Postal service has received considerably less attention in the economics literature than traditional public utilities. Postal service is facing some very important challenges arising out of the increasingly high-tech nature of postal service, the entry of competition into the business, and new attitudes on the part of government to postal service. In the United Kingdom and Germany the increased interest in privatization and recognition of the benefits of competition are likely to have an impact on postal service. These challenges mean that postal managers must learn new ways of doing business, not just in successfully introducing new hardware and in new internal operating procedures, but also in the development of new pricing and costing methodologies and in the introduction of new management information systems. In order to deal with these new developments managers need a solid foundation in applied microeconomic theory as it relates to postal service. This book encompasses the theoretical foundation for postal policy, particularly with regard to pricing, service quality, and competitive issues.

This book explores the drivers of technological upgrading and catch-up in the emerging economies, paying specific attention to technology and innovation policies, national innovation systems, the role of foreign direct investment and small and medium enterprises. It provides practical implications for other developing countries

This book explores the causes and nature of the industrial revolution through a comparative study of the main wool textile manufacturing regions of England. Based on extensive archival research and including several new or little-known sources, it addresses many of the current debates in economic history and eighteenth-century studies by examining how the interplay between merchants, markets, and producers shaped the pace and character of economic growth during the eighteenth century. Particular attention is paid to the rapid growth of product innovation and the export trade as both of these factors affected evolving structures of marketing and production.

This book reveals how the Japanese national ministries can exploit their Special Status Corporations (public corporations, supported primarily with public funding from a state-run banking agency) in order to intensify their administrative power over industries and local governments and to perpetuate the interests of elite civil servants by facilitating the migration to post-retirement positions in the private sector. The book explains why the existence of these organizations inhibits the Prime Ministers efforts to implement structural reforms.

Economists have long studied the efficiency of firms, industries, and entire economies. This volume brings together leading scholars to make connections between efficiency and a number of diverse areas of current interest to economists, including an examination of the efficiency of tax systems across generations that overlap, and the efficiency of firm mergers that highlights the tradeoff between the synergy of the merger and the problem of managerial oversight in the now larger firm. An empirical look at productivity growth of states uses a tripartite decomposition of labor productivity into technological innovation, improvement in efficiency, and the capital deepening brought about by new business investment, shedding light on important debates on their relative importance. The efficiency of patent laws is examined in a modern model of economic growth. These contributions are complemented by analyses of methodological problems involved in the measurement, estimation and aggregation of efficiency indices.

This series provides overviews and case studies of states and sectors, classes and companies in the new international division of labour. These embrace political economy as both focus and mode of analysis. The series treats polity-economy dialects at global, regional and national levels and examines novel contradictions and coalitions between and within each. There is a special emphasis on national bourgeoisies and capitalisms, on newly industrializing or influential countries and on novel strategies and technologies.;The concentration throughout is on uneven patterns of power and production, authority and distribution, hegemony and reaction. Attention is paid to redefinitions of class and security, basic needs and self-reliance and the range of critical analysis includes gender, population, resources, environment, militarization, food and finance.;This particular volume looks at the industrialization of Singapore and challenges the dominant understanding of Singapore as a case where "correct" policies have made rapid industrialization possible and raises questions about the possibility and appropriateness of its emulation. The study focuses on the relationship between internationa

How do small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) adopt environmental innovations? Do they have the necessary internal competence? Is any support offered by external parties (i.e. network involvement)? What are the policy implications? This book is based on extensive fieldwork, conducted in four traditional industrial sectors: offset printing, electroplating, textile finishing, and industrial painting. The work was carried out in Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and the UK. Twenty company-based case studies were analyzed and a telephone survey was conducted among 527 companies. As a result, the Innovation Triangle came to be formulated, which is presented here, defining and combining the determinants of SME innovativeness. The Innovation Triangle distinguishes three major determinants of innovativeness: business competence, environmental orientation, and network involvement. The Innovation Triangle allows one to diagnose current environmental and innovation policies, indicating which policy measures might be effective in increasing the adoption of environmentally friendly technologies, allowing environmental objectives to be achieved.

This book is a collection of the best papers presented at the Seventh International Conference on the Management of Technology held in Orlando, Florida, February 16th to 20th 1998. All papers were evaluated by at least two referees and both referees needed to agree on the high quality of a paper for it to be included in these proceedings. The papers cover a vast array of topics and the authors come from the four corners of the globe. This is a strong indication that technology management is a very real preoccupation in many countries.
The book is divided into four major sections. The first section brings together the conceptual papers, papers that deal with the management of technology as a whole, its definition, its evolution, its applications, and some of its specificities. The second section embraces other preoccupations with a very fundamental, recurring issue in the field: management of research and development, which continues to be a major concern for companies, governments and industries. The third and largest section includes papers on innovation and technology transfer. In a world where regional disparities are great, technology transfer constitutes an important lever that can be used to narrow the gap between the rich and poor countries. The topic of commercialization, or how to profit from innovation, is dealt with in the last section of the book.

Using data and examples from all over the world, this book explores how the symbiotic relationships between the aircraft industry and national governments have arisen, how they influence all facets of aircraft manufacture, and what implications they have for the future. The authors outline the production patterns and markets for both civil and military aircraft, as well as government's role as agent in both these areas. They also show how the government of a nation influences the location of aircraft plants, provides the bulk of R & D funds necessary to maintain the industry's technological progress, and frequently offers an alternative form of business organization to that available in free enterprise.

Both economists and popular writers have once more run away with some fragments of reality they happened to grasp. Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, 1942. 1. Rational Behaviour and Economics Never in the history of mankind has there been such unlimited belief intheabilitiesofthehumanmindasintheAgeofReasoninthe?rsthalf of the eighteenth century. The likes of Mozart, Goethe, and Rousseau ensured a new era of optimism and creativity in both the arts and the sciences. In mathematics, the theory of probability was re?ned and its laws were believed to be good descriptions of human reasoning and 1 decision making. The French Revolution was the logical conclusion of theAgeofReasonandEnlightenment. Italsobroughtaboutitspolitical and social downfall, ending in an age of terror; a victim of its own success. In the early nineteenth century, however, most ?elds of science abandoned many ideas from the era of Enlightenment. Nevertheless, in psychology and economics the probabilistic approach to describing a human being as a fully rational homo economicus remained popular as ever. 1 In Rousseau (1762, p. 97), for example, one ?nds: "Calculateurs, c'est maintenant votre a? aire; comptez, mesurez, comparez". 1 2 INVESTMENT, COALITION SPILLOVERS, AND EVOLUTION Most of contemporary economics still uses the axiom of rational e- nomic agents, where agents are believed to maximise expected utility. Expectations are often assumed to be based on objective probabilities. Expected utility with objective probabilities has been axiomatised by Von Neumann and Morgenstern (1944).

Ernest Aves (1857-1917) was an influential social analyst and civil servant. This title, first published in 1907, during Aves' work for the Board of Trade, investigates the different forms of industrial co-operation within Britain; the fundamental principle of this is stated as "equitable association", leading to increased profitability and the strengthening of industry. Chapters discuss such areas as centralisation, co-operative production and co-operative agriculture. This interesting reissue will be of particular value to students of economics with an interest in co-operative industry and the history of economic thought.

In this volume, three respected business leaders examine fundamental issues involving American business and the economy. Michael J. Solomon, President, Warner Brothers International Television Distribution, addresses international telecommunications, describing its growth and significance and highlighting the changes to come with new technologies such as HDTV and laser disk technology. Edward E. Barr, President and Chief Executive Officer, Sun Chemical Corporation and DIC Americas, Inc., outlines an industrial strategy to help maintain America's competitive economic position and an education strategy that reworks a major precept--the priority and purpose of educating our youth. Finally, Shelley Schwab, President, MCA TV Universal Studios, examines television in the nineties and the ramifications of new approaches to the medium, including interactive programming, video on demand, and virtual reality. The Joseph I. Lubin Memorial Lectures were established through the generosity of the late Joseph I. Lubin, a distinguished business, philanthropic, and civic leader. The lectures are presented by the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University.

This book takes a close look at the contribution of small firms to the U.S. economy and at the contrasts between traditional development policies and those often recommended to help the small enterprise. The book offers systematic guidelines that will assist economic developers, policy makers, and private citizens in their efforts to promote entrepreneurship and assure sound economic development at local and state levels. "Recent Publications on Governmental ProblemS"

The widespread interest in entrepreneurship as a means of creating jobs and raising incomes has resulted in a growing demand for an economic and political environment that will nurture small business ventures. Accordingly, the promotion of entrepreneurship has taken its place alongside industrial recruitment as a component of economic developement policy. In this study, Benjamin Mokry considers whether it makes sense to devise such policies without first exploring more thoroughly the dynamics of entrepreneurship and the possible impact of government initiatives. In a careful analysis based on in-depth research on state and local development policies, he points up existing information gaps and suggests a realistic framework for approaching policy design in this area.

Title IV of the Clean Air Act Amendments effectively transfers an environmental property right, the difference in unrestricted emissions and the yearly endowment, 3 from certain fIrms to the public domain. Phase I is to reduce annual SOz emissions of 261 large (100 MW or more) utility generating units with emissions greater than 2. 5 IbslmmBtu. The yearly endowment during Phase I is equal to 2. 51bslmmBtu times the 1985-1987 baseline energy usage. Phase I standards are required to be met by 1995, an exception being units that install certain control technologies. In this case, units may postpone compliance until 1997 and may receive bonus 4 allowances. Phase II begins in the year 2000 and applies to any utility units (25 MW or more) with emissions above 1. 2 Ibs/mmBtu. The endowment is 1. 2 Ibs/mmBtu times baseline fuel use (U. S. Environmental Protection Agency 1990). 5 Hahn and Noll (1982), Bohi and Burtraw (1992), Lock and Harkawik (1991), and Walther (1991) discuss interactions between traditional rate-of-return regula tion and overlaying environmental regulations, particularly tradable emission allowances, in the electric utility industry. Lock and Harkawik (1991) and Niemeyer (1991) discuss utility planning in this regard. Bohi and Burtraw (1992) fmd that a utility's environmental investment incentives will vary depending on cost recovery rules and argue that symmetry in treatment of investments in allowances and control technology is necessary if the utility is to be provided with the incentive to minimize costs of compliance."

This book provides new insights into the performance of key economies in the Asia-Pacific region during the last three decades. It critically examines productivity growth, factor accumulation and economic efficiency at both the macro and micro levels. The authors use a variety of empirical techniques to measure the sources of economic growth in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand and China. The techniques employed range from traditional growth accounting to econometric frontier estimation and data envelopment analysis. As a comparison to the Asia-Pacific region, the growth experiences of G7 and 18 OECD countries are analyzed. The authors consider, among other issues, the influential role of trade in the region, macroeconomic management, income, capital, labor productivity, technology and investment. This innovative new book will be of interest to students and scholars of growth economics, public policy and Asian studies.

This book critically examines the phenomenon and the consequences of the increasing inter-dependence between industry, universities and national laboratories. It explores the contrasts and similarities between the patterns of formal and informal links in a technologically dynamic industry (electronic components) with those in a traditional industry (flow measurement) in the UK, France and Belgium. It uses evidence from interviews with firms, academics and industry organisations in the three countries to identify the major factors which regulate links.

Cultural Economics and Cultural Policies offers a unique guide to the state of the art in cultural economics. First, it alerts scholars and students to the necessity for careful definition and measurement of the cultural sector'. Second, it affords examples of how economic analysis can shed light on the motivation of creative and performing artists and of artistic enterprises. Third, Cultural Economics and Cultural Policies widens the discussion of public policy towards the arts beyond general economic appraisal of arguments for government financial support. It does so by considering the government's role in defining property rights in artistic products and in regulating as well as financing the arts; examining how the criteria for government support are actually applied. Cultural Economics and Cultural Policies will be of interest to economists, students and policy makers.