我国汽车产业竞争力区域差异的实证研究

近年来,随着汽车产业对我国经济增长贡献日渐提高,各省市纷纷将汽车产业定位为支柱产业来发展。本文基于汽车产业竞争力分析框架,根据我国各省市、自治区2001-2009年的统计数据,从产业规模、技术能力、经营效率和成长能力四个方面,实证分析汽车产业竞争力区域差异。研究发现,我国汽车产业竞争力区域差距较大,在汽车产业水平领先的地区出现明显两极分化,而一些汽车产业水平落后的地区却具备较强的成长能力,其结论对推动中国汽车产业的发展具有重要的借鉴意义。     

Application of fuzzy compromise solution method for fit concept selection

The modern manufacturing environment is highly turbulent so as to satisfy the dynamic needs of customers’. To enable the achievement of competitiveness in this complex business environment, newer manufacturing strategies have been introduced for enabling waste elimination and enhancing flexibility and responsiveness of systems. Fit manufacturing is a competitive manufacturing paradigm which includes lean and agile systems coupled with sustainable benefits. This article presents a study in which the concept selection in fit environment was formulated as Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) problem and solved using fuzzy based compromise solution method, Vlsekriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR). The selected concept design of automotive component was subjected to implementation in the case organisation.     

Measuring the national competitiveness of Southeast Asian countries

National competitiveness is a measure of the relative ability of a nation to create and maintain an environment in which enterprises can compete so that the level of prosperity can be improved. This paper proposes a methodology for measuring the national competitiveness and uses the 10 Southeast Asian countries for illustration. The basic idea is to deconstruct the complicated concept of national competitiveness to measurable criteria. The observations (data) on the criteria are then aggregated according to their importance to obtain an index of national competitiveness. For data collected from questionnaire surveys, a calibration technique has been devised to alleviate bias due to personal prejudice. In data aggregation, the importance is expressed by both a priori weights and a posteriori weights. These two types of weights consistently show that Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand have the highest national competitiveness, while Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos are the least competitive countries. The performance of each country in every criteria measured also provides directions for these countries to make improvements and for investors to allocate resources.     

Flexible working arrangements in context: An empirical investigation through self-organizing maps

This is one of the first studies to utilize Kohonen’s self-organizing maps on flexible work arrangements (FWAs), employee turnover and absenteeism within different national contexts and an array of organizational factors. While the majority of FWAs did not reduce significantly employee turnover or absenteeism, country and industry were significant contextual variables in FWA use: we deciphered six main country regions, where service and manufacturing organizations were important to FWA preferences. We found a curvilinear relationship between turnover and shift-work among manufacturing firms regardless of country: turnover decreases at low levels and increases at high levels of shift-work. We also found strong positive relationships between weekend work and turnover among manufacturing firms regardless of country and firms in the region comprising of Germany, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Czech Republic and Belgium. Finally, we found consistently high concentration of organizations with low absenteeism throughout certain industries and countries: noteworthy are service organizations in the Netherlands and manufacturing organizations in Australia. The results demonstrate the contextuality of FWA use across countries and industries, and the usefulness of SOMs for research within human resource management.     

Competitive analysis of manufacturing plants: An application to the US processed food industry

We present a model-based approach for competitive analysis of manufacturing plants. As part of this approach, we propose the application of Operational Competitiveness Ratings Analysis (OCRA) to measure the competitiveness of plants in terms of their relative inefficiency. We then present a conceptual framework to classify and identify the drivers of plant competitiveness in terms of decisions related to plant structure and infrastructure. Finally, we demonstrate the application of this model-based approach to conduct competitive analysis of plants in the US processed food industry.     

An economic evaluation model of supply chain flexibility

With the advent of the supply chain management concepts, business communities have been realizing that being competitive as a single company is no longer adequate; instead, competitiveness requires consideration of all channels in the supply chain. Despite its importance, the availability of the literature addressing supply chain flexibility is still limited to date. Although relationships between various types of flexibilities have been established, the degree to which one type of flexibility affects the other types and the system performance remains to be investigated. In particular, there is a lack of rigorous analytical models elucidating the relationships between the degree of flexibility in a system and the system level of performance. In this paper, a supply chain flexibility model is developed comprising labor flexibility, machine flexibility, routing flexibility, and information technology, with total system flexibility measured by an economic index. Outputs from the model can assist in making suitable production decisions to produce multiple products under an uncertain environment. Example solutions are given. This paper can help economic evaluation when supply chain flexibility and the factors affecting flexibility are to be improved. It can also assist in making supply chain flexibility-promotion decisions.     

“清除太空垃圾”是否存在商机呢?

对太空轨道碎片清理的商业运营模式和是否存在商机问题建模进行研究。首先,提出了太空轨道碎片清理公司的商业运营模式,即以清理公司、保险公司和卫星公司为主体的三位一体的系统运营模式;其次,给出私营清理公司商机的定义,通过对运营系统资金费用的分析,定量建立系统正常运营的保险公司最低保单价格和卫星公司最高保险价格求解的模型,并分析了模型的可计算性,给出了商机存在的条件以及商机大小的计算方法;最后,借助于清除效率,建立3种不同轨道碎片清除模式下清除成本的模型,给出了计算不同清除方式下保险公司最低保单价格和卫星公司最高保险价格的模型,验证了定义的商机是合理的并可计算的。     

Influence of forecasting electricity prices in the optimization of complex hydrothermal systems

This paper proposes a new method for addressing the short-term optimal operation of a generation company, fully adapted to represent the characteristics of the new competitive markets. We propose an efficient and highly accurate novel method for next-day price forecasting. We model the functional time series with a linear autoregressive functional model which formulates the relationships between each daily function of prices and the functions of previous days. For the optimization problem (formulated within the framework of nonsmooth analysis using Pontryagin’s Maximum Principle), we propose a new method that uses diverse mathematical techniques (the Shooting Method, Euler’s Method, the Cyclic Coordinate Descent Method). These techniques are well known for the case of functions, but are adapted here to the case of functionals and are efficiently combined to provide a novel contribution. Finally, the paper presents the results of applying our method to a price-taker company in the Spanish electricity market.     

中国上市公司资本结构行业差异的实证研究--统计检验、成因分析及合理性研究

本以国内部分上市公司为样本，利用多种统计分析方法从行业差异角度对其资本结构进行实证研究，目的是检验国内上市公司资本结构行业差异的显性，并分析其成因及行业资本结构选择的合理性。研究结果表明：我国不同行业上市公司资本结构存在显差异，且公用事业与其他行业的差异最为突出；行业的竞争程度及风险性、资产结构、资产运营能力及行业的成长性会在较大程度上导致行业差异的存在；我国上市公司普遍存在行业收益风险和资本结构不相匹配的现象。同时提出了有关政策建议。     

An automotive bulk recycling planning model

The automotive recycling infrastructure successfully recovers 75% of the material weight in end-of-life vehicles primarily through ferrous metal separation. However, this industry faces significant challenges as automotive manufacturers increase the use of nonferrous and nonmetallic materials. As the nonferrous content in end-of-life vehicles rises, automotive shredders need to evaluate to what extent to separate nonferrous metals. We propose a recycling planning model for automotive shredders to make short-term tactical decisions regarding to what extent to process and to reprocess materials through multiple passes. In addition, the mixed integer programming model determines whether to combine materials for shipment. In a case study for automotive shredding decisions for the current composition and more polymer-intensive end-of-life vehicles, we use our model to show the sensitivity of the decision to reprocess light nonferrous metal to low and high metal prices. Contrary to observations in practice to mix light and heavy nonferrous metals for shipment, we show multiple scenarios where the model chooses to reprocess and ship separated light and heavy nonferrous metals.     

A dynamic model for advertising and pricing competition between national and store brands

We study the relationship between the pricing and advertising decisions in a channel where a national brand is competing with a private label. We consider a differential game that incorporates the carryover effects of brand advertising over time for both the manufacturer and the retailer and we account for the complementary and competitive roles of advertising. Analysis of the obtained equilibrium Markov strategies shows that the relationship between advertising and pricing decisions in the channel depends mainly on the nature of the advertising effects. In particular, the manufacturer reacts to higher competitive retailer’s advertising levels by offering price concessions and limiting his advertising expenditures. The retailer’s optimal reaction to competitive advertising effects in the channel depends on two factors: (1) the price competition level between the store and the national brands and (2) the strength of the competitive advertising effects. For example, in case of intense price competition between the two brands combined with a strong manufacturer’s competitive advertising effect, the retailer should lower both the store and the national brands’ prices as a reaction to higher manufacturer’s advertising levels. For the retailer, the main advantage from boosting his competitive advertising investments seems to be driven by increased revenues from the private label. The retailer should however limit his investments in advertising if the latter generates considerable competitive effects on the national brand’s sales.     

Dynamic,customer-oriented improvement of supply networks

The paper considers the dynamic coordination of a supply network consisting of one supplier company and multiple customer companies. The ongoing business relationships are based on general contracts. But also the informal understandings and agreements that are facilitated by ongoing business relationships are taken into account: the supplier tries to reduce the prevailing information asymmetry by performing regular customer satisfaction surveys. This information together with the contract attributes is used by the supplier to improve the performance of its business processes and/or the contract attributes that contribute the most to improving total customer satisfaction. We propose a four-stage decision-making procedure which is mainly based on statistical analyses (dependency analysis, logit model) and a managerial procedure describing whether the supplier should renegotiate the contract with a specific customer to improve the performance of the overall network. The statistical analysis is illustrated by a real-world case study of a medium-sized German company and its customers.     

国家审计对政府卫生支出的影响及异质性研究——基于贝叶斯分位数回归模型

本文利用2007～2016年省级数据,基于贝叶斯分位数回归模型研究了国家审计对政府卫生支出的影响,及不同政府卫生支出水平下各影响因素的异质性效应。结果表明,国家审计对政府卫生支出的腐败行为具有显著的治理功能,国家审计的投入力度越大,其监督、预防、揭示和抵御功能发挥得越好,越有助于提高政府卫生支出水平。此外,不同的政府卫生支出水平,国家审计治理的影响程度具有明显异质性效应,且各影响因素的系数变化具有显著性差异。因此,为加强腐败治理促进政府卫生支出,不仅需要注重国家审计顶层设计的落地,加强政府多方部门合作推进协同审计,而且应根据具体的政府卫生支出水平做出相应的政策调整以避免地方“政策趋同”带来的不利。     

要素成本上升背景下我国外贸的中长期趋势分析

本文在近年来广义要素成本上涨的背景下,利用HS98章商品2010-2014年的月度数据,对我国出口商品的国际市场竞争力进行中长期动态预测。文中选取显示性比较优势指数(RCA)作为表征贸易商品竞争力的度量指标,结合要素成本上涨的背景,利用马尔可夫链动态模型,对我国外贸的中长期趋势进行预测。研究发现:短期内在广义要素成本上升的背景下,第一产业的大部分商品及第二产业中纺织原料及纺织品受到较大冲击;从长期趋势来看,第一产业维持了稳定的比较优势,而对于第二产业其影响效应分化,纺织原料及纺织品、轻工业产品、陶瓷及玻璃制品的国际竞争优势呈明显下跌趋势,而矿产品、普通和精密机械、木制品和纸制品的国际市场竞争力并无明显变化,第二产业受到的长期影响要比短期更显著。     

我国新能源ARMA模型分析与预测

当煤炭、石油等不可再生能源频频告急,能源问题日益成为制约国际社会经济发展的瓶颈时,越来越多的国家开始开发新能源资源,寻求经济发展的新动力。本文运用计量经济学原理对我国新能源进行动态分析,建立ARIMA模型,给出了新能源的预测方法,为国家能源发展决策提供依据。为企业开发新能源提供决策依据。     

Full and 1‐year runoff risk in the credibility‐based additive loss reserving method

In this paper, we consider the additive loss reserving (ALR) method in a Bayesian and credibility setup. The classical ALR method is a simple claims reserving method that combines prior information (e.g., premiums, number of contracts, market statistics) with claims observations. The Bayesian setup, which we present, in addition, allows for combining the information from a single runoff portfolio (e.g., company‐specific data) with the information from a collective (e.g., industry‐wide data) to analyze the claims reserves and the claims development result. However, in insurance practice, the associated distributions are usually unknown. Therefore, we do not follow the full Bayesian approach but apply credibility theory, which is distribution free and where we only need to know the first and second moments. That is, we derive the credibility predictors that minimize the expected squared loss within the class of affine‐linear functions of the observations (i.e., we derive linear Bayesian predictors). Using non‐informative priors, we link our credibility‐based ALR method to the classical ALR method and show that the credibility predictors coincide with the predictors in the classical ALR method. Moreover, we quantify the 1‐year risk and the full reserve risk by means of the conditional mean square error of prediction. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Developing unbounded systems thinking: using causal mapping with multiple stakeholders within a Vietnamese company

Researchers propose that systems-oriented, multiple perspective approaches are better suited to deal with ‘messy’ or ‘wicked’ problems. In this study, we apply Mitroff and Linstone's Unbounded Systems Thinking (UST) framework to a Vietnamese company case. Causal mapping and group model building were used. As the case shows, each perspective provides a limited model of the problem situation. Our study shows that a model built on multiple perspectives offers a more complete picture of the problem and therefore helps the organization better understand the problem situation, creating a ground for better problem resolution. Lessons learned from the case are discussed.     

Variational inequalities for international general financial equilibrium modeling and computation

In this paper, a variational inequality approach for modeling competitive general international financial equilibrium is presented, within which general utility functions and taxes, transaction costs, and price policy interventions are explicitly incorporated. The paper examines taxes that depend both on the origin and on the type of investing sector, and price policy interventions that allow the monetary authorities to set upper and lower prices for all instruments and currencies. The optimal composition of assets and liabilities for each sector of each country, as well as the prices of the instruments and the exchange rates, in terms of a basic currency are obtained. We present both qualitative properties of the equilibrium pattern, and propose an algorithm for the computation of the pattern along with convergence results. Finally, we study the special case where the utility function is quadratic and we apply the proposed algorithm in order to compute the equilibrium pattern for a series of numerical examples.     

我国钢铁行业上市公司竞争力实证研究

钢铁行业是我国的传统行业,在国民经济中具有举足轻重的地位。本文采用主成分分析法,分别从盈利能力、偿债能力、运营能力以及成长能力等方面对我国34家钢铁类上市公司的10项财务指标进行了竞争力综合评价;通过对各个上市公司的分类比较,发现了我国钢铁行业存在的一些问题;最后指出产业整合是提高我国钢铁行业整体竞争力的必要途径。     

Competitive queue policies for differentiated services

We consider the setting of a network providing differentiated services. As is often the case in differentiated services, we assume that the packets are tagged as either being a high priority packet or a low priority packet. Outgoing links in the network are serviced by a single FIFO queue.Our model gives a benefit of α1 to each high priority packet and a benefit of 1 to each low priority packet. A queue policy controls which of the arriving packets are dropped and which enter the queue. Once a packet enters the queue it is eventually sent. The aim of a queue policy is to maximize the sum of the benefits of all the packets it sends.We analyze and compare different queue policies for this problem using the competitive analysis approach, where the benefit of the online policy is compared to the benefit of an optimal offline policy. We derive both upper and lower bounds for the policies we consider. We believe that competitive analysis gives important insight to the performance of these queuing policies.