Sacred activism through seva and khidmat: Contextualising management and organisations in South Asia

What if our actions were imbued with the sacred? What if activism in organisations evokes better local society and responsible global community? What if sacred activism signals the performance of a deeper understanding and mindful actions for contextualising management and organisations in South Asia? These are some of the questions we pose to scholars and practitioners as we seek to present the multiplexities and singularities that epitomise South Asia. We address the braided realities and opportunities presented by religion, culture, ethnicity, gender and governance to contextualise organisations and management among the 1.67 billion people who constitute South Asia. We calligraph our interpretations and future possibilities based on historical traditions and extant data, mindful that some parts of this vast region are grappling with religious radicalisation, East-West tensions, underdevelopment, low literacy rates, violence against women, and international debts and handouts. This heterogeneous region also has a major BRICS country (i.e., India), provides CEOs to the world, scientists to NASA, outsourcing facilities to global corporations, has a young population, a huge middle class, and is actively participating in mergers and acquisitions in the global corridors of commerce. Our poignant hope is to inform and suggest possibilities for constructing enriching engagements and research in this region

Accidents, Liability Obligations and Monopolized Markets for Spare Parts: Profits and Social Welfare

We analyze the effects of accidents and liability obligations on the incentives of car manufacturers to monopolize the markets for their spare parts. We show that monopolized markets for spare parts lead to higher overall expenditures for consumers. Furthermore, while the manufacturers invest more in order to offer cars with higher qualities, monopolization tends to reduce social welfare. Key for these results is the observation that high prices for spare parts entail a negative external effect inasmuch as liability obligations imply that consumers of competing products have to pay the high prices as well.aftermarkets, monopolization, liability

Crohn’s disease

44-year-old female known case of Crohn’s disease and depression who presented with a few hours’ history of severe abdominal pain and multiple episodes of vomiting faeculant matter. An inflamed terminal ileum and ascending colon were found at laparatomy and resection of terminal ileum and caecum (right hemicolectomy) was carried out. Crohn’s is a chronic inflammatory bowel disorder of unknown aetiology which can affect the whole gastrointestinal system (from mouth to anus) and is typified by asymmetric, focal, transmural inflammation and sometimes granuloma formation in the bowel wall. Signs of extraintestinal manifestation can be marked. The life-long disease is punctuated by periods of exacerbation and remission15. Genetic and environmental contributors, as well as immunological factors are implicated in the pathogenesis and severity of Crohn’s disease.peer-reviewe

Mergers in Imperfectly Segmented Markets

We present a model with firms selling (homogeneous) products in two imperfectly segmented markets (a "high-demand" and a "low-demand" market). Buyers are mobile but restricted by transportation costs, so that imperfect arbitrage occurs when prices differ in both markets. We show that equilibria are distorted away from Cournot outcomes to prevent consumer arbitrage. Furthermore, a merger can lead to an equilibrium in which only the "high-demand" market is served. This is more likely (i) the lower consumers' transportation costs and (ii) the higher the concentration of the industry. Therefore, merger incentives are much larger than standard analysis suggests.Imperfect Market Segmentation, Oligopoly, Price Discrimination, Consumer Arbitrage, Mergers

Open Source Software, Competition and Potential Entry

We analyze a model with two software firms, quality improving coding expenditures and potential competition. The firms can publish parts of their software as open source. Publishing software implies positive spillovers and thus reduces the firms' coding costs. On the other hand there exist two negative effects. First, lower coding costs induce higher coding expenditures which decreases the firms' profits if their programs are substitutes. Second, open source encourages entry and increases the expenditures required to deter entry. The firms' optimal open source decisions balance these opposite effects.Open Source, Spillovers, Potential Entry

Mobile Phone Termination Charges with Asymmetric Regulation

We model competition between two unregulated mobile phone companies with price-elastic demand and less than full market coverage. We also assume that there is a regulated full-coverage fixed network. In order to induce stronger competition, mobile companies could have an incentive to raise their reciprocal mobile-to-mobile access charges above the marginal costs of termination. Stronger competition leads to an increase of the mobiles' market shares, with the advantage that (genuine) network effects are strengthened. Therefore, 'collusion' may well be in line with social welfare.Telecommunication, Mobile phones, Mobile-to-mobile access charges, Network effects

New Networks, Competition and Regulation

We consider a model with two firms operating their individual networks. Each firm can choose its price as well as its investment to build up its network. Assuming a skewed distribution of consumers, our model leads to an asymmetric market structure with one firm choosing higher investments. While access regulation imposed on the dominant firm leads to lower prices, positive welfare effects are diminished by strategic investment decisions of the firms. Within a dynamic game with indirect network effects leading to potentially increased demand, regulation can substantially lower aggregate social welfare. Conditional access holidays can alleviate regulatory failure.Regulation, network effects, natural monopoly

On the Economics of Internet Peering

We discuss economic rationales behind peering decisions in the Internet. In We discuss economic rationales behind peering decisions in the Internet. In the first part of the paper we analyze the decision about a bilateral peering agreement between two commercial Internet service providers (ISPs) who are in Cournot competition. In the second part we discuss multilateral peer-ing between commercial ISPs and an academic research network (ARN). The latter is organized as club of academics who share the cost of their net-work. It is discussed whether peering threatens the existence of the ARN and under what circumstances a commercial ISP would want to use strate-gic pricing to win all ARN-members as customers.Internet Economics, Interconnection Agreements