Export Credit Guarantees, Moral Hazard and Exports Quality

We analyse the role played by export credit guarantees (ECGs) in encouraging exports to developing countries. The existence of moral hazard on the side of the firm is introduced. We show that the inability of the exporter's government to verify the actual quality of the product will limit its ability to encourage trade through ECGs, once the coverage provided goes beyond a certain threshold. This result provides a rationale behind the limited coverage on ECGs.     

硅与太阳能:"马与马车"

如同老式观念中爱情与婚姻的关系一样,太阳能与硅之间的关系就像马与马车.问题在于,如果政府不以税收的形式给予补贴,太阳能的制造比常规能源要贵上4倍.造成这种结果的部分原因在于,太阳能的制造还没有形成规模经济,而且硅的供给处于短缺状态.     

Supply Chain Specific? Understanding the Patchy Success of Ethical Sourcing Initiatives

As a number of high profile companies have found to their cost, corporate reputations can be significantly affected by firms' management of sustainability issue, including those that are outside their direct control, such as the environmental and social impacts of their supply networks. This paper begins by examining the relationship between corporate social responsibility, reputation, and supply network conditions. It then looks at the effectiveness of one tool for managing supply network sustainability issues, ethical sourcing codes of conduct, by examining how the characteristics of three supply networks branded clothes, DIY wood products and branded confectionary affects the implementation ethical sourcing codes of conduct. It ends by setting out conclusions on why implementation of such codes has been so much more successful in some sectors than others and recommendations on effective approaches to managing sustainability issues in supply networks.     

A Free,Open-Source Tool for Identifying Urban Agglomerations using Point Data

This paper describes a software tool for identifying urban agglomerations in low-information settings. The framework outlined in this paper is designed to work using point data. Our tool and all required data are provided free and in open-source format. This paper describes the advantages and disadvantages of using point-based geographies in regional analysis, discusses the practical and ethical challenges of distinguishing urban from rural regions, details the function of our software, and directs the interested reader to the source code. The paper also examines the tool's outputs for Sri Lanka and compares them with published United Nations urbanization figures. Our outputs indicate that Sri Lanka's urban population is significantly undercounted in official statistics.     

Ranking sectors using fuzzy output multipliers

Using input–output analysis to model the effects of changes in industry final demands is fraught with problems, many of which relate to the fundamental limitations of the concomitant linear framework. A further issue concerns the accuracy of the results, a consequence of the uncertainty surrounding the values of multipliers. Such uncertainty can create problems where the values of output multipliers are used to inform resource directions. This paper utilizes (and develops) a fuzzy input–output model and investigates the ranking of industries based on fuzzy output multipliers. The non-triviality of the fuzzy model is exposited in a general problem, where imprecision is defined by a proportional level of imprecision (fuzziness) in the technical coefficients. Through a nascent method for ranking fuzzy numbers, comparisons are made between the fuzzy and more traditional (non-fuzzy) analysis.     

The transition into management by scientists and engineers: A misallocation or efficient use of human resources?

A theme in the career paths of scientists and engineers is their transition into management. This transition is described as difficult both for those who make it and for those who do not. This article uses Human Research Information System data from a large research & development firm to explore an alternative perspective in which the transition is seen as an efficient human resource promotion strategy. The results support the alternative explanation and indicate that the policy serves the firm well in allocating human resources. The results suggest that good technical employees tend to become good managers and that if coupled with aggressive training for those technical employees who do not move into management, the best workers stay with the firm.     

Orthogonal expansions for the generalized Cramér-von Mises statistics

We provide a new proof for the representation of Cramér-von Mises statistics under (known) gamma and normal distributions. The new method uses orthogonal polynomials and provides an explicit form of the statistics from which the asymptotic distribution can be calculated.Acknowledgements This research was partially supported by FQM-331, FQM-270, BMF 2001-2378 and BMF2002-04525-C02-02. The authors are thankful to the referees for their suggestions and helpful comments.     

Industrial relations and the European Community*

The affairs of the European Community reached a major crossroads at the December 1991 summit in Maastricht. This article reviews the attempts of the Community to match the development of the internal market with a social dimension.     

Direct Foreign Investment and Welfare in the Transforming Economies: The Case of Central Asia

This paper studies the welfare effects of foreign investment into an economy with a trade regime of export taxes and/or import subsidies. This regime is characteristic of the Central Asian economies but has received no consideration in previous literature. We show that in many circumstances, foreign investment into an economy with a Central-Asian-type trade regime reduces welfare. In particular, we find that foreign investment is most likely to immiserize when it is directed toward nondistorted traded sectors or free trade zones.J. Comp. Econom.,June 1997,24(3), pp. 297–312. University of Miami, P.O. Box 248126, Coral Gables, Florida 33124.