LOGISTICS SALIENCE IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT

The primary purpose of this paper was to empirically explore some of the reasons that logistics has become more important, or salient, in comparison to other functions within the firm. A survey of 296 managers across multiple industries in the U.S. found logistics becomes more important within the firm when the industry increases in uncertainty, when there is an emphasis on time‐based competition, when there is greater adoption of information technology, and when there is an emphasis on cross‐functional integration.     

The Persistence of Profits in the Long Run: A New Approach

We present a trend‐based alternative to the standard first‐order autoregression model in persistence of profits studies. This is motivated by reservations over the interpretation of the standard model, and rests on a different concept of dynamic competition. A nine‐category taxonomy of long‐run persistence stereotypes is developed. Structural time series estimates are presented for a sample of UK companies. We find the null of long run competitive equilibrium not rejected in nearly a third of cases, but non‐eroding persistence to be present in around 60%.     

Nonlinear deterministic forecasting of daily dollar exchange rates

We perform out-of-sample predictions on several dollar exchange rate returns by using time-delay embedding techniques and a local linear predictor. We compared our predictions with those by a mean value predictor. Some of our predictions of the exchange rate returns outperform the predictions of the same series by the mean value predictor. However, these improvements were not statistically significant. Another interesting result in this paper which was obtained by using a recently developed technique of nonlinear dynamics is that all exchange rate return series we tested have a very high embedding dimension. Additionally, evidence indicates that these series are likely generated by high dimensional systems with measurement noise or by high dimensional nonlinear stochastic systems, that is, nonlinear deterministic systems with dynamic noise.     

Light fuel demand and public policies in Brazil, 2003–2013

The main objective of this article is to evaluate determinants of demand for light fuels in Brazil between 2003 and 2013. Through a vector autoregression analysis, an effort was made to identify and quantify the impact of different economic variables and public policy measures adopted during this period on the surprising increase in energy consumption by Brazil’s light-vehicle fleet. The results suggest that demand for energy by the light-vehicle fleet was influenced by an increase in income, by a decrease in fuel prices associated with a policy designed to prevent increases in the price of gasoline from pushing the inflation rate up, by a higher availability of credit for buying vehicles, and by a drop in the real price of those goods, with emphasis on countercyclical measures to waive the tax on industrialized products levied on new vehicles during economic downturns in the automotive industry.     

论项目投资评价中的时间风险值效应及其选择

基于现行现金流折现的项目投资评价的有效性取决于对项目现金流量预测的正确性,而项目现金流量具有预测发生的时间越遥远,现金流量不确定性的程度越大但又趋于相对稳定的特征.从这一特征出发,本文引入时间风险值进行折现调整这种系统可循的方法来解决在投资评价时难以预计的项目现金流量未来的不确定性问题,从而使不确定性条件下的项目投资评价更具有客观性.     

Time is not money

In an ultimatum bargaining experiment, we study how subjects bargain over the returns to their investments of money and time. The most notable finding is that a third of the subjects demand no compensation for their time investments, whereas almost all subjects demand compensation for equally costly monetary investments.     

In search of marginal environmental valuations — ecosystem services in Finnish forest accounting

There is currently substantial interest in valuing various services provided by different ecosystems. Concurrently economists have ascribed substantial effort on expanding traditional forest accounting systems by environmental services. This paper contributes to curtailing the existing gap between green accounting theory and applications for valuing forest ecosystem services. The multitude of links between forest ecosystem services and economy are characterized by the theoretical model for forest-economy interactions. By utilizing recently updated data we also incorporate empirical value estimates of these services comparable to other goods into Finnish forest accounting system. Finally, we discuss some problems encountered and clarify the interpretation of some value estimates incorporated to national forest account.     

Personality and older consumers’ green behaviour in the UK

The UK government has set an ambitious target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% before 2050. An interesting segment that could help to achieve this is older consumers, due to their growing numbers. There seems to be a lack of attention, in the research looking specifically at different age categories of older consumers’ green behaviour, and whether their level of greenness can be explained by their personality. Using Socioemotional Selectivity Theory and Time Perspective, the research presented here was designed to provide an exploratory analysis of how the green behaviour of older consumers is explained by their personality types. Based on the responses of 204 older consumers in the UK, our results find the openness personality trait to be positively linked to green behaviour, whilst the extraversion personality trait is negatively related to green behaviour. Although the level of green behaviour increased with older consumers’ age, this did not reach significance.