Mass Media As an Information Channel and Public Arena

Professor Peters argues that several functions of mass media compete and that attempts to improve risk coverage must avoid optimizing one at the expense of others

India - India's growing conflict between trade and transport : issues and options

India was a rather marginal participant in world trade during the early years after independence. Since 1980, however, the structure and orientation of Indian export trades have undergone fundamental changes. Substantial progress has been made in diversifying the export base - manufactured goods have increased and the traditional bulk sector has shrunk. Key targets for the export of manufactured goods are the European, Japanese and North American markets. However, these markets are characterized by increasingly efficient trade logistics, including containerization and multimodal transport arrangements. To enable further trade growth, India is confronted with a need to tie into the highly organized international trade logistics networks, something the country is totally unprepared to cope with in terms of demanding logistical arrangements. There is a real danger that India's trade performance will deteriorate, if no corrective measures are taken. A highly fragmented service industry, outdated regulations, heavy Government control, a constrained private sector, and largely inadequate infrastructure have curtailed efforts to improve trade logistics, including containerization and multimodal transport arrangements in India. Major reforms are called for so that an effective framework for initiating urgently required system adjustments can be established.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Transport and Trade Logistics,Common Carriers Industry

The international ocean transport industry in crisis : assessing the reasons and outlook

Until 1980, the world merchant fleet expanded rapidly in response to thriving seatrade markets. Since then, it has not grown much. The industry did not adjust effectively to periodic global recession, and the fleet's earnings deteriorated as the gap widened between the supply of tonnage and the demand for transport. The unpredictability of seatrade markets and the changing structure of demand for ocean transport complicated shipowners'efforts to retrench and draw up defensive strategies. Advances in ship design and ocean transport technologies allowed shipowners to adjust to the greater need for specialized vessels, but chose to retain their assets and their adoption was expensive. Most shipowners added a few new vessels after 1980, often supported by government subsidies. Government regulations created serious distortions in ocean transport and impeded free market adjustments. The most serious issues the industry faces are a critically overaged fleet and shortage of capital. Becauseof reduced freight earnings, maintenance has been neglected, leading to frequent structural failure. Ship casualties - often with serious envionmental damage - have reached alarming levels. The deteriorating safety record has caused insurance costs to escalate and has provoked calls for stricter liability rules, stringent technical standards, and rigorous inspection. Enforcement would make ocean transport more expensive. To meet expected demand for ocean transport safely and efficiently, a great deal of overaged tonnage must be replaced, maintenance must be improved, and new tonnage has to be added. The estimated cost: almost US$400 billion in constant 1992 prices. But traditional financing, through mortgage lending and government subsidy, is becoming scarce. Leasing or cashflow-based lending are promising alternatives, but they required predictable revenue streams based on long-term freight contracts predicated on cargo-owners'cooperation, which remains doubtful. No effective arrangements have been made to meet the industry's capital requirements, and doubts are more numerous than assurances in the industry. The crisis that has developed is unprecedented.Common Carriers Industry,Ports&Waterways,Transport and Trade Logistics,Water and Industry,Environmental Economics&Policies

Service : the new focus in international manufacturing and trade

Major breakthroughs in communications technologies in the 1980s made it possible to monitor all phases of moving a product from raw material sourcing through processing to delivery to the customer. Close monitoring revealed major inefficiencies in the traditional set-up of materials acquisition, production, and distribution - especially large inventory holdings. At the same time, patterns of customer demand began to shift more rapidly, partly because of better communications networks. The need to reduce costs and become responsive to volatile changes in customer preferences forced businesses to substantially restructure their corporate practices. With domestic factor costs rising, manufacturers outsourced intermediate production to foreign enterprises in countries with lower wages. Merchants also sought cheaper supply sources - developments that held promise for developing countries. Many developing countries have been unable to take advantage of structural changes in world manufacturing and trade because they have been unable to deliver the quality of production, fast turnaround, and reliability of delivery manufacturing businesses need to keep up with changing market demand. A new management approach - logistics management - is needed to cut business costs and to be more responsive to rapidly changing markets. Logistics management orchestrates materials acquisition, production, and marketing to reduce inventories to a minimum. Effective logistics management enables many organizations to conduct their business with less than a week's worth of supplies. Such a radical change requires major corporate restructuring and the development of strategic alliances with service providers. Outsourcing of production is projected to continue growing, and the search for less costly supply sources will continue. Developing countries can capitalize on those trends - but only if they substantially improve their infrastructure, liberalize their regulations, and begin to apply modern logistics management techniques. If they do not, their outlook is not promising.Transport and Trade Logistics,Common Carriers Industry,Business in Development,Business Environment,Environmental Economics&Policies

The Effect of Decision Weights in Bargaining Problems

Bargaining problems are considered where the preferences of the bargainers deviate from expected utility but can be modelled according to rank dependent utility theory. Under rank dependent utility two factors influence the risk attitude of a decision maker: the utility function and the probability weighting function. Arising from the same definition of risk aversion, two forms of risk aversion can be distinguished: utility risk aversion and probabilistic risk aversion.The main finding is that these two forms of risk aversion can have surprisingly opposite consequences for bargaining solutions that exhibit a weak monotonicity property. In particular, in a large class of bargaining problems both increased utility risk aversion and decreased probabilistic risk aversion of the opponent are advantagous for a player. This is demonstrated for the Kalai-Smorodinsky bargaining solution. The Nash bargaining solution does not behave regularly in this respect.Economics ;