Forecasting system thermal efficiencies in technology importing countries

Forecasting the thermal efficiency of a set of power plants belonging to a country is important for energy, water, and environmental planning.In this article an analysis of the way in which the system thermal efficiency (STE) changes is provided, and a forecasting model for the electric utilities of technology importing countries is developed.The model is based on the identification of the speed with which technology is transferred from abroad and of the adjustment process of the system's efficiency to that of the best plant's.The application of the calculation to the South African utility shows that the STE in the year 2015 will be 20 to 25 percent higher than that in the year 1983.     

South Africa government's support of the automotive industry: prospects of the productive asset allowance

In 2000 the South African Government introduced an investment incentive for the automotive industry, the Productive Asset Allowance (PAA). This was intended to support the objectives of the Motor Industry Development Programme (MIDP). This paper presents an empirical assessment of the PAA's prospects for supporting the competitiveness of South Africa's automotive industry. It provides a historical overview of the MIDP and the introduction of the PAA and analyses industry performance data on investment and competitiveness from 1998 to 2004. The findings reveal that while the industry succeeded in increasing exports, the share of domestically produced vehicles in the local market decreased. Moreover, investment in R&D, as an indicator for future competitiveness, was insignificant. The offer of a generic investment incentive like the PAA seems to have a significant and positive effect on industry investment, but limited ability to support long-term industry competitiveness through R&D and innovation.     

Entry and competition in the canadian telecommunications industry: The case of alberta government telephones

This paper analyzes the problems arising from the introduction of competition into a publicly-owned, relatively small telecommunications carrier, Alberta Government Telephones (AGT), in the light of new empirical work. It addresses the issue of cost subadditivity by estimating AGT's multi-output, multi-input production structure. The hypothesis that AGT is a natural monopoly cannot be rejected. For the period examined, it is found that important cost savings are realized from the existence of a sole supplier in the provision of both local and toll calls. Had competition been allowed in AGT's market during the period examined (1974–85), its cost structure would have been adversely affected. However, it appears that these cost savings are decreasing as the pace of introduction of modern transmission and switching equipment is introduced in its network. These technological changes may eventually render competition viable.     

A three-player dynamic majoritarian bargaining game

We analyze an infinitely repeated divide-the-dollar bargaining game with an endogenous reversion point. In each period a new dollar is divided among three legislators according to the proposal of a randomly recognized member—if a majority prefer so—or according to previous period's allocation otherwise. Although current existence theorems for Markovian equilibria do not apply for this dynamic game, we fully characterize a Markov equilibrium. The equilibrium is such that irrespective of the discount factor or the initial division of the dollar, the proposer eventually extracts the whole dollar in all periods. We also show that proposal strategies are weakly continuous in the status quo that equilibrium expected utility is not quasi-concave, and the correspondence of voters’ acceptance set (the set of allocations weakly preferred over the status quo) fails lower hemicontinuity.     

Saving,investment and capital mobility in EU member countries: a panel data analysis of the Feldstein–Horioka puzzle

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we reexamine the long-standing and puzzling correlation between national saving and investment in 14 European Union (EU) countries. We employ a panel data set for the period 1970–2015 and we apply recently developed maximum likelihood panel cointegration methodologies. We find that there exists a long-run relationship between savings and investment for this panel of EU member countries, with the savings retention coefficient being low in magnitude but statistically different than zero. Therefore, we argue that there is weak evidence in favour of the Feldstein–Horioka puzzle and that the long-run international solvency condition is maintained in most of these countries. This evidence implies a moderate degree of capital mobility which is consistent with the macroeconomic experience of these countries during the period under investigation.     

The stability of market shares in UK manufacturing industry 1979–1986

Competition is a selection process in which the winners survive and expand, and the losers contract and disappear. This paper examines the selection process applied to the leading five firms in a large sample of UK manufacturing industries over the period 1979 to 1986. Selection pressures are seen to vary substantially the rank of the firm, and much but not all of the selection pressures that these firms faced originated in the capital market.     

Industry work experience and inventive capacity of South African academic researchers

The inventive capacity of South African universities and researchers is investigated through analysis of university patent applications. Patent applications to the South African Patent office from 1996 to 2006 are used as an indicator of inventive capacity. The investigation determines, for the first time, patenting activities of local universities at the South African Patent Office for the past 10 years and it identifies the performance of faculties and departments. We suggest that patent analysis of local patent offices in developing countries provides a more comprehensive picture of inventive activity than the analyses in the main patent offices in USA and Europe.The assertion that industrial experience affects the inventiveness of academic staff is also investigated. The study finds that most inventors or co-inventors held at least one position in industry, or in some cases, specialized parastatals (non-university institutions) prior to patent application. The study supports the idea that experience and the professional trajectory of scientists through migration from industry to university leads to an increase of researchers’ scientific and technical human capital which is convertible into high performance or inventive capacity. We argue that this linkage is valid equally in developed and developing countries (like South Africa) and that universities internationally wishing to improve their entrepreneurial character should aim to employ academic with industrial prior experience.