Evolution of Supply Chain Collaboration: Implications for the Role of Knowledge

Increasingly, research across many disciplines has recognized the shortcomings of the traditional “integration prescription” for inter-organizational knowledge management. This research conducts several simulation experiments to study the effects of different rates of product change, different demand environments, and different economies of scale on the level of integration between firms at different levels in the supply chain. The underlying paradigm shifts from a static, steady state view to a dynamic, complex adaptive systems and knowledge-based view of supply chain networks. Several research propositions are presented that use the role of knowledge in the supply chain to provide predictive power for how supply chain collaborations or integration should evolve. Suggestions and implications are suggested for managerial and research purposes

The effect of competition among brokers on the quality and price of differentiated internet services

Price war, as an important factor in undercutting competitors and attracting customers, has spurred considerable work that analyzes such conflict situation. However, in most of these studies, quality of service (QoS), as an important decision-making criterion, has been neglected. Furthermore, with the rise of service-oriented architectures, where players may offer different levels of QoS for different prices, more studies are needed to examine the interaction among players within the service hierarchy. In this paper, we present a new approach to modeling price competition in (virtualized) service-oriented architectures, where there are multiple service levels. In our model, brokers, as the intermediaries between end-users and service providers, offer different QoS by adapting the service that they obtain from lower-level providers so as to match the demands of their clients to the services of providers. To maximize profit, players, i.e. providers and brokers, at each level compete in a Bertrand game while they offer different QoS. To maintain an oligopoly market, we then describe underlying dynamics which lead to a Bertrand game with price constraints at the providers' level. Numerical simulations demonstrate the behavior of brokers and providers and the effect of price competition on their market shares.This work has been partly supported by National Science Foundation awards: CNS-0963974, CNS-1346688, CNS-1536090 and CNS-1647084

Ownership Structure of Cable Networks and Competition in Local Access

In this paper, we discuss the role of cable television networks and their ownership structure in promoting competition in the local access market. First, we show that the dual ownership of a local telephone network and a cable network, compared with separate ownership, may increase or decrease incentives to invest in upgrading the cable television network. Second, we argue that separate ownership of the two networks is important to promote competition in local access.Cable Networks, Local Access, Competition

Endowment structures, industrial dynamics, and economic growth

Economic Theory&Research,Political Economy,Economic Growth,Debt Markets,Emerging Markets

Accounting for Growth

A satisfactory account of the postwar growth experience of the United States should be able to come to terms with the following three facts: -Since the early 1970's there has been a slump in the advance of productivity. -The price of new equipment has fallen steadily over the postwar period. -Since the mid-1970's the skill premium has risen. Variants of Solow's (1960) vintage-capital model can go a long way toward explaining these facts, as this paper shows. In brief, the explanations are: -Productivity slowed down because the implementation of information technologies was both costly and slow. -Technological advance in the capital goods sector has lead to a decline in equipment prices. -The skill premium rose because the new, more efficient capital is complementary with skilled labor and/or because the use of skilled labor facilitates the adoption of new technologies.Investment-specific technological progress, vintage-capital models, learning by doing, diffusion lags.

Organisational Structures in Network Industries – An Application to the Railway Industry

This paper analyses the incentives to upgrade input quality in vertically related (network) industries. Upstream investments have a biased effect on the downstream companies and lead to vertical product differentiation. Different vertical structures such as vertical integration, ownership and legal unbundling lead to different investments. We find that, without regulation, vertical integration and legal unbundling regimes provide highest investment incentives and lead to highest welfare. However, we also find foreclosure in the downstream market if the potential degree of horizontal product differentiation of the entrant is low. Under ownership unbundling, investment incentives are lower but there is never foreclosure of the entrant since this would worsen double marginalisation. When the network operator is subject to a break-even regulation, the investment incentives are crowded out under legal and ownership unbundling whereas they remain nearly unchanged under vertical integration. Welfare and co umer surplus decrease under legal unbundling, but increase under the two other regimes.Vertical Integration, Investment, Foreclosure, Regulation

Food security and import substitution: major strategic objectives of contemporary agricultural policy

Rural areas and the agricultural sector are currently experiencing a radically new social and economic situation which barely fits the existing national agricultural policy as a long-term instrument for stimulating the agri-food market and government’s support of the agrarian sector and, primarily, agriculture that underlies it. In the age of globalization of national agri-food markets, food supply security based on import substitution can be ensured in a macro-economic environment that favors the development of a competitive agricultural industry. The main factor preventing the industry from developing is the unequal inter-industrial exchange biased against the rural economy. The article proposes the author’s simple tried and tested schema for evaluating how inter-industry pricing relationships and governmental financial support (in the form of subsidies) to agricultural organizations affect their margins. The evaluation leads to the following conclusions: – Given its real contribution to the national economy, the agro-industry is self-sufficient for its own development, i.e. the state objectively has the potential to increase its expenses on the elimination of the negative consequences from an unequal inter-industry exchange; – Federal expenditures on such state support must secure a margin for agricultural goods producers that enables stimuli for workers’ efficiency and an affordable credit system for the technical and technological upgrade of the facilities required for the production of competitive goods; – The issues of competitive growth of agricultural products require solutions primarily on a federal scale. An essential factor of competitive growth of individual types of national food and agricultural raw materials should involve science proven EEU agricultural treaties. The article discusses the major priorities in developing a common agricultural policy in the new integration institution

The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer Book 2018

(Abridged) This is the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer 2018 book. It is intended as a concise reference guide to all aspects of the scientific and technical design of MSE, for the international astronomy and engineering communities, and related agencies. The current version is a status report of MSE's science goals and their practical implementation, following the System Conceptual Design Review, held in January 2018. MSE is a planned 10-m class, wide-field, optical and near-infrared facility, designed to enable transformative science, while filling a critical missing gap in the emerging international network of large-scale astronomical facilities. MSE is completely dedicated to multi-object spectroscopy of samples of between thousands and millions of astrophysical objects. It will lead the world in this arena, due to its unique design capabilities: it will boast a large (11.25 m) aperture and wide (1.52 sq. degree) field of view; it will have the capabilities to observe at a wide range of spectral resolutions, from R2500 to R40,000, with massive multiplexing (4332 spectra per exposure, with all spectral resolutions available at all times), and an on-target observing efficiency of more than 80%. MSE will unveil the composition and dynamics of the faint Universe and is designed to excel at precision studies of faint astrophysical phenomena. It will also provide critical follow-up for multi-wavelength imaging surveys, such as those of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, Gaia, Euclid, the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope, the Square Kilometre Array, and the Next Generation Very Large Array.Comment: 5 chapters, 160 pages, 107 figure