Development and the Environment in Asia

Economic growth and environmental damage are associated, but the relationship is neither linear nor even monotonic. This is clearly seen in the diverse experiences of tropical Asian economies over recent decades. The nature of the growth–environment link depends on the changing composition of production and on growth-related changes in techniques and environmental policies; the enforcement of property rights over natural resources and over air and water quality is another important element. Moreover, environmental and economic policies interact: in effect, every economic policy that affects resource allocation is a de facto environmental measure. One important implication is that the environmental consequences of major policy shifts, such as the 'globalisation' of many tropical Asian economies since about 1980, have been profound. The analytical literature on growth and the environment in Asia tends to agree that environmental damage is costly to regional economies, and has begun to identify and quantify some of the many causal linkages now recognised between economic development and the valuation and use of environmental and natural resource assets.     

A theoretical analysis of institutional investors' trading costs in auction and dealer markets

This paper compares trading costs for institutional investors subject to liquidity shocks, in auction and dealer markets. The batch auction restricts the institutions' ability to exploit informational advantages because of competition between institutions when they simultaneously submit orders. This competition lowers aggregate trading costs. In the dealership market, competition between traders is absent but private information is revealed by observing the flow of successive orders and so reduces aggregate trading costs. We analyse the relative effects on trading costs of competition and information revelation in the two systems and derive a parameter inequality which determines which system has lower costs.     

The Law and Economics of Marriage Contracts

Growth in property ownership has raised the stakes in the distribution of financial assets on divorce. Given high risks of marital failure, this has stimulated the demand for private ordering through enforceable marriage contracts. This paper surveys the existing law and economics literature and legal practice to consider the state of knowledge on the economic theory, scope and limits of written nuptial agreements.     

Replacement Investment: Optimal Economic Life Under Uncertainty

Replacement investment is essentially a regenerative optimal stopping problem; that is, the key decision concerns when to terminate the life of existing plant – and hence when to start over again. This paper examines this optimisation problem within a continuous time framework and studies the qualitative and quantitative impact of uncertainty on the timing of new investment (and the criteria that should be used for terminating the life of existing plant).     

ENTERPRISE WITHOUT UNIONS: THE MANAGEMENT OF EMPLOYEE RELATIONS IN NON-UNION FIRMS

Employee relations in non-union settings remain largely uninvestigated by industrial relations researchers. This article examines the management of employee relations in establishments in high technology industries in the Southeast of England - a sector and locality frequently identified with high levels of non-unionism. Moreover, high technology firms are frequently seen as exemplars of new human resource management techniques designed to substitute for unions. Our data from postal and interview surveys of 115 establishments suggests that HRM is only one, and by no means the dominant, approach to managing employee relations in high technology establishments.     

Self‐Fulfilling Early‐Contracting Rush*

In markets for entry‐level professionals, the insurance motive drives some participants to sign early contracts. The rush to early contracting can be self‐fulfilling, as both its effect on expectations about demand–supply balance in the subsequent spot market and the effect on it from changes in the demand–supply balance can be nonmonotone. Matching markets with more risk‐averse participants, a greater uncertainty regarding relative supply of positions, or a more polarized distribution of applicant qualities are more vulnerable to self‐fulfilling early‐contracting rushes. Employers can have a collective interest in preventing early offers to a few promising applicants from starting the rushes.     

Cyberspace as product space Interactive learning about interactive media

A bewildering range of new interactive consumer media products are emerging, many of them under the label ‘Interactive Television’. This is the source of a great deal of industry excitement. The future of television is opened up beyond the vistas of countless new channels, to new or enhanced types of television service such as video on demand, surfing the Internet, and teleshopping. There is considerable uncertainty attached to market forecasts about them, to views as to which of the various products on offer will succeed in the mass market—even to notions of what exactly consumers might want to use these products for. Rather than offer a pat set of answers to these questions, the present paper approaches the matter of these new products through the perspectives provided by innovation studies and, in particular, new evolutionary economics. Drawing lessons from such products as videotex, audiotex, and optical disc multimedia, it outlines implications for interactive television.     

A variety-increasing view of the development of the semiconductor industry in Taiwan

The development of the semiconductor industry depends on its interactions with the environment. Developing countries face more constraints and the environmental interactions seem more complicated. The development process of the semiconductor industry could be better understood with regard to the interactions and social changes. This study proposes a variety-increasing viewpoint based on the concepts of variety increasing and internal learning to analyze the developmental experience of the semiconductor industry in Taiwan. The result shows that the development of Taiwanese semiconductor industry is a continuous variety-increasing process, which is achieved by searching and establishing successful associations in an increasingly wider and complex environment. Implications on the ongoing development of Taiwan's semiconductor industry and the development experiences of other East Asian countries are discussed.     

The new product development process: part 2. Improving the process of new product development

This paper describes work on evaluating and improving the New Product Development Process (NPDP). The relevant results of a survey of current practice in NPDP within 149 companies are presented. The development and experimental application, within a commercial company, of a methodology for evaluating and improving the NPDP is also described.