Productivity Growth and Some of Its Determinants in the Deregulated U.S. Railroad Industry

This study analyzes the effects of an important postderegulation innovation on rail freight productivity: the elimination of cabooses and related crew members. It also analyzes the overall growth of productivity in rail freight between 1983 and 1997 (using a translog rail cost function estimated over a sample of Class I railroads between 1983 and 1997). The results indicate that elimination of cabooses and associated crew members from freight trains reduced costs by 5-8% on the typical Class I railroad in 1997, equivalent to an annual cost saving of $2 billion to $3.3 billion for all Class I railroads. Moreover, if Class I railroads had no other technological advances since 1983, their 1997 costs (with 1997 factor prices) would have been 36-43% higher than they in fact were. Finally, the results show that overall productivity growth in rail freight did not decelerate between 1983 and 1997; if anything, it accelerated slightly.     

Additive and Multiplicative Uncertainty Revisited: What Explains the Contrasting Biases?

above the certainty level while for additive uncertainty the price should be lower than the certainty level. This note gives an intuitive explanation for the result after first presenting a parsimonious review of the two models. We also discuss which, if either, of the two models is more realistic. Received December 14, 2001; revised version received July 16, 2002 Published online: April 30, 2003 We thank referees for helpful comments. Ciaran Driver would like to acknowledge the research facilities from ANU, Canberra for their help in writing this paper.     

4800HP平台供应船钢材利用情况跟踪调查

在船舶产品建造过程中,造船成本一般占船价的90％左右,其中材料设备成本占全部造船成本的70％左右,而在材料设备中,船体钢材是重头戏,提高钢材利用率是降低造船成本的重要因素,它直接影响到产品实际成本。为进一步提高我厂市场竞争力,提高钢材的利用水平,必须摸清目前钢材在我厂船舶产品建造过程中的利用率。根据工厂生产经营情况,确定以4800HP平台供应船为跟踪调查对象,查清此型船从设计该船的所需钢材的净重、工艺定额、钢材领用、材料代用、非工艺性损     

统计循环波动分析在资产评估收益法中的应用

循环波动是社会经济现象带有规律性的周期波动。资产评估收益法中分段法前段期限的确定目前缺乏定量分析，应用循环波动分析解决这一问题，可以提高分段法评估的准确程度。     

Open economy and financial burden of corruption: theory and application to Asia

We discuss why corruption remains high and show that corruption contributes to the Banking distress and to the rapid transmission across international stock and currency markets. Undeveloped ‘derivative securities’ markets make the risk from stress-induced volatility difficult to manage. Vinod’s (1999) closed economy model is extended to indicate the asymmetry of ‘home bias’ and the effect of corruption on the value at risk (VaR). Our theory predicts that capital flight controls will be many, foreign direct investment (FDI) will be low and cost of capital will be high in corrupt developing countries, which is supported by Asian data. We include some policy recommendations regarding financial institutions and markets.     

A note on incentive incompatibility under franchising

This note provides a formal demonstration of the incentive incompatibility problem that exists in franchisor — franchisee relationships. It is shown that incentive incompatibility exists with respect to both price and quality. Several contractual mechanisms designed to mitigate the incompatibility problem are examined.