Balanced wealth creation across cooperative economics

Cooperation is a necessary condition, along with competition, for the creation of wealth, innovation and knowledge. We briefly re-visit and critique certain neo-classical arguments in regards to pure competition and profit maximization that continue to be carried forward by current neo-liberal thought. We also attempt to illustrate the unbalanced and damaging outcomes of neo-liberal logic across the lens of enactment; as well as across our own discernment of holographic analogies to the individualism–collectivism dyad that exist within our complex environments. Within the spirit of evolutionary economics and complexity theory, early and more recent theoretical and empirical underpinnings for cooperation are presented, with the argument that it, combined with competition, leads to more well-balanced wealth creation—be it regional, national or global in character. Finally, we review competitive vs cooperative economic approaches across the lens of emergent complex systems. We then present two possible ‘future’ scenarios: one extreme outcome occurring as a result of truncating or de-balancing the individual vs collective dyad and its holographic analogies; while another outcome attempts to integrate a more inherent balance within these same dyads.     

Inference for the two-parameter bathtub-shaped distribution based on record data

Here we consider the record data from the two-parameter of bathtub-shaped distribution. First, we develop simplified forms for the single moments, variances and covariance of records. These distributional properties are quite useful in obtaining the best linear unbiased estimators of the location and scale parameters which can be included in the model. The estimation of the unknown shape parameters and prediction of the future unobserved records based on some observed ones are discussed. Frequentist and Bayesian analyses are adopted for conducting the estimation and prediction problems. The likelihood method, moment based method, bootstrap methods as well as the Bayesian sampling techniques are applied for the inference problems. The point predictors and credible intervals of future record values based on an informative set of records can be developed. Monte Carlo simulations are performed to compare the so developed methods and one real data set is analyzed for illustrative purposes.     

Endogenous growth theory: a critique

Endogenous growth theory is based on a misperception of how science and technology are acquired and diffused. In particular, it is incorrect to assume that knowledge is freely available. Any knowledge which has economic value has to be accessed via the brains of experts who are members of the relevant 'invisible college' and are rivalrous.It therefore has the characteristics of a private good which can be left to conventional economic incentives to supply.     

Grocery Purchase Behaviour for National and Own-Label Brands

This study compares the shopping habits for national and ownlabel brands to establish if there are differences in personal characteristics and purchase behaviour between those who buy national brands and those who buy own-labels in the UK. While statistical research could quantify how British grocery shoppers felt about food brands, it usually cannot explain why shoppers had the opinions they did, hence this study. It is thus an investigation, through the eyes of grocery shoppers, to answer the ‘WHY’ questions. Two distinct markets were found to exist. These grocery shoppers differ in terms of socio-economic status, personal characteristics and shopping behaviour. The findings provide information useful to both retailing and manufacturing interests as retail marketing strategies are developed in the face of intensifying competition for shoppers' food expenditure in the market-place.     

Individual heterogeneity in the returns to schooling: instrumental variables quantile regression using twins data

Considerable effort has been exercised in estimating mean returns to education while carefully considering biases arising from unmeasured ability and measurement error. Recent work has investigated whether there are variations from the “mean” return to education across the population with mixed results. We use an instrumental variables estimator for quantile regression on a sample of twins to estimate an entire family of returns to education at different quantiles of the conditional distribution of wages while addressing simultaneity and measurement error biases. We test whether there is individual heterogeneity in returns to education and find that: more able individuals obtain more schooling perhaps due to lower marginal costs and/or higher marginal benefits of schooling and that higher ability individuals (those further to the right in the conditional distribution of wages) have higher returns to schooling consistent with a non-trivial interaction between schooling and unobserved abilities in the generation of earnings. The estimated returns are never lower than 9 percent and can be as high as 13 percent at the top of the conditional distribution of wages but they vary significantly only along the lower to middle quantiles. Our findings may have meaningful implications for the design of educational policies.     

Triggers,templates and twitches in the tracking of emerging strategic issues

A longitudinal investigation of group tracking of potential new applications and markets created by an emerging technology (cellular telephones) is used to gain more understanding of the shifts of cognitive frames of reference in the environmental tracking of emerging strategic issues. The dynamics of frame of reference shifts is examined through the derivation and operationalization of the concepts of templates, triggers and twitches. The results posit that examining the frame of reference shifts can be more informative than examining the frames themselves. Implications for strategic management practice and research are addressed.