This book, first published in 1970, analyses the factors affecting the export performance of selected firms from particular UK industries in the period 1958-66. The study was designed to test at the level of the firm and industry the hypothesis that, in the short run, variations in exports are a function of the pressure of domestic demand. It also obtained valuable information on the factors affecting the export performance and behaviour of firms.

This set brings together an outstanding collection of works on industrial economics. Written by a range of international experts, the titles span from the historical development of trading enterprises, to the competition, mergers and tariffs of the twentieth century.

Economic progress requires technological development, which in turn depends on a country's social capacity to acquire, assimilate, and develop new technologies. Focusing on the evolution of Japan's economy from the Meiji Restoration to the present day, this volume provides an authoritative account, firmly grounded in theoretical and empirical analysis, of the country's attempts to generate the necessary social capacity for technological innovation and absorption. Successive chapters address the specific experiences of a number of key Japanese industries during this process. Each industrial case study is written by an acknowledged expert in the field and presents material of significant interest to specialists in economic development in a form that is also accessible to the nonspecialist. The book concludes with a summary of useful lessons, variously applicable to countries at all the different stages of industrialization.

In this challenging book, Orietta Marsili examines the relationship between industrial dynamics and technological change. By combining formal evolutionary modelling with empirical evidence, she illustrates how the characteristics of innovative processes in different technological regimes influence market structure and dynamics. The book is divided into three sections; part one provides the analytical background, part two identifies the characteristics of technological regimes and part three develops a formal evolutionary model which links technological regimes to the dynamics of industrial competition and accounts for empirical regularities identified earlier in the book. Significantly, the author introduces a new taxonomy of technical regimes, which groups sets of production activities together - an important and valuable step away from traditional industrial classifications. The author concludes by stressing the usefulness of industrial regimes, proposing directions for future research and outlining the elements which must be considered if the relationship between industrial dynamics and technological change is to be fully understood. This innovative book will be welcomed by those in the fields of industrial economics, evolutionary economics, the economics of innovation and technological change and public policymakers.

Jati K. Sengupta examines the market dynamics of the evolution of industry and the impact of new technology with R&D and knowledge capital. The book builds the theory of innovations in the contexts of the high-tech industries of today such as computing and telecommunications.

In recent decades the world economy has been characterized by deepening and widening integration. Throughout this time, there have been concerns that this process may foster the geographical concentration of industries, a view substantiated by contributions to the new economic geography. In this book, Barbara Dluhosch opposes this position and presents an entirely different view of the consequences of globalization. Barbara Dluhosch carefully identifies and analyses the main pillars of the new economic geography. She then presents an essentially new approach focusing on the decline of communication costs, and introduces cost competition and technological choice, which have largely been neglected. In doing so, she arrives at fundamentally different conclusions and provides new insights into the consequences of regional integration and the process of globalization. Finally, the policy implications of this are critically evaluated by drawing on experiences of European economic integration.

Oil is the lifeblood of the global economy, and its misuse carries the risk of heavy economic and environmental penalties. This book is a collection of essays bearing on economic growth and environmental concerns for a world that will continue to be dependent on oil throughout the next century. Topics include the outlook for petroleum demand and supply, the potential for alternatives to a petroleum-based economy, the costs of controlling automobile emissions, the environmental costs of moving oil by tanker and pipeline, and competition issues in the production and distribution of petroleum products. The wide range of topics reflects the many different ways in which petroleum and use affect the quality of our lives. The essays are the end results of an initiative by the University of California Energy Institute and reflect careful research into the costs and benefits of the petroleum economy. Together, they offer new insights into the critical task of living with oil, for today and for the future.

In both the for-profit and the not-for-profit sectors, there is increasing focus on bottom-line results. As organizational goals become ever more quantified, the role of the professional has changed. In almost every profession, a growing conflict of interest now exists between the push of the organization's highly specific and measurable goals on the one hand, and the pull of professional standards and values on the other hand.

The purpose of this book is to identify, describe, and understand these conflicts of interests in a wide variety of professional fields. This volume includes articles on medicine, law, accounting, social work, clergy, insurance, computer professionals, and advertising experts, among others, written by experts in the fields. In addition, this volume includes a number of broader pieces related to the topic of professionalism.

This volume documents evidence to support the contention that there is a growing crisis in the professions, one that is not limited to one or two professions. The good news is that there is ample evidence that, in every profession, there are opportunities for growth, as well. The professions are facing a defining moment. This volume explores how they might respond.

The international fragmentation of economic activities - from research and design to production and marketing - described through the lens of the global value chain (GVC) approach impacts the structure and performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) agglomerated in economic clusters. The consolidation of GVCs ruled by global lead firms and the recession of 2008-09 exacerbated the pressures on cluster actors that based their competitive advantage on local systems, spurring an increasing heterogeneity, both across and within clusters, that is still overlooked in the literature. Drawing on detailed studies of different industries and countries, Local Clusters in Global Value Chains shows the co-evolutionary trajectories of clusters and GVCs, and the role of firms and their strategies in organizing manufacturing and innovation activities in the context of ongoing technological shifts. The book explores the tension between place-based variables and global drivers of change, and the possibility for territories containing such clusters to prosper in the new global scenario. By adopting insights from the GVC framework and management studies, the book discusses how the internationalization strategies of firms create opportunities as well as constraints for adaptive upgrading in clusters. This book is of interest to both researchers and policy-makers who are interested in the dynamic sources of competitive advantage in the global economy.

This text blends economic theory with empirical evidence to chart business development over the last two centuries in the U.K., the U.S., Japan, and Australia. It addresses enduring concerns for entrepreneurs and managers and demonstrates the value of a historical perspective from which to judge present-day issues. Each chapter considers an issue of current significance, introduces theories to illuminate the topic, and discusses historical evidence and debates.

This book is about the enterprise reform in China in general, and the Contract Management Responsibility System (the CMRS) in particular. The latter is an institutional arrangement to deal with the relation between the government and the state-owned enterprise which has always been at the centre of the enterprise reform. This research is based on four in-depth case studies of Chinese state-owned companies.

This book analyzes strategic aspects of SME development that may help to promote growth: high-tech development, productivity increase, and strengthening of linkages. Contributors to the book consist of a range of international experts recognised in the field of industrial development and/or small and medium enterprises. This book employs a benchmarking approach, which takes into account lessons that can be extracted from the development process in Europe, the US, and Latin America. It's a novel approach to SME development: it includes a tripartite framework that emphasises the importance of high-tech promotion, productivity growth, and networks.Progress in telecommunications and infrastructure, coupled with liberalization in international organizations, has introduced a number of new competitors to existing SMEs. This book analyzes strategic aspects of SME development that may help to promote growth: high-tech development, productivity increase, and strengthening of linkages.

In this important book, industrial and enterprise reform over the last decade in Eastern Europe is critically reviewed in light of increasing Eastern integration into the global economy. The authors argue for the further globalization of Eastern European enterprise networks as a condition for recovery and growth in the region. Empirical evidence is provided from five industrial sectors (car industry, telecommunication, shipbuilding, computers, software), including case studies and international comparisons.

This book is about changes in the competitiveness and the restructuring of manufacturing industries in the three leading transition economies of Central Europe (Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic), their integration into the European Union, and their catching up with the old member states in the pre-accession period.

The Changing Industrial Map of Europe is a major study of the recent evolution of six key industries - information technology, pharmaceuticals, automobiles, retailing, transportation and insurance - and their response to the 'new Europe'. Taken together, the analyses of these industries shed much light on how technological, economic and political factors are working together to create a more integrated and more competitive industrial base in Europe.

Over the next eight years, however, there was a dramatic improvement in its performance. From a cash surplus before dividend of Rs 1,071 crores in 2000, it achieved an estimated Rs 25,000 crores (or around Rs 13,000 crores after accounting for all expenditures, receipts and depreciation) in 2008. Alongside came a dynamic and differential tariff policy, and technical changes that led to an enhanced carrying capacity. How all this was accomplished is the focus of this riveting study of change and innovation in the Indian Railways. Based on an extensive examination of internal documents of the Railways and in-depth interviews with key people involved in the change process, authors V. Nilakant and S. Ramnarayan identify four distinctive features associated with the organization's renewal between 2004 and 2008. The change leveraged the strengths of the organization, instead of being preoccupied with its weaknesses. The aim was to change mindsets about costs, revenues, investment and business models. The momentum of the change process was sustained by fostering positive emotions. Changes were persistently and patiently seen to completion by focusing on results. Confronting several myths about organizational change, the book offers powerful lessons for managers and administrators grappling with the challenges of generating innovation and improving performance radically in a changing world.

The starting point of Paul Streeten's book is the dilemma, faced by policy makers in many developing countries: should the price of food be high, in order to stimulate production, or low, in order to prevent poor food buyers from starving? The author goes on to discuss the role of prices in the light of these and other objectives. 'It is the work of one of our wisest scholars on what I consider to be the key policy issue for economic development in the 1980s...this provocative essay will be required reading for anyone working on agricultural price policy.' C.Peter Timmer 'It provides solid and practical guidance to scholars and decision-makers. It is lucid, balanced and, above all, useful.' Robert Klitgaard 'Paul Streeten is well known for his gift of explaining the pros and cons of difficult policy issues in a clear, simple and realistic way, appealing to policy-makers, students and the wider development community, as well as to academic colleagues. This gift is fully displayed in his new book, and readers are bound to emerge with a better awareness of the conflicts and policy reforms which are involved.' H.W.Singer

More than a third of national output of the Chinese economy now comes from enterprises in the rural areas outside the plan. This book explains how that sector became so big in China and what it means for economic reform and structural change. The book contains precise measures of the size of the rural enterprise sector and the extent to which it has contributed to growth in China. The sources of both labour and capital used are documented, and their contributions to the growth are estimated. The implications of the growth of these enterprises are explored and the new issues which the growth of the sector has created so far are identified. Special attention is paid to problems associated with the nature of rural enterprise ownership. The analysis stresses the special conditions in China and also highlights some lessons for the process of reform in other economies.

Economic modelling of innovation demands a great deal from economists since it requires them to analyse the new and unknown. This volume brings together contributions from a distinguished group of scholars who review a wide range of different theoretical and empirical economic approaches to this important topic.Beginning with a survey of recent economic analysis on the role of innovation in driving growth, this volume features papers on the mainstream approaches to the welfare economics of innovation, the pitfalls and delays involved in bringing major inventions to market and the public subsidy of research. Later chapters examine pricing strategies for new products, models of productivity growth, knowledge spillovers across national boundaries and the effect of innovation on income distribution. While recognising the many non-economic factors needed to explain innovation, Economic Approaches to Innovation demonstrates that economic analysis has much to offer in its modelling of key concepts such as uncertainty, private information, incentives and public goods.

Description
Innovation is universally recognized as an important source of economic growth. Patents may be considered as a potential measure of innovation. As such, patents may alter isoquant maps, and measuring their elasticities is both intuitively and empirically appealing. This book investigates the impact of U.S.A. patent activity on technical change in 35 industries given in the KLEM (Jorgenson, 1996) data set for the period 1958-1996. Four patent variables, namely total patent applications, total patents granted, unsuccessful patent applications and foreign patents granted, are introduced as technology-changing parameters into the generalized Fechner-Thurstone (GFT) production function to determine the effect on the elasticity of the marginal rate of technical substitution (MRTS) between inputs of the GFT production function over time. It is found that all four patent variables have significant impacts on the marginal rates of technical substitution between various production inputs over time, with foreign patents granted being the most "effective" parameter, and unsuccessful patent applications the least effective. In addition, the elasticity of the MRTS between materials and energy is found to be the most affected by patent activity, and that between materials and labor the least. The extent of technical change by patent activity varies across industries. Patent activity is found to be less effective as technology changes in some traditionally high patenting industries and more effective in others, which indicates that there are significant spillover effects of patents. Patent activity is found to have the greatest impact on technical change in the metal mining industryand the least impact in the chemicals industry.

Analysis of Manufacturing Enterprises presents a unified and systematic treatment of manufacturing enterprises. These enterprises are networks of companies working in partnership. Such networks are a common occurrence in auto, grocery, apparel, computer and other industries; and competition is among enterprises rather than between individual companies. Thus, for these enterprises (global or local) to succeed, there is a need for systematically designing the enterprise-wide value delivery processes such as the order-to-delivery process, supply chain process, and new product development process. This calls for developing systematic analysis methodologies for evaluating the performance of value delivering processes. Analysis of Manufacturing Enterprises fills this vital need. The first part of the book focuses on foundations of manufacturing enterprises: the generic value delivery process, their performance measures and redesign to meet specifications on lead time and defect levels. The second part provides a clear and comprehensive discussion on new product development, order to delivery, and supply chain processes, which are core processes of a manufacturing enterprise. Analysis of Manufacturing Enterprises is an excellent resource for researchers and professionals in the field of manufacturing engineering.

Privatising firms and liberalizing their market environment generates in Eastern Europe a variety of problems, many of which are not common to the analogous attempts in industries countries. A first difference between the two experiences resides in establishing the value of the firm or of the assets that are being privatized. A second main difference concerns the lack of the record of market performance for the firm. The book explores these open questions through an overview of on-going and proposed processes in Section 1. In Section 2 theoretical foundations of privatization processes are proposed with respect to the financial market, industrial relations and foreign trade. A final key question is faced in Section 3: 'is there any alternative to privatization?'

A starter to the concepts of modularization and mass customization.

Condensed and application-oriented approach for a broad audience in engineering, production, sales and marketing.

Provides an extensive configurator evaluation checklist for future users and a supplement of business cases.