the demand for parimutuel horse race wagering and attendance there has been a long history of patron participation in parimutuel horse race wagering and attendance which are major recreational products in consumer budgets in this paper the demand for parimutuel horse race wagering and attendance has been specified and estimated for both thoroughbred and standardbred racetracks in a multistate market area the data are annual over the period 1960 1987 it is found that demand is price elastic in every case racing quality personal income the number of racing days competition from a state lottery and from professional sports baseball basketball football are all significant determinants of these demands both attendance and wagering are found to increase with an increase in racing quality however it seems that the new patrons attracted by quality racing tend to wager less than those who attend regularly the presence of a state lottery is found to have resulted in a substantial loss in attendance as well as in wagering at each of the racetracks this i

an axiomatic characterization of yitzhaki s index of individual deprivation abstract this note presents and discusses a number of properties a measure of individual deprivation should satisfy the axioms we propose are necessary and sufficient to characterize yitzhaki s index of deprivation making the structure of the index more transparent

technological capabilities and industrialization abstract this paper reviews the implications for industrial strategy of recent research on technological capabilities at the firm and national levels after exploring the nature and determinants of microlevel technological development a simple framework for explaining the growth of national capabilities is set out based on the interplay of incentives capabilities and institutions each may suffer market failure and so require corrective intervention the experience of some industrializing countries is described to assess the validity of this framework it is concluded that interventions carefully and selectively applied are necessary for industrial success

a randomized response approach to dichotomous choice contingent valuation in this paper we combine dichotomous choice contingent valuation dc cv with the randomized response rr method for asking sensitive survey questions rr increases respondents anonymity by allowing them to answer a sensitive question without revealing with certainty their true response we combine rr with dc cv to test for response effects in the valuation of a public good in a setting of expected social pressure while there are practical implementation issues our findings suggest that the rr technique is a useful tool for exploring social context effects rather than generalize from our pre test results we instead emphasize the development of the experimental technique

exploring the capital goods economy complex product systems in the uk over the past decade qualitative empirical research at the firm project and industry levels has improved our understanding of the characteristics and dynamics of innovation in the high technology high value capital goods or complex product systems cops which underpin modern industrial activity this paper describes the development of a new industrial classification system for cops which is able to estimate quantitative shares of production and value added accounted for by cops at the economy level it is also able to provide insights into the capital information technology and skill intensity of cops as well as employment contributions as an example the method is applied to one major industrial economy namely the uk through a comparison of cops with non cops industries the paper identifies some of the key factors which explain the different patterns of innovation between the two types of industrial activity although preliminary the analysis shows that cops based industries together represent a distinctive class of industrial activity based on the classification system provided further research is underway to examine cross country comparisons in both production and trade performance through time

the public demand for smoking bans smoking bans are gaining widespread support in the united states and other countries while supporters argue that bans are necessary to resolve market failures associated with negative externalities the coase theorem predicts that under various conditions private markets internalize negative externalities we examine the smoking issue within the framework of the coase theorem and hypothesize that smoking bans misallocate air space resources shared by smokers and nonsmokers because smoking bans shift ownership of scarce resources they are also hypothesized to transfer income from one party smokers to another party nonsmokers supporting evidence for these hypotheses is provided by an examination of a comprehensive smoking ban imposed in san luis obispo ca

the effects of smoking laws on seating allocations of restaurants bars and taverns michael l marlow supporters of smoking laws often argue that they do not harm restaurants bars and taverns and may even raise their profits opponents argue that owners cater to customer preferences regarding smoking and that laws mandating specific smoking policies will therefore negatively impact profits of some firms this article tests hypotheses regarding how smoking laws affect seating allocations using data from a nationwide survey of restaurant and bar owners the empirical evidence indicates that smoking laws exert no significant effect on seating allocations firms are shown to allocate greater shares of seating to nonsmoking use when customers exhibit stronger preferences for such seating jel k2 h0 i introduction laws restricting smoking in restaurants have been enacted in 32 states supporters of these laws often argue that they do not harm firms and may even raise their profits 1 recent studies for instance argue that outright bans on smoking in eating and drinking places have not adversely affected these establishments suggesting that smoking bans either do not reduce demand or lower costs for firms which offsets sales losses thus leading to no adverse changes in profits opponents of smoking restrictions argue that owners cater to customer preferences regarding smoking some owners would find it profitable to allow smoking throughout their establishments others to forbid all smoking and still others to accommodate both smokers and nonsmokers by investing in partitions designating areas creating smoking patios or rooms and or investing in air filtration systems they argue that laws that mandate specific smoking policies will therefore negatively impact profits of some firms little economic research has been published on the effects of smoking laws on revenues of restaurants bars and taverns and none has been directed toward the issue of smoking nonsmoking seating allocations 2 this article provides a framework for examining how customer preferences influence smoking and nonsmoking seating allocations by owners the primary policy that firms unilaterally adopt in their attempts to deal with the issue hypotheses regarding how smoking laws affect seating allocations are then tested using data from a nationwide survey of 1 300 restaurant bar and tavern owners the empirical evidence indicates that smoking laws exert no significant effect on seating allocations ii economic model and testable hypotheses without legal restrictions policies adopted by restaurants bars and taverns toward smoking are determined in much the same manner as decisions regarding menus prices and hours of operation profit maximizing firms optimize on the basis of customer demand and costs decisions pertaining to smoking policies simply allocate the air space within firms between smoking and nonsmoking customers 3 the air space within an establishment is considered just like any other resource and owners decide to cater solely to smokers to nonsmokers or to both by providing patrons with rights to smoke while accommodating others through smoking nonsmoking areas and air filtration systems the choice depends on customer preferences and relative marginal costs 4 predictably market segmentation naturally evolves where firms cater more to smokers in markets dominated by smokers than in those markets dominated by nonsmokers there may also be broad differences between how owners of restaurants and bars or taverns allocate seating customers of restaurants are likely to prefer that owners adopt different accommodation strategies than would patrons of bars and taverns restaurant customers tend to dine in one location within firms and therefore it is possible for owners to designate sections for smokers and nonsmokers and this predictably leads to a relatively high allocation of nonsmoking seating in contrast customers of bars and taverns may prefer to participate in various activities dining drinking listening to music dancing and playing pool darts and billiards whereby they move to different locations within the establishment during their visit and interact with different patrons

exotic betting opportunities pricing policies and the demand for parimutuel horse race wagering parimutuel horse race wagering has been declining steadily for the past several decades this has resulted in lower revenues to state governments recetracks adn horseman to retard or reverse this trend attempts have been made to implement a number of pricing and marketing strategies among these has been the introduction of a variety of exotic wagering opportunities over the years the number and type of exotic wagers offered has been increased furthermore the prices of both straight and exotic wagers have been increased and in addition the price of exotic wagers has generally been set at a higher rate than that for straight wagers the paper examines the effectiveness of these policies

transportation costs and product demand wagering on parimutuel horse racing parimutuel horse race wagering is in many respects like any other economic good but it differs in one important way from a vast majority of them given the present market arrangement this good cannot be transported to the consumer instead the consumer must travel to the production site where the good is consumed as it is produced thus transportation costs must play a crucial role in the demand decision for horse race wagering the consumers incur not only out of pocket expenses for travelling but also the cost of the time required to travel to and to consume the product moreover consumers incur differential costs in obtaining the same product because of their locational differences wagering demands are theorized to be the consequence of the choice of utility maximizing consumers which incorporates this special characteristic of the product models for parimutuel horse race wagering are then estimated both for thoroughbred and for harness horse racing in the state of new jersey it is found that bot

the role of technological learning in the exports of manufactured goods the case of selected capital goods in brazil abstract the object of this study is to explain the evolution of brazilian capital goods exports in terms of technological learning within the sector and government policy but emphasizing the former the study identifies relevant learning processes for eventual introduction into export behaviour equations or as a basis for theoretical models it starts from a series of eight microeconomic case studies of technologically sophisticated firms in brazil among the specific issues addressed in the case studies are 1 the nature of technological learning are there recognizable sequences does it generally lead to products of increased technological complexity 2 how if at all technological learning has benefited exports 3 other endogenous firm spin offs principally from reputation effects which were important for increased efficiency and for the emergence of exports 4 the economic value of the firm s accumulated experience and the factors determining it

the demand for casino gaming in this study an econometric model is developed to examine the determinants of the demand for casino gaming specifically the demand for slot machine wagering at riverboats and racinos in addition to examining the effects of traditional demand variables the effect on wagering of variables such as location of a wagering facility and of government restrictions is examined a unique measure of accessibility of market area customers to a facility and to competing facilities was developed the demand for wagering at a facility was found to increase as access by customers in its market area increases and to decrease as access by its customers to competing riverboats racinos or indian casinos increases government restrictions were found to have an adverse effect on wagering at a riverboat on the other hand wagering at a riverboat was found to increase when such restrictions were imposed on competing riverboats the presence of total loss limits and restrictions on boarding times at a riverboat were found

gauging the potential for social unrest it stands to reason that social unrest does not erupt out of the blue although there are a great many reasons why social dismay might descend into social disorder only few yardsticks or indices can plausibly be used to gauge the potential for social unrest psu if policy makers want to undertake public action to prevent social dismay escalating into social disruption they obviously need to draw on practical sensors this paper assesses critically the adequacy of two such measures the polarization p index and the total relative deprivation trd index the paper proposes a tentative guide to selecting between these two measures a review of three stylized scenarios suggests that where income redistributions reduce the number of distinct income groups and when each group is characterized by a strong sense of within group identity the p index surpasses the trd index as a basis for predicting psu when the within group identification is weak however it is better to use the trd index to predict psu

government restrictions and the demand for casino and parimutuel wagering growth in casino wagering in the united states from the mid 1980s forward has been extraordinary over the same period however parimutuel wagering has declined concern for this decline has prompted a number of states to allow parimutuel racetracks to offer casino type gaming devices at their facilities such operations are commonly referred to as racinos if the gaming devices at a racino are under the auspices of a state lottery they are referred to as video lottery terminals vlts separate parimutuel and vlt wagering demand models were estimated for a racino facility a number of restrictions were imposed on the vlt s at the beginning of the study period including number of vlt s type of game and machine maximum bet per play and vlt location the effect of these restrictions on vlt and parimutuel handles was a major focus of this article also of importance was an examination of the relationship between the vlt and parimutuel products relaxation of government restrictions on the vlt s was fo

proximity sensitive individual deprivation measures we characterize a generalization of the linear index of individual deprivation our class allows for an income increase of a higher income individual to have a stronger impact the closer they occur to the income of the person under consideration

latecomer firm strategies in complex product systems cops the case of iran s thermal electricity generation systems this paper examines the strategies of a local supplier of high technology capital goods or complex product systems cops in a middle income developing economy iran in its efforts to acquire technology and catch up with market leaders the study draws upon both the development and business strategy literatures to develop a novel conceptual framework of latecomer strategy which is then applied to the iranian firm engaged in the design production and implementation of electricity generation systems although exploratory the study shows that the firm was able to exploit its linkages with local clients favorable government policies and a growing domestic demand to overcome barriers to entry and learn how to manufacture and design complex power generation systems this paper contributes to the catch up literature by highlighting the insights that a latecomer strategy perspective can provide into catch up in cops noting in particular differences between strategies of catch up in the iranian case with those of asian electronics and complex goods in latin america and the reasons behind an imbalanced progress in accumulation of production capabilities and technological change capabilities the evidence shows the importance of marketing capabilities and strategy in cops in order for the transition to leadership to take place implications for policy and strategy are discussed and opportunities for further research are outlined

the demand for casino gaming with special reference to a smoking ban i introduction there is a sparse literature on the determinants of the demand for casino style gaming this study adds to that literature a major focus of this analysis is on the effect on gaming demand of the introduction of a smoking ban into an existing gaming market in this case the state of delaware a comprehensive statewide ban on smoking in public places was implemented in delaware on november 27 2002 the ban was titled the delaware clean indoor air act the act gaming facilities open to the public were one of the locations specifically cited by the act as subject to the ban the subjects of this analysis are the three delaware racinos over the period september 1996 through december 2004 a racino is a pari mutuel racetrack that has the statutory authority to offer electronic gaming devices slot machines to its customers in 1990 there was only one racino in the united states mountaineer park in west virginia by 2005 there were 13 states that permitted slot machine wagering at pari mutuel racetracks 1 in some states the electronic gaming devices at a racino are operated by the entity that owns the racetrack in other states the devices are operated under the auspices of the state lottery with the racetrack acting as a lottery agent in such cases the electronic gaming devices or slot machines are alternatively referred to as video lottery terminals vlts such is the case in the state of delaware 2 to show the importance of vlt gaming in delaware consider that in fiscal 2004 total state lottery revenue was 641 million video lottery revenue was 532 million or 83 of total state lottery revenue the remaining 17 of total lottery revenue came from traditional on line and instant lottery games delaware lottery 2004 a system of three demand equations was developed to examine the effect of a set of determinants on slot machine wagering handle at the three delaware racinos the system is described by the seemingly unrelated regressions sur model and was jointly estimated with the well known seemingly unrelated regression estimation technique vlt handle was found to be positively related to the number of vlts per capita personal income and population vlt handle at a racino was found to be negatively related to the number of vlts at the other delaware racinos this negative relationship of the number of vlts at other racinos to a particular racino s wagering demand indicates that they are substitutes gaming demand was found to decrease with the implementation of the delaware statewide smoking ban the study proceeds as follows section ii is a review of the literature on the demand for casino wagering also included is a review of the literature on the effect of a smoking ban on revenues of gaming and non gaming establishments section iii develops a three equation system demand model one equation each for the three delaware racinos section iv reports the estimated models and presents empirical results on the factors affecting the demand for casino wagering section v summarizes the findings and draws further conclusions ii previous studies only two studies have examined the determinants of the demand for casino gaming thalheimer 1998 investigated the determinants of the demand for slot machine wagering at the first racino in the united states mountaineer park a thoroughbred racetrack in west virginia during the study period 1990 1991 mountaineer park was permitted to offer a limited number of electronic gaming devices to its customers under the auspices of the state lottery on an experimental basis vlt wagering demand was found to be positively related to the number of vlts the price of vlt wagering did not vary over the study period and hence its relationship to the demand for wagering could not be ascertained thalheimer and ali 2003 investigated the determinants of slot machine wagering at 24 riverboat casinos and three racinos in the midwestern states of illinois iowa and missouri

the division of labour is limited by the rate of growth of the market the taiwan machine tool industry in the 1970s in 1974 i visited taiwan to make a study of its machine tool industry amsden 1977 late in 1981 i returned to visit the same factories i had visited seven years earlier in the interim taiwan was transformed from an amateurish supplier of machine tools to southeast asia into the fourth largest exporter of machine tools to the united states cremeans and dalton 1982 this paper analyses the remarkable changes which occurred in the machine tool industry in this short period the object is to study the process of capital accumulation in one industry in a newly industrialising country in order to gain a better understanding of the nature of the process generally between 1970 and 1980 machine tool production in taiwan rose by more than eleven times see table 1 one way to begin to understand the process of capital accumulation is to ask how such an extraordinarily rapid increase in demand alters the nature of production this is the focus adopted in what follows most historians acknowledge a phenomenon of cumulative causation in economic development or decline economies which begin to grow rapidly tend to grow even more rapidly but once growth falters there ensues a self reinforcing downward spiral most economists however recognise only one part of this cumulative process that which runs from technological progress typically taken as exogenous to increases in productivity to increases in output what tends to be ignored is that part which runs from increases in output to increases in productivity with technological change broadly defined sandwiched in between it is this which is examined below

reference groups and individual deprivation abstract we provide an axiomatization of yitzhaki s index of individual deprivation our result differs from an earlier characterization due to ebert and moyes in the way the reference group of an individual is represented in the model

parimutuel wagering and video gaming a racetrack portfolio parimutuel wagering has been declining for several decades due in part to increased competition from state lotteries and casino gaming in recent years an attempt has been made to integrate video lottery terminal vlt gaming into a parimutuel racetrack s product portfolio daily data are used to develop product demand equations for parimutuel horse race wagering and video lottery gaming at a throughbred racetrack it is found that introduction of vlts into the product mix results in decreased parimutuel wagering and revenues however the additional revenue generated from the vlts is found to more than offset the decline in parimutuel revenue and the increased expense associated with the vlts given that a sufficient number of terminals are made available when revenue from the combined parimutuel and vlt gaming product increases if the respective shares of the vlt revenue distributed to the racetrack to the horsemen who race horses at the racetrack and to the government are the same as their distri

the economic incidence of smoking laws although laws restricting smoking in restaurants are becoming commonplace most research has focused on either the health benefits that laws may provide customers and workers or whether laws harm owners but while smoking laws may directly alter profits owners may alter prices output and other business attributes in ways that affect the welfare of customers and workers this study examines whether restaurant and bar owners alter prices entertainment hours of operation and other business attributes in response to local smoking laws substantial support is found for these attribute changes in the wisconsin hospitality industry one implication is that an overall assessment of the desirability of smoking laws should consider economic effects imposed on owners customers and workers as well as health benefits that follow laws

income redistribution going awry the reversal power of the concern for relative deprivation abstract we demonstrate that a rank preserving transfer from a richer individual to a poorer individual can exacerbate income inequality when inequality is measured by the gini coefficient this happens when individuals preferences depend negatively not only on work time effort but also on low relative income it is rigorously shown that the set of preference profiles that gives rise to this perverse effect of a transfer on inequality is a non empty open subset of all preference profiles a robust example illustrates this result

a class of proximity sensitive measures of relative deprivation abstract we introduce a new class of generalized measures of relative deprivation the class takes the form of a power mean of order p a characteristic of the class is that depending on the value of the proximity sensitive parameter p the class is capable of accommodating both a decreasing weight the case of p 1 and an increasing weight the case of p 0 1 accorded to given changes in the incomes of the individuals who are wealthier than the reference individual depending on their proximity in the income distribution to the reference individual

no smoking at the slot machines the effect of a smoke free law on delaware gaming revenues as communities around the nation consider laws restricting smoking in public places a key political and economic issue that often arises is the effect that such laws have on the sales and profits of particular sectors the gaming industry has been active in opposition to such ordinances citing large prospective losses this article analyses the revenues of three gaming facilities in delaware following the implementation of a smoke free law in december 2002 revenues are found to have declined significantly at each of the three facilities with relative magnitudes of losses corresponding to the availability of alternative gaming venues in the region

linking yitzhaki s and dagum s gini decompositions in this article we show that the gini coefficient is simultaneously decomposable both by sources of income and by populations of income receivers for nonoverlapping income distributions the so called first best gini multi decomposition we show that this multidimensional decomposition is useful for many reasons i it is related to the degree of inequality aversion of the decision maker ii it is especially well suited to study inequalities between poor and nonpoor people iii it enables one to measure the impact of marginal tax reforms on within and between group inequalities respectively