Illicit drug markets and economic irregularities

Markets for illicit drugs present an interesting case study for economics, combining non-standard characteristics such as addiction and product illegality. One response has been to argue the generality of economic principles by suggesting that they apply even in the extreme case of markets for addictive substances, e.g., by showing that demand for illicit goods is responsive to price [1] [Reframing health behavior change with behavioral economics. Hillsdale, NJ:Lawrence Earlbaum Associates; 2000. p. 89-111.] and even by modeling addiction as rational [2] [J Political Econ 1988;96:675-700]. This paper sketches examples of an alternative reaction, focusing on idiosyncrasies of drug markets that might plausibly create counter-intuitive effects, including supply curves that slope downward because of enforcement swamping and/or a good serving as the only available store of wealth for its producer, demand reduction programs that increase demand, and consumption by “jugglers” possibly increasing rather than decreasing as prices rise. This analysis yields non-obvious policy recommendations; for example, source country control programs should concentrate on growing regions with a healthy banking sector.     

Modelling of repairable systems with various degrees of repair

The availability of a stochastic repairable system depends on the failure behaviour and on repair strategies. In this paper, we deal with a general repair model for a system using auxiliary counting processes and corresponding intensities which include various degrees of repair (between minimal repair and perfect repair). For determining the model parameters we need estimators depending on failure times and repair times: maximum likelihood (ML) estimator and Bayes estimators are considered. Special results are obtained by the use of Weibull-type intensities and random observation times.     

A multilevel, identity-based approach to leadership development

A frontier of leadership development is examined involving the respective roles of levels-of-analysis and identity in constructing an integrated development system. An approach is described in which individual and relational leadership identities are the focus of developmental efforts at lower organizational levels (e.g., individual contributor and first-level supervisor) but collective identities become the focus at higher levels (e.g., general manager and above). The separate areas of levels-of-analysis and leader identities are first discussed in terms of their respective relevance to leadership development. These are then discussed jointly in elaborating on a proposed development approach that integrates across organizational levels as well as levels of development (i.e., leader development and leadership development). In developing collective leadership identities, processes that involve participants in engaging across boundaries (functional, hierarchical, geographical) are recommended.     

Interviewers,Interviewer Continuity,and Panel Survey Nonresponse

It is widely known that in practice, different interviewers have different response rates, though there has been no systematic examination of whether this is because of differences among interviewers or differences among those areas allocated to the interviewers (area effects), or both. Furthermore, the conventional wisdom in survey research suggests that it is advisable to have the same interviewers return to the same respondents in order to maintain good response rates in longitudinal surveys, though once again there has been very little documented experimental research to support this. This paper makes use of the interpenetrated sample design experiment in Wave 2 of the British Household Panel Study (BHPS) (i) to explore the effects of interviewers' background characteristics and years of experience on response rates, (ii) to identify and estimate the differential effects of interviewers on response rates and compare the magnitudes of area and interviewer effects, and (iii) to investigate the impact of interviewer continuity. The analysis is facilitated by the use of cross-classified multilevel modelling. The paper also looks at the issue of interviewer continuity qualitatively, through the impressions of the interviewers themselves.     

The economic costs of biological predation

This paper developes a bioeconomic model to analyse the economic losses from the reduced harvesting of prey species resulting from an increase in the stock of a natural predator. Examples of large mammals creating economic damage are whales and African elephants. The economic losses depend critically on the actual management of the prey stock, although the three measures we develop are equal when the stock is managed so as to maximize the sustained economic rent from the prey species. Predation losses are illustrated by the case of the Northeastern Atlantic Minke whale, where the estimate of the average predation cost per whale in 1991–1992 is between $US 1780 and $US 2370, using Norwegian cost and earnings data. A ten percent stock increase is estimated to cause a loss of almost $US 19 million to the fishers of the prey species. If half of this cost were assigned to Norway it would be equivalent to 2.8 and 6.7 percent of the gross profits of the Norwegian cod and herring fisheries, respectively.     

Asymptotic confidence bands for the estimated autocovariance and autocorrelation functions of vector autoregressive models

This paper provides closed-form formulae for computing the asymptotic covariance matrices of the estimated autocovariance and autocorrelation functions of stable VAR models by means of the delta method. These covariance matrices can be used to construct asymptotic confidence bands for the estimated autocovariance and autocorrelation functions to assess the underlying estimation uncertainty. The usefulness of the formulae for empirical work is illustrated by an application to inflation and output gap data for the U.S. economy indicating the existence of a significant short-run Phillips-curve tradeoff.First version received: November 2002/Final version received: September 2003     

The new logic of Japan's young generations

Through daily use of computer games and advanced cartoonized learning, the lower teen generation in Japan has developed an unprecedented ability for instantaneous contextual gestalt-based decision making and high-speed multidimensional simultaneous thinking. This is a radical departure from the sequential logic of older generations. This is a conclusion we can reach after examining the voluminous data available from a new research institute in Japan. The data also indicate that the young adult generation has developed unique strategies of life, which are fascinating but difficult to understand in the framework of our traditional logic but make sense as a transition to the logic of the lower teen generation.     

Business cycles in Italy: A statistical investigation

This paper conducts a statistical analysis of post-war economic fluctuations in Italy. It is argued that business cycles in this country qualitatively conform to the general character of the phenomenon, a result which confirms existing evidence. A temporal stability analysis of stylized facts shows that some statistically significant changes in the empirical regularities occurred after 1973, but they did not alter the main qualitative features of the business cycle. The evidence thus supports interpretative models of the Italian business cycle which incorporate a stable propagation mechanism.     

Forecasting UK house prices: A time varying coefficient approach

Previous studies of UK house prices, developed from the demand and supply ofhousing or from the asset market approach have been poor in terms of robustness and ex-post forecasting ability. The UK housing market has suffered a number of structural changes, particularly since the early 1980s with substantial house price increases, financial market deregulation and the removal of mortgage market constraints through competition. Consequently, models which assume that the underlying data-generating process is stable and apply constant parameter techniques tend to suffer in terms of parameter instability. This article uses the Time Varying Coefficient (TVC) methodology where the underlying data-generating process in the UK housing market is treated as unstable. The estimation results of the TVC regression of UK house prices is compared with those obtained from three alternative constant parameter regressions. Comparisons of forecasting performance suggest the TVC regression out-performs forecasts from an Error Correction Mechanism (ECM), Vector Autoregressive (VAR) and an Autoregressive Time Series regression.     

准确定位科学决策创新工厂物流

介绍了东风汽车有限公司商用车重型车厂引进新理念,导入新方法,学以致用,改善作业效率,提高制造能力,构建和谐节约型工厂物流的实践,并指出了其创新工厂物流取得的效果与存在的问题和今后的发展方向.