Neural networks and the evolution of firms and industries: An application to UK SIC34 and SIC72.

This paper considers whether neural networks might be used to analyse firm activity and the evolution of industries. The key findings of the simulation results used are summarised as follows. While efficiency seeking behaviour has growth advantages, compared to unchanged firms, these are small compared to the growth advantages that are displayed with firms that are able to exploit input use variability. In addition the two sectors analysed here (UK SIC34 and SIC72) show different profit implications of these growth advantages. In SIC34 an increase in firm growth caused by strategic flexibility coincides with an increase in profitability, whereas in SIC72 the increase in firm growth coincides with a profitability reduction. This difference is explained in terms of the differing market structures in the two sectors along with the differing effects of market shocks. Finally the market structure effects of differing firm types have been analysed. It is shown that factor flexibility generates relative growth advantages that benefit smaller firms. But strategic flexibility generates relative growth effects that benefit larger firms.

Giant Firms in the Information Economy

The primary objective of this paper is to present a discussion of the potential significance of giant companies in the emerging new information economy. In the 1970s and discussion of the significance of giant firms would be somewhat uncontroversial. Within economics, the work of, for example, Prais (1976) established empirically the central position of giant firms in market economies. From a more interdisciplinary perspective, theorists (particularly Marxist inspired writers) emphasised the development of a monopoly based capitalism (for example, Baran and Sweezy, 1968; Cowling, 1982). But more recently these established or stylised facts have been questioned. As discussed below, an explicitly small firms literature has developed. This literature is frequently linked to claims that the changing dynamics of modern market economies have undermined the position and significance of giant firms. Other writers, for instance the sociologist Castells (1996) links the very same dynamics to a continued role for giant firms in a globalised world.

The Indian Economy Since Liberalisation: the Structure and Composition of Exports and Industrial Transformation (1980 – 2000)

This paper assesses empirically structural change in the Indian manufacturing based export sector, based on an analysis of 143 industries / product groupings (mainly manufacturing industries). Trade indices such as Balassa’s revealed comparative advantage (RCA) index, and other variants commonly employed in the literature are used in our analysis. Regression analysis on the RSCA indices is used to further analyse structural change. Thereafter, the stability of the RCA indices is examined, as well as the process of their intertemporal evolution. Three technology categories (high technology, medium technology and low technology) are examined individually and SITC product codes are used as proxies for export industries, in order to look at industry movements within each of these groups. This analysis enables us to assess the export performance of Indian industries in the selected product-industry groupings in detail and evaluate the prospects for growth of particular Indian industrial groupings.India, revealed comparative advantage, manufacturing exports, industrial transformation

Are people ethical? An experimental approach

Individual decision making, ethics, experimental economics

Firm corruption in the presence of an auditor

This paper develops a framework to explore firm corruption taking account of interaction with an auditor. The basic idea is that an auditor can provide auditing and other (consultancy) services. The extent of the other services depends on firm profitability. Hence auditor profitability can increase with firm corruption that may provide an incentive to collude in corrupt practices. This basic idea is developed using a game theoretic framework. It is shown that a multiplicity of equilibria exist from stable corruption, through auditor controlled corruption, via multiple equilibria to honesty on behalf of both actors. Following the development of the model various policy options are highlighted that show the difficulty of completely removing corrupt practices.firm corruption, auditor corruption, perfect equilibrium

Experimenting with sex: four approaches to the genetics of sex reversal before 1950

In the early twentieth century, Tatsuo Aida in Japan, jvind Winge in Denmark, Richard Goldschmidt in Germany, and Calvin Bridges in the United States all developed different experimental systems to study the genetics of sex reversal. These locally specific experimental systems grounded these experimenters\u27 understanding of sex reversal as well as their interpretation of claims regarding experimental results and theories. The comparison of four researchers and their experimental systems reveals how those different systems mediated their understanding of genetic phenomena, and influenced their interpretations of sex reversal

Three Perspectives on Neutrality and Drift in Molecular Evolution

This article offers three contrasting cases of the use of neutrality and drift in molecular evolution. In the first, neutrality is assumed as a simplest case for modeling. In the second and third, concepts of drift and neutrality are developed within the context of population genetics testing and the development and application of the molecular clock

Writing the Future: Progress and Evolution

Review of Writing the Future: Progress and Evolution edited by David Rothenberg and Wandee J Pryor, 2004

Unifying Biology: The Evolutionary Synthesis and Evolutionary Biology

A review of a book by Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis titled Unifying Biology: The Evolutionary Synthesis\r\nand Evolutionary Biology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996)