Intergenerational Mobility and the Process of Development

This paper offers an explanation for some evidence that intergenerational earnings mobility is higher in more developed economies and that mobility is positively correlated with wage equality. In the model mobility promotes economic growth via its effect on the accumulation and allocation of human capital. Growth influences mobility via its effect on incentives to acquire education and its effect on liquidity constraints upon such acquisition. In the process of development mobility increases and the distribution of education becomes better correlated with ability. Redistributive policy has a negative effect on growth in developed economies and a positive effect in developing economies.     

Strategies of effective low share businesses

Previous research has suggested that low share market businesses have dismal prospects. This study examines low share businesses which are effective. In particular, it examines the product-market choices and competitive strategies of effective low share businesses, comparing them with two control groups: effective high share and ineffective low share businesses. Data are drawn from PIMS data bases and hypotheses are tested using cluster analysis and discriminant analysis. Effective low share businesses are found to locate in stable rather than protected environments. Their competitive strategies are strongly characterized by selective focus on specific strengths.     

The impact of transportation cost uncertainty on urban structure

Under an uncertain transportation cost, residential choice is made before the actual state of the world reveals itself. Formally, this resembles the theory of saving under uncertainty. Exploring this resemblance, we investigate the effect on urban structure of introducing uncertainty in transportation cost. Our main conclusion is that risk does not necessarily have the same effect on the city that an increase in transportation cost does in the deterministic case. If the utility function obeys the ‘principle of decreasing risk aversion to concentration’, introducing risk causes the urban area to contract (as in the case of an increasing transportation cost), but the equilibrium utility level may either increase or decrease. If, on the other hand, utility does not satisfy the above principle, introducing risk causes the utility level to decline (as if the case of an increasing transportation cost), but the urban area may either expand or contract.     

A characterization of exponential distributions based on order statistics

This note contains a characterization of exponential distributions based on the properties of linear transformations of order statistics. This is a certain converse of a well known theorem of Rényi about the distribution of linear combinations of order statistics from exponential distributions. Some statistical applications of the result are indicated.     

亚太地区中小企业六西格玛的推行

一、引言 六西格玛初创时所关注的焦点,是调查产品表现不稳定的原因并使其变动最小化.这是一个质量测量和过程改进项目,过程控制关注于从中心线起六西格玛(标准偏差)之间的界限.这样,就可确保正在生产的零件是无缺陷的.如果缺陷一旦发生,将被限制在每百万个零件只有3.4个有缺陷.产品质量的关键因素,常常由顾客的需要和减少缺陷来确定.     

Effects of Low Income Families' Ability and Willingness to Use consumer Credit on Subsequent Outstanding Credit Balances

This study investigates consumer credit use of 618 low income families selected from the 1983 and 1986 Survey of Consumer Finances. The low income family's ability and willingness to use credit along with selected interaction variables are tested in a hierarchical multiple regression model. Significant determinants of the amount of credit outstanding in 1986 were household head's employment status and age, credit balance in 1983, and two interaction variables: specific attitude toward credit with head's educational level and with debt balance in 1983. Implications of the use of consumer credit by low income families are discussed.