Globalization frustrated: The case of white goods

This paper challenges the common view that mature industries are always ripe for global strategies. Based on data from the European Domestic Appliance industry, this paper shows how changing economic conditions can diminish the value of global strategies. Critical in these shifts were simultaneous rises in demand for variety (that eroded the benefits of scale and continental market share) and decreases in manufacturing scale (that permitted new supply options), which reduced the extent of the strategic market to national dimensions. They added complexity that decreased the profitability of the global players and increased that of national strategies. The fluctuating fortunes of leading firms are shown to have been caused primarily by choices of strategy, not by national factor costs.     

Performance Measurement in Government Service Provision: The Case of Police Services in New South Wales

The NSW Government is implementing a financial framework which is designed to encourage government service providers to become more efficient and effective. NSW Treasury is using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to measure the efficiency of major government service providers, such as police, courts and hospitals. This paper outlines the progress in implementing the new financial framework and illustrates the way NSW Treasury will use DEA to help improve the efficiency of government service providers by describing an analysis of the NSW Police Service. The results suggest that NSW police patrols (local police districts) could, on average, reduce input usage by 13.5 percent through better management, and by 6 percent if the patrols could be restructured to achieve the optimal scale. Results also indicate that differences in operating environments, such as location and socioeconomic factors, do not have a significant influence upon the efficiency of police patrols.     

Polyhedral Combinatorics in Combinatorial Optimization

Polyhedral combinatorics is a subarea of combinatorial optimization of increasing practical importance. It deals with the application of the theory of linear systems and linear algebra to combinatorial problems. The paper is not intended as a survey on polyhedral combinatorics but it reviews some of the main concepts and proof techniques.     

基于复杂性科学观的区域创新网络研究

复杂性科学打破了新古典经济学的简单性、稳定性和线性的均衡范式,开创了一种建立在复杂性、动态性和非线性基础上的演化范式。区域创新网络由于具有非线性、动态性和不可逆性等特征,更适合纳入到复杂性科学的范式中来研究。根据区域创新网络的复杂性特征,归纳出其实质上是一种复杂性适应系统,进而运用复杂性科学对其进行了阐释,最后得出了基于高新区培育和发展区域创新网络的几点启示。     

对我国现时夫妻财产制度的探讨

夫妻财产制度，是有关夫妻财产的使用、归属、管理、收益，以及夫妻债务的清偿，夫妻家庭生活等费用的负担，婚姻终止时夫妻财产的清算和分割等的法律制度。夫妻财产制度是夫妻婚姻家庭生活得以正常运转的物质保证，因而它的完善关系到夫妻财产关系平等与否，关系到与夫妻发生交易的第三人的利益安全问题，关系到社会经济的发展问题。     

复杂性科学观下的高科技企业成长机制与成长指数设刮

复杂性科学打破了线性、均衡、简单还原的传统范式，开创了一种非线性、演化、复杂系统的新范式。高科技企业的成长由于具有非线性、动态性和自组织等复杂系统的基本特征，更适合于纳入到复杂性科学的新范式中研究。本文从高科技企业成长机制的复杂性特征入手，分析其成长机理，构建高科技企业适应性成长机制模型，并采用成长指数对高科技企业成长性进行评价，试图进行这方面的一些开创性研究。     

Diversification and sophistication of livestock products: The case of African countries

This study assesses the level of sophistication of livestock products in Africa by evaluating technology intensity and economic complexity of each product. Using trade data from 1995 to 2012, livestock commodity exports are classified based on technology intensity. Employing a method of reflection in computing the economic complexity of export products, we find that one fifth of African livestock commodity exports are manufactured with low technology while the rest is composed of raw materials. The results also show that the ten most complex livestock commodities represent about a third of African livestock total exports while the world level is almost double this figure. Yet African countries spend a huge share of their wealth on importing complex products. The results imply that by exporting non-complex products Africa loses nearly a third of the total value of its livestock exports. To boost the value of livestock products, African countries should exploit their untapped potential while securing the domestic market to achieve import substitution. This can be done by integrating with global value chains or developing niche markets at the regional or international markets and improving productive capabilities.     

Semitractability of optimal stopping problems via a weighted stochastic mesh algorithm

In this paper, we propose a Weighted Stochastic Mesh (WSM) algorithm for approximating the value of discrete‐ and continuous‐time optimal stopping problems. In this context, we consider tractability of such problems via a useful notion of semitractability and the introduction of a tractability index for a particular numerical solution algorithm. It is shown that in the discrete‐time case the WSM algorithm leads to semitractability of the corresponding optimal stopping problem in the sense that its complexity is bounded in order by with being the dimension of the underlying Markov chain. Furthermore, we study the WSM approach in the context of continuous‐time optimal stopping problems and derive the corresponding complexity bounds. Although we cannot prove semitractability in this case, our bounds turn out to be the tightest ones among the complexity bounds known in the literature. We illustrate our theoretical findings by a numerical example.     

Does foreign direct investment expand the capability set in the host economy? A sectoral analysis

Most empirical studies examining the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on economic development use aggregate monetary-based measures such as GDP or TFP growth as indicators for development. We deviate from this approach and use instead the recently developed economic complexity index; this measure summarises the complexity of the productive structure of an economy, and its values can be interpreted as the number of capabilities present in a country. These capabilities are units of productive knowledge necessary for the production of goods, and goods differ in the number of necessary capabilities. Furthermore, we use sectoral FDI data to take differences between sectors of an economy into account, since the number of necessary capabilities also varies between the sectors. In our empirical analysis, covering 63 developing and developed countries over the period 2005–14, we find that FDI in the tertiary sector has a statistically significant and robust positive effect on the number of capabilities, whereas FDI in the primary and secondary sectors generally does not increase the capability set of an economy.