Foot-and-mouth Disease and Trade Restrictions: Latin American Access to Pacific Rim Beef Markets

Owing to their eradication of foot-and-mouth disease Argentina and Uruguay have recently been granted access to the fresh beef markets of the United States and Canada. This raises the prospect of Latin American suppliers gaining access to other Pacific Rim markets, and of increasing the integration of the Pacific and non-Pacific beef markets. A two-commodity spatial equilibrium model is constructed for the base year 1995. Projections are then made for the year 2001 under various policy and other scenarios. In some instances, major changes in trade patterns may result.     

The strategic management of re-innovation

Abstract
Most studies of the management of the technological innovation process cover the range of activities that culminate in the commercial introduction of a new product. In certain sectors of industry, however, especially those characterised by extended product lifecycles, continued competitiveness depends on vigorous and continuous product improvement, i.e. on the process of 're-innovation' to satisfy evolving user requirements. Ongoing research at SPRU has investigated the process of re-innovation in a number of industry sectors, and the paper presents material relating to two of the characteristic patterns of re-innovation identified in this research.
The first characteristic pattern is re-innovation combining the existing with the new. Two brief case studies are presented. In both cases, the manufacturer and customer gained significant benefits from this re-innovation strategy. For the manufacturer there were reduced development and testing costs, scale and learning curve benefits, distributed inventories of spares and servicing experience. For the customer there were familiarity benefits and reduced entry risks associated with proven reliability of parts and sub-systems.
The second, and more general pattern of re-innovation is based on the concept of the 'robust design'. This is a basic design which has sufficient inherent technological slack or flexibility to enable it to evolve into a significant design family of variants. Product design families offer the producer economies of scale in R&D, manufacturing, marketing and sales and servicing. They offer the user learning from experience, the enhanced possibility of user-inspired modifications, a wider range of price/ performance packages and rapid adaptations to changing environments. Robust designs can effectively combine economies of scale with economies of scope; they are strategically more flexible than leanly configured designs which satisfy only transient user requirements.     

Ownership effects on operating strategies: Evidence of expense-preference behavior in the hospital industry

Expense preference offers an alternative to profit-maximization theory in explaining firms' operating strategies (Williamson, 1963; Rees, 1974). Expense-preference theory suggests that when disctretionary behavior is allowed, corporate managers may choose to maximize individual utility instead of corporate profit. Expense-preference behavior tends to be evidenced by higher expenditures on items for which managers have a positive personal preference than would be justified by profit maximization. Conditions under which significant managerial discretion can emerge include weak competition, strictly controlled entry, a high degree of regulation, separation of ownership and control, and existence of a strong public interest character for the firm or industry (Awh and Primeaux, 1985; Edwards, 1977). The hospital industry may be characterized as operating under all the above conditions. Hospital ownership can be classified as being either not-for-profit or proprietary. Profit-maximization influences are generally not present in not-for-profit hospitals, thus further increasing managerial discretion with respect to operating expenses. This study provides support for the contention that expense-preference behavior exists in not-for-profit hospitals as compared to proprietary hospitals. Specifically, we present evidence of considerable managerial discretion in the allocation of resources in not-for-profit hospitals.     

Decisions and desire

When we make decisions, we're not always in charge. One moment we hotheadedly let our emotions get the better of us; the next, we're paralyzed by uncertainty. Then we'll pull a brilliant decision out of thin air--and wonder how we did it. Though we may have no idea how decision making happens, neuroscientists peering deep into our brains are beginning to get the picture. What they're finding may not be what you want to hear, but it's worth listening. We have dog brains, basically, with human cortexes stuck on top. By watching the brain in action as it deliberates and decides, neuroscientists are finding that not a second goes by that our animal brains aren't conferring with our modern cortexes to influence their choices. Scientists have discovered, for example, that the "reward" circuits in the brain that activate in response to cocaine, chocolate, sex, and music also find pleasure in the mere anticipation of making money--or getting revenge. And the "aversion" circuits that react to the threat of physical pain also respond with disgust when we feel cheated by a partner. In this article, HBR senior editor Gardiner Morse describes the experiments that illuminate the aggressive participation of our emotion-driven animal brains in decision making. This research also shows that our emotional brains needn't always operate beneath our radar. While our dog brains sometimes hijack our higher cognitive functions to drive bad, or at least illogical, decisions, they play an important part in rational decision making as well. The more we understand about how we make decisions, the better we can manage them.     

Factors influencing cargo airlines’ choice of airport: An international survey

This paper identifies and evaluates the myriad of factors that influence the choice of airport by freighter-operating airlines. The findings are presented from an international postal survey of airlines operating freighter aircraft on a scheduled non-integrated basis. A number of factors such as night curfews, freight forwarders and airport charges are found to be influential and these are examined against a number of dependent variables such as the airline's home region and operational patterns in order to identify key variations.     

Policy Implications of New Data on Income Mobility

The existence of income mobility may moderate concerns about growing inequalities, especially if income mobility has increased. However, the evidence for rising mobility is equivocal, and its extent is not enough to offset the growth of cross-sectional inequality. There is a case for greater concern for, and different policies towards, those persistently or recurrently poor than those only temporarily poor, but the data analysed here suggest that the bulk of low income observations come from the first two categories. Analysis of income mobility may help understand why people's incomes follow different trajectories and how policy might affect this.     

Re‐innovation and robust designs: Producer and user benefits

New waves of technologies have been sweeping through all industrial sectors in the 1980s. Increasingly, corporate managers have begun to use technology strategies as a major competitive tool. Within these strategies, there are at least a dozen different patterns of redesign and re‐innovation. Overall, one of the most important philosophies has been development of robust design configurations. These robust designs have a product family of variants which meet changing market needs with benefits for both producers and users.