Finite-time behavior of inner systems

In this paper, we investigate how nonminimum phase characteristics of a dynamical system affect its controllability and tracking properties. For the class of linear time-invariant dynamical systems, these characteristics are determined by transmission zeros of the inner factor of the system transfer function. The relation between nonminimum phase zeros and Hankel singular values of inner systems is studied and it is shown how the singular value structure of a suitably defined operator provides relevant insight about system invertibility and achievable tracking performance. The results are used to solve various tracking problems both on finite as well as on infinite time horizons. A typical receding horizon control scheme is considered and new conditions are derived to guarantee stabilizability of a receding horizon controller

Measurement and display of control information. Remote manipulation and manual control Progress report, 1 Apr. - 30 Sep. 1967

Control interface between man and computer manipulators, and optimality of human controllers as time optimal, bang-bang state regulators of second order system

Who gains when workers train? Training and corporate productivity in a panel of British industries

There is a vast empirical literature of the effects of training on wages that are taken as an indirect measure of productivity. This paper is part of a smaller literature on the effects of training on direct measures of industrial productivity. We analyse a panel of British industries between 1983 and 1996. Training information (and other individual productivity indicators such as education and experience) is derived from a question that has been asked consistently over time in the Labour Force Survey. This is combined with complementary industry-level data sources on value added, wages, labour and capital. We use a variety of panel data techniques (including system GMM) to argue that training significantly boosts productivity. The existing literature has underestimated the full effects of training for two reasons. First, it has tended to treat training as exogenous whereas in reality firms may choose to re-allocate workers to training when demand (and therefore productivity) is low. Secondly, our estimates of the effects of training on wages are about half the size of the effects on industrial productivity. It is misleading to ignore the pay-off firms take in higher profits from training. The effects are economically large. For example, raising the proportion of workers trained in an industry by 5 percentage points (say from the average of 10% to 15%) is associated with a 4 per cent increase in value added per worker and a 1.6 per cent increase in wages

Board Composition, Political Connections and Performance in State-Owned Enterprises

This paper analyses the effects of board composition on the behaviour and performance of a sample of 114 Italian local public utilities, for which information about 1630 directors during 1994-2004 has been collected. This period is particularly interesting because of the legal changes that forced many firms to alter their juridical form and allowed the entrance of private investors. We investigate whether board size and/or board composition do affect decisions about employment and how they ultimately impact on performance. Our main findings indicate that politically connected directors, representing the state or the local municipality, dominate boards of directors in the Italian public utilities in the period under investigation. Politically connected directors exert a positive and significant effect on employment, while they impact negatively on performance.board size; board composition; politicians; local public utilities

Exporting and productivity as part of the growth process: causal evidence from a data-driven structural VAR

This paper introduces a little known category of estimators - Linear Non-Gaussian vector autoregression models that are acyclic or cyclic - imported from the machine learning literature, to revisit a well-known debate. Does exporting increase firm productivity? Or is it only more productive firms that remain in the export market? We focus on a relatively well-studied country (Chile) and on already-exporting firms (i.e. the intensive margin of exporting). We explicitly look at the co-evolution of productivity and growth, and attempt to ascertain both contemporaneous and lagged causal relationships. Our findings suggest that exporting does not have any causal influence on the other variables. Instead, export seems to be determined by other dimensions of firm growth. With respect to learning by exporting (LBE), we find no evidence that export growth causes productivity growth within the period and very little evidence that exporting growth has a causal effect on subsequent TFP growth

Does Good Corporate Governance Lead to Stronger Productivity Growth?

This study investigates the impact of corporate governance and product market competition on total factor productivity growth in Germany and the UK.For Germany, the prototype of a bank-based governance system, productivity grows faster in firms controlled by financial institutions (in particular, banks and insurance companies) and intense competition reinforces this beneficial impact. Furthermore, the importance of the German creditors (mostly banks) for productivity growth is particularly significant in firms which experience financial difficulties or are in financial distress.For the UK, a market-based governance system, we do not find any evidence that creditors play a disciplinary role.Still, there is strong evidence that shareholder control (by insiders, private outsiders and financial institutions) leads to substantial increases in productivity in poorly performing firms.We also find evidence that product market competition is a substitute for blockholder control in the UK.corporate governance;productivity

Optimized Bacteria are Environmental Prediction Engines

Experimentalists have observed phenotypic variability in isogenic bacteria populations. We explore the hypothesis that in fluctuating environments this variability is tuned to maximize a bacterium's expected log growth rate, potentially aided by epigenetic markers that store information about past environments. We show that, in a complex, memoryful environment, the maximal expected log growth rate is linear in the instantaneous predictive information---the mutual information between a bacterium's epigenetic markers and future environmental states. Hence, under resource constraints, optimal epigenetic markers are causal states---the minimal sufficient statistics for prediction. This is the minimal amount of information about the past needed to predict the future as well as possible. We suggest new theoretical investigations into and new experiments on bacteria phenotypic bet-hedging in fluctuating complex environments.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure; http://csc.ucdavis.edu/~cmg/compmech/pubs/obepe.ht

Do Corporate Control and Product Market Competition Lead to Stronger Productivity Growth? Evidence from Market-Oriented and Blockholder-Based Governance Regimes

This study investigates the impact of corporate governance and product market competition on total factor productivity growth for two large samples of German and UK firms. In poorly performing UK firms, the presence of strong outside blockholders lead to substantial increases in productivity. Contrarily, for German poorly performing and distressed firms, it is bank debt concentration which stimulates productivity growth. Whereas high bank debt concentration also supports productivity growth in German profitable firms, leverage is unrelated to productivity growth in UK firms. Weak product market competition in the UK has a negative impact on productivity growth of in both widely-held firms and concentrated firms with the exception of firms controlled insiders (directors). These seem able to generate productivity increases in firms subject to little market discipline. For profitable German firms, the relation between strong blockholder control and productivity growth is limited. Only control by banks, insurance firms and the government can somewhat reduce the negative effect of weak product market competition.corporate governance;productivity growth;ownership and control;product market competition;financial distress