Silver fetters? The rise and fall of the Chinese price level 1928–34

We show how the silver standard transmitted world silver price fluctuations into China and made the Chinese price level closely linked to the world silver price. Inflation was transmitted between 1929 and 1931 when the world silver price was falling; while deflation was transmitted during 1932 and 1934 when the world silver price was rising. Using micro-level evidence and counterfactual simulations, we show that the exchange rate was the main shock transmission channel, and silver stocks played an insignificant role.     

Will Japan,Taiwan or the US be isolated by China? A macroeconomic game approach

In Taiwan, Japan and even the United States, economic isolation has become a major concern due to the growing Chinese economy, which may lead to welfare losses for the isolated countries. On the basis of the framework developed by Plasmans et al. [Plasmans, J., Engwerda, J., van Aarle, B., Di Bartolomeo, G., Michalak, T., 2005. Dynamic Modelling of Monetary and Fiscal Cooperation Among Nations. Springer], this paper establishes a four-player game with an open-loop information structure to measure possible losses by an international policy coordination approach instead of the conventional free trade agreements. We simulate macroeconomic adjustments of the four countries according to the different institutional scenarios and economic shocks. The baseline simulation and sensitivity analyses indicate that Taiwan can get benefit by participating in coalitional mechanisms including China. In addition, most of the feasible policy coalitions cannot come into effect without US participation. This implies that at the current stage the US rather than China should be the main economic partner of Taiwan and Japan to prevent them from being economically marginalized.     

The price effects of cross‐market mergers: theory and evidence from the hospital industry

We consider the effect of mergers between firms whose products are not viewed as direct substitutes for the same good or service, but are bundled by a common intermediary. Focusing on hospital mergers across distinct geographic markets, we show that such combinations can reduce competition among merging hospitals for inclusion in insurers' networks, leading to higher prices (or lower‐quality care). Using data on hospital mergers from 1996–2012, we find support that this mechanism operates within state boundaries: cross‐market, within‐state hospital mergers yield price increases of 7%–9 % for acquiring hospitals, whereas out‐of‐state acquisitions do not yield significant increases.     

Economic design of an chart for short-run production

The aim of this paper is to present an economical design of an X chart for a short-run production. The process mean starts equal to μ₀ (in-control, State I) and in a random time it shifts to μ₁>μ₀ (out-of-control, State II). The monitoring procedure consists of inspecting a single item at every m produced ones. If the measurement of the quality characteristic does not meet the control limits, the process is stopped, adjusted, and additional (r-1) items are inspected retrospectively. The probabilistic model was developed considering only shifts in the process mean. A direct search technique is applied to find the optimum parameters which minimizes the expected cost function. Numerical examples illustrate the proposed procedure.     

Strategies for Improving Codes of Ethics Implementation in Construction Organizations

It is necessary to reconsider the assumptions upon which the process of implementing compliance with ethical programs rests, in both theoretical and practical terms. These assumptions should hinge on organizational enablers that allow embeddedness of codes of ethics in the web of an organization's processes. This article sets out to describe an approach that will facilitate implementation of codes of ethics in construction organizations and a comprehensive literature survey approach is adopted to achieve this. The paper equally employs the application of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model as a tool to stimulate ethical behavior in an organization, with the focus on the enabler criterion of the model. The authors discuss organizational enablers in relation to the implementation of ethical codes. The study demonstrates how ethics can be managed in an organization by proposing a framework to enhance codes of ethics embeddedness in the web of an organization. The paper indicates current research gaps and future opportunities for both academics and practitioners.     

Estimating fixed-effect panel stochastic frontier models by model transformation

Traditional panel stochastic frontier models do not distinguish between unobserved individual heterogeneity and inefficiency. They thus force all time-invariant individual heterogeneity into the estimated inefficiency. Greene (2005) proposes a true fixed-effect stochastic frontier model which, in theory, may be biased by the incidental parameters problem. The problem usually cannot be dealt with by model transformations owing to the nonlinearity of the stochastic frontier model. In this paper, we propose a class of panel stochastic frontier models which create an exception. We show that first-difference and within-transformation can be analytically performed on this model to remove the fixed individual effects, and thus the estimator is immune to the incidental parameters problem. Consistency of the estimator is obtained by either N→∞$N\to \infty$ or T→∞$T\to \infty$, which is an attractive property for empirical researchers.     

The impact of mentoring quality on protégés' organization‐based self‐esteem and proactive behavior: The moderating role of traditionality

Based on self‐consistency theory, this study examined the relationship between mentoring quality as perceived by protégés and protégés' proactive behavior. It focused on the mediating role of organization‐based self‐esteem (OBSE) and the moderating role of traditionality. To examine these relationships, we administrated three‐wave surveys to 237 subordinate–supervisor dyads in a construction enterprise. The results of hierarchical linear modeling demonstrated that (a) mentoring quality and proactive behavior had a positive relationship; (b) OBSE mediated this relationship; and (c) traditionality strengthened both the relationship between mentoring quality and OBSE and the indirect effect of mentoring quality on proactive behavior via OBSE. Our findings have theoretical and practical implications for research on mentoring and proactive behavior.     

Design and development of inventory knowledge discovery system

Inventory management (IM) performance is affected by the forecasting accuracy of both demand and supply. In this paper, an inventory knowledge discovery system (IKDS) is designed and developed to forecast and acquire knowledge among variables for demand forecasting. In IKDS, the TREes PArroting Networks (TREPAN) algorithm is used to extract knowledge from trained networks in the form of decision trees which can be used to understand previously unknown relationships between the input variables so as to improve the forecasting performance for IM. The experimental results show that the forecasting accuracy using TREPAN is superior to traditional methods like moving average and autoregressive integrated moving average. In addition, the knowledge extracted from IKDS is represented in a comprehensible way and can be used to facilitate human decision-making.     

A Study of the Attitude toward Convergent Products: A Focus on the Consumer Perception of Functionalities

The convergent product is an increasingly important phenomenon in the marketplace. The convergent product allows the developer to include more and more diverse functionalities into their products, which can satisfy a broad range of consumer needs. However, failures of convergent products arouse the need to understand its functionalities, and the optimal combination of functionalities and their relationships to attitude and purchase intention. In addition, because convergent product has the potential to offer more diverse functionality, we consider if this will have impacts on instrumental and emotional needs fulfillment and attitude and purchase intention. Additionally, consumer innovativeness was examined to ascertain if there were differences among consumers on their classification of the functionalities, or if it will moderate functional diversity, needs fulfillment, and product attitude. Using the Kano model, this study examined the nature of these relationships by examining the functionalities of a smartphone. Overall, our results show that the convergent products that include functionalities from two of the three categories of the Kano model, must‐have and attractive, were rated more positively. Consumer innovativeness differences were found. Consumers with high innovativeness considered must‐have and one‐dimensional functionalities the most important, and consumers with low innovativeness considered all three important, although one‐dimensional functionalities were considered significantly less important. Although increasing functional diversity positively raises product attitude and purchase intention, it tends to raise emotional needs fulfillment only once instrumental needs have been met, especially for respondents showing low innovativeness. The findings should arouse interest about factors that should not be overlooked when developing new convergent products.     

Intergenerational earnings mobility in Singapore and the United States

This study compared intergenerational earnings mobility in Singapore and the United States by replicating the sample criteria in the Singapore National Youth Survey on the U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics. The mean estimated earnings elasticities are almost identical: 0.26 in Singapore and 0.28 in the United States. Transformed to 0.44 and 0.47 respectively to reflect permanent status, mobility in the two countries is moderately low compared internationally. The finding of similar mobility is not surprising given that the two countries have similar economic realities, welfare systems, education regimes, and labor structures. Policy makers face the daunting challenge of overcoming immobility and inequality while maintaining global competitiveness.