On the relationship between cost and service models for general inventory systems

In this paper, we present a systematic overview of possible relations between cost and service models for fairly general single- and multi-stage inventory systems. In particular, we relate various types of penalty costs in pure cost models to equivalent types of service measures in service models. We show how an optimal policy for a service model may be obtained from cost-optimal policies in a related pure cost model. Pure cost models have been studied extensively in the literature. By our results it seems possible to transform many of the known optimal solutions for pure cost models to service models, which are more appropriate from a practical point of view. A number of examples are discussed to show the generality and the possibly far reaching consequences of the results.     

Overtime pay regulation and weekly hours of work in Canada

The idea that overtime pay regulation can be used to create employment continues to receive attention in a variety of countries. Standard hours, beyond which a statutory overtime premium must be paid, varies across Canadian provinces, as do coverage rules. Exploiting this variation produces a smaller estimated response of weekly hours to standard hours than previous researchers have found in other countries. Combined with evidence of substantially more moonlighting and higher wages in jurisdictions with lower standard hours, these results support a somewhat pessimistic view of the idea that reducing standard hours can be used promote work-sharing in Canada.     

Two-machine flow shop scheduling with deteriorating jobs and chain precedence constraints

In this paper we investigate two-machine flow shop scheduling problems with deteriorating jobs and chain precedence constraints. We consider two types of precedence constraints. Under the first type constraints, a successor cannot start on any machine before its predecessor has been completed on the same machine. Under the second one, a successor cannot start on any machine before its predecessor has been completed on all machines. We show that the problem with the first type precedence constraints is polynomially solvable, and the problem with the second type precedence constraints is NP-hard in the strong sense.     

Firms’ demand for work hours: Evidence from matched firm-worker data in Japan

Using information on Japanese males’ work hours and the matched firms’ characteristics, this paper investigates whether the number of hours worked is determined by demand-side factors and tries to offer a possible explanation of why Japanese males tend to work longer on average, than their counterparts in other countries. Based on an empirical framework in which each firm sets a minimum boundary of work hours and where workers hired by the firm are required to put in at least the minimum hours, we found that the minimum requirement depends on each firm’s fixed costs of labor. Specifically, firms that tend to hoard labor during recessions, presumably because of higher fixed costs, require incumbent workers to work longer hours during normal times. Since Japanese firms have long been considered as incurring high fixed costs to train workers, we interpret the long work hour requirement as a rational strategy for Japanese firms in protecting high-skill-accumulated workers from dismissal. In other words, the long work hours of Japanese males reflect firms’ long-term employment practices, a typical feature of the Japanese labor market.     

Managing For Successful Customer Acquisition: An Exploration

Abstract

This paper explores how consumers select different peers in their social network when obtaining positive verses negative referrals, and the role of social cues in this selection process. An inductive framework incorporating a mixed method process was employed. Thirty in-depth interviews were used to understand how consumers activate specific peers when seeking referrals. First, participants mapped their peer networks and, second, debriefs were undertaken to understand how their peer networks were used across ten product categories. Our research identifies that the choice of peer when seeking referral information is conditional on the type of referral sought. Also, that the cues used by consumers when selecting the most appropriate peer differ depending on the type of referral sought. The different peer activation for these two types of referrals indicates a need to adopt strategies specific to the different referral types.     

银行业支持实体经济发展的制约因素及路径分析

面对信贷规模持续紧缩的经营形势,商业银行如何支持实体经济发展,就成为2012年工作的重中之重。本文分析了银行业支持实体经济发展的制约因素,针对性地提出了银行业支持实体经济发展的建议。     

Rethinking the Role of State-owned Enterprises in China’s Rise

The massive overseas expansion of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is a central aspect of China’s ‘rise’ to great-power status. There is significant disagreement, however, over how to interpret SOEs’ role. Are they instruments of Chinese statecraft, being directed purposefully from Beijing as part of a ‘grand strategy’? Or are they relatively autonomous, profit-maximising businesses, their free-wheeling behaviour often undermining Chinese foreign policy? Finding that there is evidence for both theses, we provide a framework to explain this. We propose theorising party-state/SOEs relations using the concepts of state transformation and regulatory statehood. We show that the Chinese state’s fragmentation, decentralisation and internationalisation since the late 1970s has substantially increased SOE autonomy and weakened but also transformed the executive’s control, reconfiguring it towards a regulatory mode of governance. Party-state/SOEs relations are thus characterised not by direct command and control but weak oversight and ongoing struggles within the party-state. We illustrate this using a case study of China Power Investment Corporation and its Myitsone hydropower dam project in Myanmar. Here, a central SOE clearly defied and subverted central regulations, profoundly damaging Sino-Myanmar state-to-state relations. Party-state authorities are now struggling to rein in this and other central SOEs.     

Intermediation Behavior of the Financial Superstructure in Response to Environmental Stimuli

ABSTRACT

This paper is an empirical extension aimed at investigating the relationships between the indicators of the financial superstructure and its intermediation environments; and especially how the former responds to the effects of the latter. Intermediation-environmental models patterned after multivariate regression, causality, and partial adjustment models of both linear and log-linear formulations were estimated and analyzed. The results reveal that three environments: socio-political, regulatory, and international finance-exerted significant effects on the intermediation function of the superstructure. Previous intermediation successes ginger up current performance. In the long run, the effects of the environmental factors on the intermediation function of the superstructure, in whatever direction, more than quadruples. In any given year, the Nigerian financial superstructure attains only about 21.9% of desired (optimal) FIR. Given this, it would take about 4-1/2 years for it to adjust its intermediation operations (FIR), in light of the effects of environmental factors, to optimal levels in order to significantly impact the economy as desired. Some consistent behavioral traits were identified from the results to include: the precepts of potential maximization, profit maximization, accommodation principles, survival and cost-minimization principles, and the neutrality axiom.     

International tourism demand and the business cycle

The focus of this study is on presenting causes and hypotheses for the existence of asymmetric income and price effects on tourism demand across business cycles. The theoretical assumptions were tested by analyzing tourism import demand in different source markets, drawing on econometric models that provide for the magnitudes of price and income effects either to vary depending on the phase of the business cycle or to remain stable across the business cycles. The major outcome of this study is that the general assumption in most of the tourism demand studies—i.e. that the income effects are symmetric—should not be expected to be automatically true for every source market.