Designing the Last Mile of the Supply Chain in Africa: Firm Expansion and Managerial Inferences from a Grocer Model of Location Decisions

The recent interest in the expansion of retail food chains and the perceived problems resulting from competition between these new, sophisticated supply chains and the most basic of food distribution networks in emerging economies have been greatly debated in the literature. This paper is a seminal approach to examining South-South food firm (grocer) foreign direct investment by incorporating data on the informal market into a facility location decision model. There are unique environmental complexities that developing/transitioning economies present. The unique finding of this model is that informal employment patterns, in both Agricultural and non-Agricultural sectors, influence the firm’s location. Given the absence of data, South-South foreign direct investment managers perceive avid market transactions as indicators of demand and potential supply availability in formal and informal sectors. For example, Pick n’ Pay’s CEO stated recently that their growth in the Southern Africa supermarket business is a direct result of the informal market converting to the formal market.Supply Chain, Africa, Informal Markets, Facility Location Model, Demand and Price Analysis, Marketing, Q10,

Solution of Bi-objective Competitive Facility Location Problem Using Parallel Stochastic Search Algorithm

Proceedings of: Second International Workshop on Sustainable Ultrascale Computing Systems (NESUS 2015). Krakow (Poland), September 10-11, 2015.The work has been partially supported by EU under the COST Action IC1305 “Network for Sustainable Ultrascale Computing (NESUS)”

What drives investment in telecommunications? The role of regulation, firms’ internationalization and market knowledge

The aim of this paper is to classify the firms operating in the European telecommunications market according to their degree of internationalization and market knowledge, and to test the effects of this classification and the existence of access regulation on infrastructure investment in European broadband markets. To do so, we construct a (unique) data set for the 27 European countries for the period 2002 to 2009. We estimate, by means of panel data techniques (and instrumental variables to control for any potential endogeneity problem), an investment equation for all firms and separate equations for entrant and incumbent firms. Our results show no significant relation between regulation and total investment. The variables capturing the degree of internationalization and market knowledge have a positive and significant effect on total investment, being a positive and significant effect on entrants’ investment, but no significant impact on that of incumbent firms. This result indicates that, under the current regulatory framework, the firms that invest most are entrants with international experience, while the expansion of incumbents into other countries does not affect their investments in their home countries.Telecommunications, regulation, investment, internationalization, knowledge

A review of multi-factor capacity expansion models for manufacturing plants:searching for a holistic decision aid

Investment in capacity expansion remains one of the most critical decisions for a manufacturing organisation with global production facilities. Multiple factors need to be considered making the decision process very complex. The purpose of this paper is to establish the state-of-the-art in multi-factor models for capacity expansion of manufacturing plants within a corporation. The research programme consisting of an extensive literature review and a structured assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the current research is presented. The study found that there is a wealth of mathematical multi-factor models for evaluating capacity expansion decisions however no single contribution captures all the different facets of the problem

Living Wage Laws: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions

[Excerpt] Although most communities that have considered living wage proposals have adopted them, questions invariably arise about the desirability and effectiveness of these ordinances as public policy tools and the relation of such measures to local economic development. Here are some frequently asked questions and answers about living wage ordinances

Fast Charging Stations: Simulating Entry and Location in a Game of Strategic Interaction [WP]

This paper uses a game of strategic interaction to simulate entry and location of fast charging stations for electric vehicles. It evaluates the equilibria obtained in terms of social welfare and firm spatial differentiation. Using Barcelona mobility survey, demographic data and the street graph we find that only at an electric vehicle penetration rate above 3% does a dense network of stations appear as the equilibrium outcome of a market with no fiscal transfers. We also find that price competition drives location differentiation measured not only in Euclidean distances but also in consumer travel distances

Electric power network oligopoly as a dynamic Stackelberg game

Over the last two decades, the electricity industry has shifted from regulation of monopolistic and centralized utilities towards deregulation and promoted competition. With increased competition in electric power markets, system operators are recognizing their pivotal role in ensuring the efficient operation of the electric grid and the maximization of social welfare. In this article, we propose a hypothetical new market of dynamic spa- tial network equilibrium among consumers, system operators and electricity generators as the solution of a dynamic Stackelberg game. In that game, generators form an oligopoly and act as Cournot-Nash competitors who non-cooperatively maximize their own profits. The market monitor attempts to increase social welfare by intelligently employing equi- librium congestion pricing anticipating the actions of generators. The market monitor influences the generators by charging network access fees that influence power flows to- wards a perfectly competitive scenario. Our approach anticipates uncompetitive behavior and minimizes the impacts upon society. The resulting game is modeled as a Mathemat- ical Program with Equilibrium Constraints (MPEC). We present an illustrative example as well as a stylized 15-node network of the Western European electric grid

The importance of market size in the consumer service professional football: the Belgian case

The problem with Belgian football competition is that in the long run, and as reality shows us in the short term, the contemporary situation will lead to market failures and the elimination of some of the clubs. The solution proposed in this paper is the creation of a new professional competition with fewer teams combined with territorial exclusivity in a centre with a potential number of consumers that reach a certain absolute or relative threshold.sports economics, soccer