Three Paradoxes with The Cobb-Douglas Production Function

The output elasticities of inputs seem all about what an applied researcher is concerned with. The Cobb-Douglas production functions formulae possess the convenient property that the exponents of inputs readily represent the output elasticities of inputs such that the sum of these exponents reveal whether there are increasing, constant or decreasing returns to scale. However, there are also some inconveniencies with this type of production functions. In this paper we will investigate three of them. First of all, the short run marginal cost functions obtained from the Cobb-Douglas type of production functions can be both convex and concave depending on the magnitude of the technical coefficient of labor input. Unfortunately, this awkward behavior cannot be explained with the economic theory. Secondly, when the variable input labor with a given level of Technical productivity is complemented with a once-and-for-all increase in the amount of physical capital input, the labor becomes more and more productive as the usage of labor increases. This clearly stands in contrast with the Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns. Finally, we find ever-increasing returns to ‘Technical productivity of labor’, keeping the amounts of labor and physical capital constant, which is again surprising. Key words: paradox; convex and concave marginal costs; Cobb-Douglas production function; increasing rate of return to Technical productivity of labor. JEL classification: D2, D3, D4. DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/11-1-1

Analyzing Factors Affecting Repurchase Intention During Gezi Park Brand Protests

During the Gezi Park protests, some major brands were criticized within social media either for what they did or did not and social pressure to boycott those brands was highly apparent. Many newspaper articles highlighted that negative WOM during the protests might have affected consumers’ brand related knowledge. This notion is further supported by previous research. What happened during and after Gezi Park protests creates a perfect environment to analyze this effect. In addition, it was believed that only a portion of the consumers were highly affected by the protest calls. Consequently, this study aims to understand whether consumers have really changed their intention to buy from of a bank and a domestic coffee chain due to protest calls. The study also analyzes whether only a proportion of the consumers were affected and whether their trust, loyalty, awareness, perceived quality, and self-construal, and the company’s perceived social responsibility played a significant role in this change. A hierarchical logistic regression procedure (Forward Wald) with 357 usable cases was used with likelihood of change in purchase as the dependent variable. The results indicate that for the domestic coffee shop only perceived social responsibility plays a role in the change of consumers’ purchase intention. However, for the bank within the study, perceived social responsibility is found to be an insignificant contributor, whereas loyalty and awareness are found   to be significant contributors to consumers’ purchase decisions. Perceived quality/trust and consumers’ self-construal are found to have no effect on the change of consumers’ intention for both brands under study. Keywords: Brand Communication, Boycott, Brand Loyalty, Purchase Intentio

Brand Image, Satisfaction, and Brand Loyalty - How Effective Are They in the Automotive Industry Market Share

The study analyzes the influence of satisfaction, image, and loyalty on market share within the automotive industry by using real market data to capture market share of the car brands within the study. The results of the study confirm that automobile companies, which operate in a very competitive and dynamic environment need to ensure customer satisfaction and positive brand image, that collectively affect customer loyalty to keep sustainable growth. Keywords: brand image, brand loyalty, market share, satisfactio

Exploring Antecedents of Private Shopping intention: The Case of Turkish Apparel Industry

The objective of this study is to develop a research model to investigate the impacts of           (i) perceived benefits/risks of online shopping, (ii) the dimensions of both electronic service quality (e-SQ) and electronic service recovery (e-recovery) on electronic commerce satisfaction and electronic loyalty in the setting of private shopping business model among Turkish online shoppers. The hedonic/enjoyment benefit is the only significantly effective benefit of online shopping where other listed benefits and the risks appear to have an insignificant impact on electronic satisfaction. The e-SQ dimension of “system availability” and the e-recovery dimension of “compensation” were not considered significantly effective on e-satisfaction by the respondents, either. In congruence with the previous research findings, e-satisfaction is a major element of e-loyalty in the growing business of private apparels shopping in Turkey. Keywords: Private Shopping, e-service quality, e-satisfaction, e-loyalty

Effect of Faculty Development Activities on Dental Hygiene Faculty Perceptions of and Teaching About Motivational Interviewing: A Pilot Study

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153716/1/jddjde017048.pd

Development and validation of a GC-FID assay for determination of fluvastatin in pharmaceutical preparations

A gas chromatographic method has been developed for the assay of fluvastatin sodium (FLU). FLU was silylated with N,O-bis(trimethylsilyl)trifluoroacetamide-1% trimethylchlorosilane at 90 ºC for 30 min and analysed in a DB-1 column by capillary gas chromatograph with a flame ionization detector. The method was validated. The assay was linear over the concentration range at 10.0 to 50.0 µg mL-1. The limit of detection and the limit of quantitation were 1.0 and 3.0 µg mL-1, respectively. The recoveries of FLU derivatives were in the range of 99.25-99.80%. In inter-day and intra-day analysis, the values of relative standard deviation (%) and the relative mean error (%) were found between 0.20-0.80% and -0.20-0.75%, respectively. The developed method was succesfully applied to analyze the FLU content in tablet formulation. The results were statistically compared with those obtained by the official method, and no significant difference was found between the two methods. Therefore, it can be recommended for the quality control assay of FLU in pharmaceutical industry

Inherent design limitations of ill-conditioned plants.

In this thesis, we study inherent design limitations imposed by ill-conditioned plants. It has been conjectured that when the gains of a multivariable plant show strong directional dependence (i.e. when the plant is ill-conditioned), satisfaction of the robust performance specifications is difficult and the design difficulty increases with the size of the plant condition number. We prove this conjecture for special classes of systems. First, we assume that the plant is diagonalizable through orthogonal transformations and that the compensator is chosen suitably so that the input and output transfer functions can be reduced to the same diagonal transfer function via orthogonal transformations. The assumptions of diagonalizability are important since classical integral relations such as Bode's sensitivity integral, the complementary sensitivity integral, and Poisson's integral, can be applied to show that the satisfaction of robust performance goals implies certain bounds upon the plant condition number at all frequencies. The upper bounds are functions of important design specifications such as the descriptions of the uncertainties and the crossover gap, and reveal valuable design insights. Through the use of subharmonic function theory and the multivariable versions of the integral relations, the results are then extended by relaxing all of the assumptions on the compensator structure and by assuming only a pair of the plant singular subspaces is constant with frequency. We also show that the satisfaction of the robust performance specs at the low and high frequency intervals implies a lower bound that the structured singular value must satisfy at intermediate frequencies. The value of this lower bound increases as the plant condition number increases and as the uncertainty descriptions become more severe. Finally, we show that, under the assumption of unstructured uncertainty, scaling the plant to reduce its condition number scales up the size of the uncertainty and the overall design difficulty is invariant to the scaling effects.Ph.D.Electrical Engineering: SystemsUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/103486/1/9319625.pdfDescription of 9319625.pdf : Restricted to UM users only