Productivity breakdown of the information and computing technology industries across countries

In this paper, we measure productivity growth of the information and computing technology (ICT) industries in 14 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries over the 13-year period of 1978–1990. The ICT industries are the providers of essential information technology (IT) capital goods. This macro-level analysis seeks to find out how productively such IT capital goods are provided. The basic unit of analysis employed is the Malmquist Total Factor Productivity (TFP) index. The Malmquist TFP index is then decomposed into three constituent elements accounting for different sources of productivity growth: technological progress, efficiency change, and change in economies of scale. The approach of measurement is based on the concept of distance functions and employs the non-parametric frontier method of data envelopment analysis. Our results indicate that each country's ICT industry manifests its own particular patterns in various performance measures. Among the 14 countries examined, 10 had witnessed productivity growth in their ICT industries. Overall, these ICT industries are found more productive than other industries when compared with previous research. Further analyses reveal that (1) most of the productivity growth measured is due to technological progress; (2) efficiency change exerts a relatively small positive effect on productivity growth; and (3) the change in scale economies unfavourably affects productivity for most countries. Finally, practical implications for formulating IT policy are drawn from our results, and topics are identified for future research.     

Hierarchical determination of the risk of forced divestment to foreign owned enterprises in LDC's

Few models currently exist for the determination of political risk that are explicit in their underlying assumptions or in the methodology used in arriving at a risk assessment. The majority of current models are based on expert opinion with few, if any, linkages established explaining cause and effect. The remainder of current models are based on various social, political, and economic indicators. These multivariate models essentially measure a country's political instability on the macro level without assessment of the impacts of the measured instability to the firm on the micro level. In this research the Analytical Hierarchy Process has been incorporated to capture the best attributes of these two methods of political risk assessment in an easily used expert system. This system is based on a hierarchy derived from extensive research of political risk assessment techniques and results of empirical investigations into the causes of politically motivated expropriations. This basis hierarchy has been merged with the expert opinion of several experts on Latin America yielding a practical model useful for risk assessments with these countries.     

The Prospect Award 1981: A Manpower Planning Model for Mobile Repairmen

The country's largest vending machine operators and distributors were faced with the problem of evaluating manpower requirements and structure for the repair and maintenance work force, and of deciding where additions to this force should be located. This paper describes the formulation and application of a solution to the problem which has had beneficial effects far beyond the scope originally envisaged.The work force concerned operates a breakdown repair service which requires random journeys within each individual's prescribed area. The developed model evaluates the work content, and thus manpower requirements, of a region based on the number of machines, the breakdown rates, the repair times and the journey time. The travel component is automatically adjusted for growth in the work force.Analysis of the model's sensitivity to the key factors and the development of the relationship between utilisation and service level have enabled the company to improve service performance by 15% while also achieving a 67% increase in productivity.     

Reexamination of processing time uncertainty

This paper presents the insights gained from the use of data mining and multivariate statistical techniques to identify important factors associated with a country's competitiveness and the development of knowledge discovery in databases (KDD) models to predict it. In addition to stepwise regression and weighted non-linear programming techniques, intelligent learning techniques (artificial neural networks), and inferential techniques (classification and regression trees), were applied to a dataset of 43 countries from the World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY). The dataset included 55 variables on economic, internationalization, governmental, financial, infrastructure, management, science and technology, as well as demographic and cultural characteristics. Exploratory data analysis and parameter calibration of the intelligent method architectures preceded the development and evaluation of reasonably accurate models (mean absolute error <5.5%), and subsequent out-of-sample validations. The strengths and weaknesses of each of the KDD techniques were assessed, along with their relative performance and the primary input variables influencing a country's competitiveness. Our analysis reveals that the primary drivers of competitiveness are lower country risk rating and higher computer usage, in entrepreneurial urbanized societies with less male dominance and basic infrastructure, with higher gross domestic investment, savings and private consumption, more imports of goods and services than exports, increased purchase power parity GDP, larger and more productive but not less expensive labor force, and higher R&;D expenditures. Without diminishing the role and importance of WCY reports, our approach can be useful to estimate the competitiveness of many countries not included in WCY, while our findings may benefit policy makers and international agencies to expand their own abilities, insights and establish priorities for improving country competitiveness.     

FDI企业选址与东道国环境规制博弈

建立了高进入壁垒和低进入壁垒下双寡头博弈模型,应用逆向求解法,得到了引资国环境政策是否改变和FDI流出国企业是否迁址的临界条件.结果表明:在高进入壁垒的产业中,由于东道国较高的进入壁垒,外国企业可能不迁址;但如果考虑FDI产生的正外部性且溢出效应较高,引资国可能降低环境规制水平以吸引FDI企业进入,但从环境的角度考虑,此时全球环境损害更大.在低进入壁垒产业中,东道国政府选择提高环境规制水平是其占优策略,对引资国和全球都是帕累托改善的.     

Adapting Multi-criteria Planning to the Nigerian Economy

Techniques of development planning involve physical and financial aspects. Financial planning refers to the allocation of monetary resources; in Nigeria the previous development plans and budgets, which had been based on the incremental approach, contained various shortcomings, resulting in the deliberate inflation of estimated expenditure, and consequently it has been associated with retarded growth and conflicts between ministries. In addition, the approach does not adequately relate national objectives to their priorities. Conventional mathematical programming models are unable to allocate resources effectively in a conflicting environment. This paper proposes a goal programming model for allocating a country's scarce resources among competing sectors during a planned period. The goal programming model is shown to be adequate for allocating resources under the conflicting conditions of national planning. The model can help to determine all the priorities for the goals.     

Measuring sectoral productivity across time and across countries

This paper examines the problem of measuring the evolution of productivity changes over time and across the 14 countries included in the OECD's International Sectoral Data Base of two sectors considered essential to the economic growth of any nation, namely manufacturing and services. The basic units of analysis are generalized Malmquist productivity indices. These in turn can be decomposed into several components, associated to the various sources of productivity change. Included here are productivity fluctuations due to economies of scale, being constant or variable, to technical change and technical efficiency change. The computational procedure is based upon the concept of distance function, computed through the use of variations of data envelopment analysis.     

坑口电厂低碳经济发展系统动力学仿真研究

通过分析坑口电厂低碳经济系统的复杂结构特征和动态反馈机制,建立了坑口电厂低碳经济系统动力学模型,描述系统内部各要素之间的相互关系,并以平煤集团坑口电厂为例,对不同发展方案下的坑口电厂低碳经济系统进行仿真模拟.结果表明:科技投资、环保投资、能源利用率、能源消费结构等因素是影响坑口电厂低碳经济发展的关键因素;可以通过优化能源消费结构,提高煤矸石消耗比例;增加科技投资和环保投资,提高能源利用和转换效率,降低污染物和二氧化碳排放量,从而达到高效率、低能耗、低排放的低碳经济发展模式.     

Energy policy modelling in developing and industrializing countries

A large number of models have been developed and used for energy policy planning, in a regional, national or international level, in order to cope with the broad variety of issues related to the energy problem. Energy models belong to the class of policy models, which address fuzzy and complex issues involving many non-quantitative factors, such as political issues, behavioural aspects, etc., as well as many uncertainties and lack of rigorous knowledge concerning the structure of the reference system, and the interrelationships of its elements. The role of energy policy models is very important, since they enhance understanding and communication, and they assist the policymakers to review plausible future configurations of relevant decision variables and parameters. In this paper one of the most important areas of energy modelling is investigated, that concerning the interactions between energy and economy in the group of Developing and Industrializing Countries (DIC's). It is pointed out that energy models used in the DIC's must capture the particular features of energy policy in these countries, such as rapid economic development fueled by expensive, depleting and often imported energy resources; dependence on foreign resources such as energy, capital, technology, etc.; management of indigenous resources, social structural changes, rapid population growth, urbanization and industrialization. In order to improve energy models and enhance their contributions in policy analysis, it is proposed that modelling efforts should be directed towards a better understanding of the energy-economy relationships in the DIC's, as well as towards the development of validated data bases.     

Evaluating foreign investment environment in China: A systematic approach

To successfully develop a region's or country's economy, policy-makers have to utilize foreign investments. To attract the right foreign investors, the host has to understand not only the investors, but more importantly its own investment environment. This article presents a practical method for evaluating investment environment from the viewpoint of a host region or country. A real Chinese case was analysed by applying this method. The evaluation method is recommended not only to China, but also to those countries having investment environments similar to China's.     

Macroeconomic labour productivity and its impact on firm's profitability

The construction industry is one of the largest sectors in the US economy, yet little is known about the key macroeconomic parameters that affect its industry’s structure and performance. The main objectives of this research are (1) to analyse the macroeconomic performance of construction industry as a whole and at 14 of its sub-sectors in terms of labour productivity, gross margin, and worker's wages; and (2) to develop a quantitative model that predicts a firm's profitability by analysing various levels of labour productivity. The results of a non-linear regression analysis based on the comprehensive US Economic Census data show that the construction industry’s sub-sectors with the highest productivity are the most profitable with regard to the gross margins that they are able to generate. This study and its model will help decision makers better assess macroeconomic performance and conduct trend analysis of the construction industry to serve as a basis for developing strategic roadmap for the future.     

Possible Student Justification of Proofs

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics calls for an increased emphasis on proof and reasoning in school mathematics curricula. Given such an emphasis, mathematics teachers must be prepared to structure curricular experiences so that students develop an appreciation for both the value of proof and for those strategies that will assist them in developing proving skills. Such an outcome is more likely when the teacher feels secure in his/her own understanding of the concept of “mathematical proof” and understands the ways in which students progress as they take on increasingly more complex mathematical justifications. In this article, a model of mathematical proof, based on Balacheff's Taxonomy of Mathematical Proof, outlining the levels through which students might progress as they develop proving skills is discussed. Specifically, examples of the various ways in which students operating at different levels of skill sophistication could approach three different mathematical proof tasks are presented. By considering proofs under this model, teachers are apt to gain a better understanding of each student's entry skill level and so effectively guide him/her toward successively more sophisticated skill development.     

对外投资创新、优势产业国际化与轨道交通全产业链海外发展

中国的优势产业具备国际化发展的条件,中国作为一个经济大国,拥有完备的产业体系、齐全的产业门类、大量的人才、充足的外汇储备和稳定的政治环境.为了加快中国优势产业的国际化发展,需要对"对外投资与合作"进行创新.轨道交通产业是中国的优势产业,结合该产业的国际化发展案例,分析了中国优势产业通过对外投资创新进行发展.研究认为,轨道交通产业的国际化发展,可以创造性地运用BT(建设-移交)、PPP、EPC等"对外投资与合作"模式.根据对外投资与合作的现状,以及中国高铁的实际案例,就"推进中国优势产业国际化"和"创新对外投资与合作方式"提出了有关建议.     

A new modelling approach for the description of tissues at cell level

The understanding of tissues from a biomechanical perspective requires a deeper knowledge about cell mechanics. A lot of experimental and theoretical investigation has already been done to consider cells' behaviour under various conditions. Several types of cells exist, each with specific properties. In this work, the cell microstructure is characterized and explained via tensegrity systems. In doing so, we consider in a first step a simple cubic shaped cell built up by trusses and ropes that are discretized by finite 1D elements. This simplified microstructure represents the micro/cell level on the integration point of the finite element discretization at macro level. By using an appropriate homogenization technique for the micro level, it is assumed to gain a more detailed view on deformations occur on cell level. (© 2010 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Maximizing political efficiency via electoral cycles: An optimal control model

The exchange between an elected politician, such as a president, prime minister or a local governor and interest groups is analyzed as an optimization problem. The optimal control model shows the conditions required from regulatory policy and resource investment in order to maximize the politician's utility from the interest group's support. Given one interest group, such a policy includes two time intervals: Well in advance of the elections the politician in office should invest a constant level of resources, while for a certain period close to the elections the politician increases or decreases investment, depending on the electoral significance of that interest group. This proves that electoral cycles not only empirically exist, but also maximize the politician's utility from interest groups' support. Given several interest groups, at each point in time, the politician should invest in the group that contribute the most for his or her political interests.     

The impact of accessibility on the value of information and the productivity paradox

The value of information systems availability is analyzed in this study through theoretical models of information economics. The article employs the information structure model to assess the values of information systems under various situations, with particular examples of the impact of data accessibility level on the quality of decision-making.The study centers on the relationship between the information system's time and content characteristics and the value of the information. It suggests a method to model the utility considerations that lead to the choice of an information system. The entailed models are employed to illuminate certain facets of the productivity paradox.The results of the analysis indicate that there is a direct relationship between systems accessibility and its informativeness. Consequently, there are some aspects of the “Productivity Paradox” that may be explained by using these results. The article proves a number of theorems and discusses the theoretical and practical interpretation of the results.     

ESS,NIS and GIS for matrix games in n‐species systems

In this paper, we discuss the concepts of evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS), neighborhood invader strategy (NIS) and global invader strategy (GIS) in n‐species systems. We give their definitions both on system level and species level. Although the definition on system level and that on species level are apparently different, it is found that they are equivalent to one another. About the relationships among an ESS, an NIS and a GIS for n‐species systems, we obtain the results similar to the ones for single species models: a GIS must be an NIS; an NIS must be an ESS; an ESS may not be a GIS; a GIS must be unique. The stability in the frequency dynamics with two phenotypes is also considered and the global stability of a GIS is shown. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Airline overbooking in the multi-class case

This paper presents an airline overbooking model at a class level for one service compartment–cabin. Class level demand data is used to determine the number of bookings that can be taken for each class. The model is optimised through the use of multi-dimensional search routines. The control level model developed is tested with data supplied by Ireland's national airline, Aer Lingus. The model shows a significant improvement over previous methods employed by Aer Lingus and was subsequently adopted by the airline.     

A bootstrap approach to analyse productivity growth in European banking

This paper analyses productivity growth for European banks over the 1995–2001 period. In contrast to previous literature, our study covers the majority of current European Union (EU) countries—all except Greece and those joining the EU in 2004. We also use resampling methods so as to gain statistical precision, which turns out to be especially important due to the limitations of the database. In order to be consistent, we use additional nonparametric methods to disentangle why productivity differentials might exist. Results show that productivity growth has occurred in most countries, mainly due to improvements in production possibilities. The bootstrap analysis yields further evidence given that for many firms and countries productivity growth or decline is not statistically significant. The two-stage analysis provides some extra insights, suggesting that the relevance of environmental variables found in other studies focusing on efficiency could be lessened when focusing on productivity.