Income Redistribution with Well-Informed Local Governments

This paper examines the problem of redistributing incomeacross jurisdictions and to mobile workers within jurisdictionswhen local governments have better information than the centralgovernment about local production conditions. Under the centralgovernments optimal policy, the subsidies or taxes that localgovernments provide to mobile workers normally depend on whetherthese governments are net recipients or net donors of interjurisdictionalincome transfers. Moreover, the public-input decisions of somelocal governments are distorted. The analysis demonstrates thatit may not be desirable to harmonize social policies across jurisdictions,even when the beneficiaries are quite mobile.     

国际投资的价值分配格局分析

作为中央党校“深化劳动价值理论”课题的子课题 ,本文通过对不同时期国际投资特点的剖析 ,分析了国际投资领域的价值分配格局的变化 ,认为发达国家虽然在分配格局中仍居主导地位 ,但随着发展中国家经济发展水平的提高 ,不公正的分配格局开始改变 ,发展中国家通过吸引外资和对外投资 ,提高了其在国际经济中的比较利益。     

Internet impacts on supply chain management

The traditional way of managing supply chains has changed dramatically over the last 5 years. Face-to-face management, manual tracking systems, paper-dominated order processing systems, and wired communication links were the primary management tools available to logistics managers. Today, they are obsolete. The article provides an overview of some of the new tools and trends discussed in this issue, including website structure, e-purchasing, electronic marketplaces, building vendor relationships, and the use of the Internet in managing supply chains in China.     

Strategic Internet application trends in supply chain management

The Internet is evolving as a powerful force in the new marketplace where the nexus of competition has changed from individual firms to efficient supply chain networks both between firms and within industries. This study explores Internet adoption patterns and operational applications in US supply chain networks. The data reveal that the integration of the Internet into supply chain management applications has increased and has moved away from indiscriminate application of novel Internet technologies towards becoming a focused endeavor with precise expectations and measurable goals. Specifically, the study finds that Internet usage within supply chains is maturing as evidenced by enhanced and increased productivity, reduced costs and increased profit for participating firms.     

The role of e-marketplaces in supply chain management

Electronic marketplaces (e-marketplaces) have a profound influence on the way in which organizations manage their supply chains. Proponents of the e-marketplace concept suggest that web-based trading systems, such as World Wide Retail Exchange (WWRE) and GlobalNetXchange (GNX), would enable companies to more efficiently buy, sell, and manage their supply chain processes on a global scale. This study investigates the extent to which e-business tools of the e-marketplace are used by channel members in the retail sector for business-to-business supply chain management (SCM). The study is based on a survey involving food service companies, retailers, and wholesalers in the UK. It is shown that the e-marketplace supply chain applications enable the majority of companies to automate transaction-based activities and procurement-related processes rather than strategic supply chain activities. The results also indicate that full participation in e-marketplaces requires companies to integrate their internal and external supply chain activities and share strategic information.     

An institutional analysis of supply chain innovations in global marketing channels

The adoption of sophisticated supply chain innovations by trading partners in global channels of distribution is often limited by the institutional context of the international transaction. In particular, the regulatory, normative, and cultural-cognitive elements of institutional environments around the world can enhance or inhibit the ability of trading partners to craft the contractual, ownership, and social elements of institutional arrangements required by an innovation. Because supply chain innovations often require costly, new investments and activity sets, firms may be reluctant to participate in an innovation unless a new institutional arrangement can be crafted to provide adequate safeguards and guarantees. A conceptual model is developed to explain the role of institutions in the successful deployment of supply chain innovations in global marketing channels.     

中国经济波动的产出和通胀效应 ——基于供求冲击相关的SVAR模型分析

本文结合产出缺口-通胀形式的菲利普斯曲线（AS曲线）,构建了产出缺口和通 胀率的SVAR模型,并将识别结果同B-Q约束条件下的识别结果进行比较,以此来探究我国近 三十多年来宏观经济系统中需求冲击和供给冲击对产出和通胀动态的效应。主要得出以下结 论：第一,供求冲击之间高度相关;第二,需求冲击是我国通胀波动的决定性因素,并且存在 持久稳定的效应。第三,供给冲击是我国经济增长的绝对主导力量。第四,我国存在相对陡峭 的菲利普斯曲线（AS曲线）。第五,产出缺口与同比CPI对我国经济状况的拟合效果最好。     

How supply chain architecture and product architecture impact firm performance: An empirical examination

In order to enhance performance, manufacturing firms are building various capabilities and utilizing supply chain networks that are geographically dispersed around the globe. This study examines how decisions related to supply chain architecture and product architecture influence organizational competitiveness. Building on the co-specialization perspective, we evaluate the performance implications of product modularity and supply chain agility. While, product modularity constitutes a product configuration related to sourcing and assembling of products, supply chain agility is a supply chain configuration related to velocity (sensing, comprehending, and responding) and visibility (supplier network, internal operations, and external environment). Both the product and supply chain architectural decisions can impact performance, individually and in conjunction with each other. We empirically test the hypothesized relationships using data collected from 103 manufacturing firms. Results show that supply chain agility and product modularity directly enhance responsiveness and enable organizations to reduce cost. Furthermore, supply chain agility partially mediates the relationship between product modularity and both responsiveness and cost reduction. We elaborate on the key contributions of this study for both research and practice, discuss limitations, and also offer various avenues for further research.     

Optimizing the credit term decisions in supply chain finance

We study a credit term determination problem in the context of a supplier-buyer supply chain. The supplier's credit term decision is simultaneously made with its production and inventory decisions, and most importantly, it is impacted by the buyer's order quantity. We present a new game-theoretic framework to model this problem, which captures the interaction between the supplier's credit term decision and the buyer's order decision in a multi-period setting. An exact method based on nonlinear programming is implemented to obtain the optimal solutions. We apply our methodologies on a real world case. The computational results show that our approach significantly outperforms the heuristics with fixed credit terms, and either a short or a long credit term can be sub-optimal for the supplier in profitability. Our work offers the first data-driven model and solution approach that assists purchasing and supply managers to make optimal dynamic credit term decision in conjunction with production, ordering and inventory decisions in a game-theoretic setting.     

Do labor market institutions matter for business cycles?

Using panel data of 19 OECD countries observed over 40 years and data on specific labor market reform episodes we conclude that labor market institutions matter for business cycle fluctuations. Spearman partial rank correlations reveal that more flexible institutions are associated with lower business cycle volatility. Turning to the analysis of reform episodes, wage bargaining reforms increase the correlation of the real wage with labor productivity and the volatility of unemployment. Employment protection reforms increase the volatility of employment and decrease the correlation of the real wage with labor productivity. Reforms reducing replacement rates make labor productivity more procyclical.