm climax, domestic customer and stakeholder relations.     

Urban Economic Development and Restorative Justice: Exploring the Relationship Between Creativity and Crime Control

This article examines the relationship between local economic development and a new approach to the problem of crime–i.e., ‘restorative justice.’ The latter concept is introduced and briefly explored, followed by a short review of Richard Florida's recently proposed theory of creative-class economic development. Against the backdrop of these theoretical innovations, an empirical question that arises is whether the specific character of creative-class economic growth enhances the probability that a given city will adopt a restorative justice paradigm in its efforts to reduce crime. Addressing this question using logistic regression analysis, the article provides preliminary evidence that creative-class economic development encourages experimentation with innovative approaches to social problems such as crime. Missouri Western State University—U.S.A. This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the 58th International Atlantic Economic Conference in Chicago, Illinois, October 8, 2004.     

On the price discriminating labour cooperative

This paper considers labor cooperatives selling in a competitive international product market and a monopolistic domestic market simultaneously. It is shown that output of the cooperative is smaller than that of a profit maximizing firm. Both firms have the same domestic sales. Output will decrease if domestic demand rises but it may rise or fall when foreign demand increases. These contrast with the single market comparative statics of Ward.     

Optimal capital accumulation in generalized Leontief models

Summary This study is in normative growth theory. Discounted per capita consumption is maximized subject to Leontief technologies. Numerical linear programming examples exhibiting consumption turnpikes are presented and carefully analysed. Special attention is given to shadow prices and the discount rate in case of a choice between different technologies. It is shown that the introduction of so-called stock activities may lead to unrealistic results. An interesting extension is obtained by assuming embodied technological change. In this case, a new technique in a certain sector of the economy can only be introduced by means of investment. It appears that the consumption turnpike is approached in a very irregular way. The computer time increases substantially, which may be a problem in practical applications of this variant.I am grateful to Professor S.K. Kuipers and Dr. A.B.T.M. van Schaik for their comments and encouragement. Any errors remaining are mine.     

The effect of the New Silk Road railways on aggregate trade volumes between China and Europe

‘One Belt One Road’ is an extensive and complex initiative whose potential effect and influence are still currently pending for answers. This paper addresses the following research question: What is the effect of the New Silk Road intercontinental railways on the trade between China and its trading partners in Central Asia and Europe? We focus on nine railway lines connecting Europe and China, which started operations between 2011 and 2015. The countries’ trade patterns with railway connections to China are then compared to the countries without railway connections to China. We find the intercontinental railways have a positive effect on China’s exports to its trading partners in Central Asia and Europe, especially concerning exports of manufactured goods, machinery and transport equipment and miscellaneous manufactured articles. Moreover, the intercontinental railways have a positive effect on China’s imports of food and live animals from its trading partners.