antecedents and outcomes of modular production in the brazilian automobile industry a grounded theory approach our paper focuses on how foreign automobile manufacturers in brazil have implemented and benefited from strategic modularization based on our case studies and in depth interviews we developed a theoretical framework to examine the antecedents and outcomes of strategic modularization our theoretical framework suggests that strategic modularization may help improve a firm s positional advantage by reducing the cost of managing tacit knowledge in addition the adoption of strategic modularization influences the nature of relationships with major suppliers further blurring the boundaries of the firm

market price behavior of wholesale electricity products texas abstract applying a regression based approach to a newly developed sample of over 60 000 hourly observations for 01 01 2011 12 30 2017 we answer the question what moves the day ahead market dam prices for energy and ancillary services as and the real time market rtm price for energy in the electric reliability council of texas ercot our answer comprises the following findings that capture the interdependence of ercot s energy and as products 1 the dam energy price increases with the day ahead forecasts of natural gas price system load and as requirements but declines with nuclear and wind generation s forecasts 2 the as prices increase with the dam energy price and the as procurement forecasts but decline with the as offer forecasts and 3 the rtm energy price increases with the dam energy price but diverges from the dam energy price due to forecasting errors related to the dam energy price s fundamental drivers these findings imply that texas can reduce the prices for day ahead energy day ahead as and real time energy via wind generation development and demand side management further texas can improve its electricity trading efficiency by improving ercot s forecast accuracy to narrow the rtm energy price s divergence from the dam energy price

country specific oil supply shocks and the global economy a counterfactual analysis abstract this paper investigates the global macroeconomic consequences of country specific oil supply shocks our contribution is both theoretical and empirical on the theoretical side we develop a model for the global oil market and integrate this within a compact quarterly model of the global economy to illustrate how our multi country approach to modeling oil markets can be used to identify country specific oil supply shocks on the empirical side estimating the gvar oil model for 27 countries regions over the period 1979q2 to 2013q1 we show that the global economic implications of oil supply shocks due to for instance sanctions wars or natural disasters vary considerably depending on which country is subject to the shock in particular we find that adverse shocks to iranian oil output are neutralized in terms of their effects on the global economy real outputs and financial markets mainly due to an increase in saudi arabian oil production in contrast a negative shock to oil supply in saudi arabia leads to an immediate and permanent increase in oil prices given that the loss in saudi arabian production is not compensated for by the other oil producers as a result a saudi arabian oil supply shock has significant adverse effects for the global economy with real gdp falling in both advanced and emerging economies and large losses in real equity prices worldwide

price discrimination through offers to match price in this paper a firm discriminates between two classes of customer who have a different cost of information by coupling a list price with an offer to match the pr ice of any other shop if the list price elsewhere is lower the firm will be successful in discrimination the list price of each firm is increasing in the number of sellers and the total sales are decreasi ng in the number of sellers furthermore if sellers coordinate they discriminate more efficaciously and increase their profits by increa sing their total sales copyright 1987 by the university of chicago

building international business theory a grounded theory approach the field of international business ib is in need of more theory development as such the main focus of our manuscript was to provide guidance on how to build ib specific theory using grounded theory gt moreover we contribute to future theory development by identifying areas within ib where gt can be applied and the type of research issues that can be addressed using this methodology finally we make a noteworthy contribution by discussing some of gt s caveats and limitations particularly those relevant to ib this effort is intended to spur further interest in the development of ib theory

trade ins and introductory offers in a monopoly we model the commonly used marketing practices of offering discounts to either repeat buyers trade ins or new buyers introductory offers of a quasi durable good we analyze these practices in terms of their potential for intertemporal and third degree price discrimination in our two period model the monopolist sets a first period price that segments the second period market optimally into holders and nonholders of the good in the second period different prices are quoted to the two market segments we present three versions of the model with varying assumptions on consumers rationality

legitimacy and multi level institutional environments implications for foreign subsidiary ownership structure in this study we examine from an institutional perspective the legitimacy rationale behind the choice of subsidiary ownership structure among multinational corporations mncs we suggest that when under a strong pressure to conform at the host country and local industry levels of their institutional environment mncs are likely to take a lower ownership stake in exchange for external legitimacy in the host country or local industry that their foreign subsidiaries are entering we also suggest that mncs are likely to take a higher ownership stake in response to strong internal pressure to sustain their internal legitimacy at the corporate level of their institutional environment we also propose that mncs are more likely to exchange ownership for legitimacy in local industries than in host countries and in local markets with a high level of political instability than in those with a low level of political instability these propositions are generally supported by our analysis of 4451 subsidiaries established by 898 japanese mncs that operated in 39 countries across 52 industries two digit sic between 1988 and 1999

endogenous quality differentiation in congested markets firms selling a product with congestion externalities to a heterogeneous population of customers have an incentive to offer differentiated levels of quality in a price competitive market differentiation arises endogenously through the prices chosen by firms in equilibrium firms offer a range of prices which induce an efficiency improving range of quality levels and allow customers to self select their preferred price quality combinations additional results suggest that with many firms in the market the choice of prices dominates the choice of service capacities in determining congestion levels copyright 1991 by blackwell publishing ltd

patterns of retail price variation we examine retail price variation across a range of goods and regions of the united states we find that the typical grocery product has a regular price and stays at that price at least 50 of the time and that most deviations from that regular price are downward temporary discounts or sales while infrequent account for 20 to 50 of the annual variation in retail prices for most product categories although existing models of retail sales yield predictions consistent with some aspects of the retail pricing distributions all of these models fail to explain other important aspects of retail pricing identified here

one more time international business in a global economy this paper seeks to redirect the debate on the past present and future of international business ib it sets out to dispel prevailing myths pertaining to the field s disciplinary roots its domain and underlying bases of theory and knowledge ib is positioned as an integrative field whose competitive advantage and added value lie in the synergetic combination of global and local knowledge that is unavailable to and not imitable by its major competitors in particular economics and strategy

winds of change how high wind penetrations will affect investment incentives in the gb electricity sector abstract wind power is widely expected to expand rapidly in britain over the next decade large amounts of variable wind power on the system will increase market risks with prices more volatile and load factors for conventional thermal plant lower and more uncertain this extra market risk may discourage investment in generation capacity financial viability for thermal plant will be increasingly dependent on price spikes during periods of low wind increased price risk will also make investment in other forms of low carbon generation e g nuclear power more challenging a number of policies can reduce the extent to which generators are exposed to market risks and encourage investment however market risks play a fundamental role in shaping efficient investment and dispatch patterns in a liberalised market therefore measures to improve price signals and market functioning such as a stronger carbon price and developing more responsive demand are desirable however the scale of the investment challenge and increased risk mean targeted measures to reduce although not eliminate risk exposure such as capacity mechanisms and fixed price schemes may have increasing merit the challenge for policy is to strike the right balance between market and planned approaches

conflict management style accounting for cross national differences a problem in joint ventures between u s and asian firms is that cultural differences impede the smooth resolution of conflicts between managers in a survey of young managers in the u s china philippines and india we find support for two hypotheses about cultural differences in conflict style and the cultural values that account for these differences chinese managers rely more on an avoiding style because of their relatively high value on conformity and tradition u s managers rely more on a competing style because of their relatively high value on individual achievement

cyclic pricing by a durable goods monopolist in the model of this paper a monopoly seller of a durable good holds periodic sales as a means of price discrimination a new cohort of consumers enters the market in each period interested in purchasing the good either immediately or after a delay within each cohort consumers vary in their tastes for the good under broad conditions the seller will vary the price over time in most periods he will charge a price just low enough to sell immediately to consumers with a high willingness to pay periodically however he will drop the price far enough to sell to an accumulated group of consumers with a low willingness to pay

the multifaceted role of language in international business unpacking the forms functions and features of a critical challenge to mnc theory and performance language lies at the heart of international business ib activities yet language as a key construct in the field of ib has not been sufficiently articulated or theorized language presents itself in forms such as national corporate technical or electronic in functions in terms of defining hierarchies exercising power or facilitating integration and in features such as the use of mixed syntax or gender marking understanding the complex interplay between the multiple facets of language and how they affect day to day operations is becoming increasingly critical to global business effectiveness the purpose of this special issue is therefore to catalyze and set a course for the development of a new domain in ib scholarship originating from an explicit focus on language

a deterministic single item inventory model with seller holding cost and buyer holding and shortage costs this paper considers the optimal deterministic inventory policy for a monopolist the novel element concerns the consumers each has a time at which he would most prefer to obtain the good he incurs a shortage cost if he buys it after that time and a holding cost if he obtains it before the firm must consider that any change in its policy will affect the quantity of goods it can sell and the maximum price it can charge we find that the seller s optimal policy can take only one of three possible forms sell the goods throughout each cycle sell the goods continuously during an interval that is shorter than an inventory cycle or sell the goods only at the instant each cycle begins

an equilibrium search model of synchronized sales we demonstrate the existence of periodic nonstationary equilibria with self generating cycles in a simple model of random search our results provide a theory of synchronized sales based on product market search by heterogeneous consumers that is our model explains how it can be optimal for all sellers to follow a repeated pattern of posting a high price for several periods and then posting a low price for one period

from the editors can i trust your findings ruling out alternative explanations in international business research the complex nature of international business research with its cross country and multilevel nature complicates the empirical identification of relationships among theoretical constructs the objective of this editorial is to provide guidance to help international business scholars navigate this complexity and ensure that readers can trust their findings we provide suggestions for how to rule out alternative explanations explaining key considerations not only in empirical analyses but also in theory building and in research design our discussion covers both qualitative and quantitative studies because we believe that it is imperative to understand how trustworthiness is established in both traditions even for international business researchers who self identify with only one this enables scholars to have a broader scope of knowledge when interpreting past research in the field and to be more adept at explaining their design choices to a diverse audience

optimal cartel trigger price strategies abstract a dynamical model of industry equilibrium is described in which a cartel deters deviations from collusive output levels by threatening to produce at cournot quantities for a period of fixed duration whenever the market price falls below some trigger price in this model firms can observe only their own production level and a common market price the market demand curve is assumed to have a stochastic component so that an unexpectedly low price may signal either deviations from collusive output levels or a downward demand shock

emerging themes in international business research this study is motivated by two research questions 1 which recent contributions have been driving the research agenda in international business 2 which emerging themes in the literature are likely to set the stage for future work to examine these questions the study examined scholarly work in international business over the time period 1996 2006 in six leading international business journals journal of international business studies management international review journal of world business international marketing review journal of international marketing and international business review next a delphi study of the most prolific authors in these journals over the same time period was conducted to delineate a future research agenda in international business addressing these two research questions provides us with a more complete understanding of the progress made to date in international business research and provides a glimpse of the future

hungarian western partnerships a grounded theoretical model of integration processes and outcomes international cooperative ventures icvs are known to be strongly influenced by the parent firms values practices and systems vpss however less clear is whether and why vpss actually adopted by an icv are those of either parent singly both parents jointly or neither parent this question is especially timely in the transition economies of central and eastern europe where cooperative activity with western multinationals is growing rapidly and where decades old legacies of communism abound in this exploratory study we used a multiple case study methodology to examine 17 hungarian western icvs results show that a majority of the icvs adopted the vpss of the western partner we develop a theoretical model of integration process and outcomes and suggest future research directions

a theory of clearance sales clearance sales are widely used by firms as an intertemporal selling policy in particular in markets where firms face demand uncertainty and need to choose capacity in advance clearance sales consist in charging a high price initially but then lowering the price in the sales period high valuation consumers purchase the good at the high initial price so as to avoid rationing at the low price while low valuation consumers wait for the price to drop we develop a simple model of intertemporal monopoly pricing under demand uncertainty and show that clearance sales may be the optimal intertemporal selling policy

the temporal and spatial dimensions of price search insights from matching household survey and purchase data abstract price promotions are pervasive in grocery markets a household can respond to price promotions by effectively cherry picking through 1 spatial price search across stores and 2 temporal price search across time however extant research has analyzed these two dimensions of price search only separately and therefore underestimates both the consumer response to price promotions and the impact of promotions on retail profit in this article the authors introduce an integrated analysis of spatial and temporal price search they seek answers to three questions first what are the predictors of household decisions to perform either spatial or temporal price search second how effective are the temporal spatial and spatiotemporal price search strategies in obtaining lower prices and third what is the impact of alternative price search strategies on retailer profit the authors use a unique data collection approach that combines household surveys with observed purchase data to address these que

history in perspective comment on jones and khanna bringing history back into international business commenting on jones and khanna we suggest that international business ib needs simultaneously maturing theory and on going rigorous empirical work we advocate careful data collection and develop solid theory based on the rich empirical information the difficulty in the process is the deciphering of causality and that is where historical studies play a significant role historical documents shed light on motivations and exogenous incidents historical studies and large scale data analyses can complement each other in revealing causality while path dependence constraints causal inferences using cross sectional data historical studies can identify differences and similarities in the paths of events across geography and time this advantage is particularly attractive in understanding the relationship between institutions and business behaviour which lies inside the proper domain of ib studies

pass through in retail and wholesale this paper studies how prices comove across products firms and locations to gauge the relative importance of retailer versus manufacturer level shocks in determining prices i make use of a large panel data set on prices for a cross section of retailers in the u s i analyze prices at the barcode or universal product code upc level for individual stores i find that only 16 of the variation in prices is common across stores selling an identical product 65 of the price variation is common to stores within a particular retail chain but not across retail chains while 17 is completely idiosyncratic to the store and product product categories with frequent temporary sales exhibit a disproportionate amount of completely idiosyncratic price variation my results suggest that most of the observed price variation arises from retail level rather than manufacturer level demand and supply shocks however the behavior of prices is difficult to relate to observed variation in costs and demand at the retail level this suggests that retail prices may vary largely as a consequence of dynamic pricing strategies on the part of retailers or manufacturers rather than static demand and supply shocks this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

policy based reserves for power systems this paper introduces the concept of affine reserve policies for accommodating large fluctuating renewable in feeds in power systems the approach uses robust optimization with recourse to determine operating rules for power system entities such as generators and storage units these rules or policies establish several hours in advance how these entities are to respond to errors in the prediction of loads and renewable infeeds once their values are discovered affine policies consist of a nominal power schedule plus a series of planned linear modifications that depend on the prediction errors that will become known at future times we describe how to choose optimal affine policies that respect the power network constraints namely matching supply and demand respecting transmission line ratings and the local operating limits of power system entities for all realizations of the prediction errors crucially these policies are time coupled exploiting the spatial and temporal correlation of these prediction errors affine policies are compared with existing reserve operation under standard modeling assumptions and operating cost reductions are reported for a multi day benchmark study featuring a poorly predicted wind infeed efficient prices for such policy based reserves are derived and we propose new reserve products that could be traded on electricity markets

a dynamic capabilities based entrepreneurial theory of the multinational enterprise this paper develops a dynamic capabilities based theory of the multinational enterprise mne it first reviews scholarship on the mne with a focus on what has come to be known as internalization theory one prong of this theory develops contractual transaction cost informed governance perspectives and another develops technology transfer and capabilities perspectives in this paper it is suggested that the latter has been somewhat neglected however if fully integrated as part of a more complete approach it can buttress transaction cost governance issues and expand the range of phenomena that can be explained in this more integrated framework dynamic capabilities coupled with good strategy are seen as necessary to sustain superior enterprise performance especially in fast moving global environments entrepreneurial management and transformational leadership are incorporated into a capabilities theory of the mne the framework is then used to explain how strategy and dynamic capabilities together determine firm level sustained competitive advantage in global environments it is suggested that this framework complements contract based perspectives on the mne and can help integrate international management and international business perspectives

comprehensive value assessment of wind power by layer great emphasis has been placed on rational value assessment of wind power in system in recent times because there are different properties in various output levels of wind power there should also be different values this paper proposes a novel method for value assessment of wind power to get a more comprehensive and accurate evaluation wind power outputs are divided horizontally based on the wind layer model then comprehensive studies of cost and benefit are conducted layer by layer furthermore the detailed characteristics in layers storage benefit and value allocation are analyzed after that the sensitivities about the chosen system parameters region size and demand side participation are discussed at length the effectiveness and rationality of the model are proved by the case study the model assesses the value of wind power more precisely and profoundly which would provide significant guidance in the setting of price policy for wind power and market supervision

the incentive to invest in thermal plants in the presence of wind generation abstract in a deregulated market the decision to add generation rests with private investors this paper evaluates how generator profits are affected by increasing wind generation using hourly historical data for the irish single electricity market we simulate new series of electricity prices representative plant bids and wind generation we calibrate the model based on the negative correlation between electricity prices and wind generation this allows us to determine that increasing wind generation induces lower profits for all baseload plants additionally it decreases profits for baseload natural gas plants more than for less flexible coal fuelled plants which might encourage investment in less flexible plants

on generation integrated energy storage generation integrated energy storage gies systems store energy at some point along the transformation between the primary energy form and electricity instances exist already in natural hydro power biomass generation wave power and concentrated solar power gies systems have been proposed for wind nuclear power and they arise naturally in photocatalysis systems that are in development gies systems can compare very favourably in both performance and total cost against equivalent non integrated systems comprising both generation and storage despite this they have not hitherto been recognised as a discrete class of systems consequently policy decisions affecting development or demonstration projects and policy approaches concerning low carbon generation are not fully informed this paper highlights that policy structures exist militating against the development and introduction of gies systems probably to the detriment of overall system good

is the international business research agenda running out of steam this research note challenges international business researchers to think of their future work in terms of the past achievements of their discipline it identifies three key research areas corresponding to attempts to tackle crucial empirical questions the explanation of foreign direct investment the multinational firm and the globalization of business it ends by considering the future research agenda

merit order effects of renewable energy and price divergence in california s day ahead and real time electricity markets abstract we answer two policy questions 1 what are the estimated merit order effects of renewable energy in the california independent system operator s caiso s day ahead market dam and real time market rtm and 2 what causes the hourly dam and rtm prices to systematically diverge the first question is timely and relevant because if the merit order effect estimates are small california s renewable energy development is of limited help in cutting electricity consumers bills but also has a lesser adverse impact on the state s investment incentive for natural gas fired generation the second question is related to the efficient market hypothesis under which the hourly rtm and dam prices tend to converge using a sample of about 21 000 hourly observations of caiso market prices and their fundamental drivers during 12 12 2012 04 30 2015 we document statistically significant estimates p value 0 01 for the dam and rtm merit order effects this finding lends support to california s adopted procurement process to provide sufficient investment incentives for natural gas fired generation we document that the rtm dam price divergence partly depends on the casio s day ahead forecast errors for system loads and renewable energy this finding suggests that improving the performance of the caiso s day ahead forecasts can enhance trading efficiency in california s dam and rtm electricity markets

qualitative research for international business qualitative research in international business has been rare the main research streams of the field relying more on quantitative methods this paper first outlines why qualitative research has been scant it then presents areas such as theory building where qualitative research could make a substantial contribution third it reviews approaches to high standards of qualitative research and criteria for evaluating qualitative research finally some possible research areas where qualitative research might prove fruitful are suggested

from the editors conducting high impact international business research the role of theory this editorial identifies a number of potential theory related weaknesses in manuscripts some more general in nature others specific to international business ib research it provides a brief critique and suggestions on how to overcome common problems in motivating research framing contributions reviewing literature benefiting from the review process and other issues of conceptual development it also addresses questions particularly critical to ib research including multidisciplinarity utilizing international context and enhancing theoretical impact we conclude with specific guidelines on how to emphasize theory thereby enhancing contribution and impact in crafting and revising submissions to jibs

what drives renewable energy development abstract this viewpoint reviews renewable energy development in 14 markets that differ in market structure restructured vs not restructured use of feed in tariff fit yes vs no transmission planning anticipatory vs reactive and transmission interconnection cost allocated to a renewable generator high vs low we find that market restructuring is not a primary driver of renewable energy development renewable generation has the highest percent of total installed capacity in markets that use a fit employ anticipatory transmission planning and have loads or end users paying for most if not all of the transmission interconnection costs in contrast renewable developers have been less successful in markets that do not use a fit employ reactive transmission planning and have generators paying for most if not all of the transmission interconnection costs while these policies can lead to higher penetration of renewable energy in the short run their high cost to ratepayers can threaten the economic sustainability of renewable energy in the long run

electricity market design for generator revenue sufficiency with increased variable generation we present a computationally efficient mixed integer program mip that determines optimal generator expansion decisions and hourly unit commitment and dispatch in a power system the impact of increasing wind power capacity on the optimal generation mix and generator profitability is analyzed for a test case that approximates the electricity market in texas ercot we analyze three market policies that may support resource adequacy operating reserve demand curves ordc fixed reserve scarcity prices frsp and fixed capacity payments cp optimal expansion plans are comparable between the ordc and frsp implementations while capacity payments may result in additional new capacity the frsp policy leads to frequent reserves scarcity events and corresponding price spikes while the ordc implementation results in more continuous energy prices average energy prices decrease with increasing wind penetration under all policies as do revenues for baseload and wind generators intermediate and peak load plants benefit from higher reserve prices and are less exposed to reduced energy prices all else equal an ordc approach may be preferred to frsp as it results in similar expansion and revenues with less extreme energy prices a fixed cp leads to additional new flexible ngct units but lower profits for other technologies

the timing of sales this paper presents a model of intertemporal price discrimination a fixed number of sellers produce a homogeneous good consumers with different preferences enter the market in each period and leave when they make a purchase the sellers typically vary their prices over time charging a high price in most periods but occasionally cutting the price to sell to a large group of customers with a low reservation price in some equilibria all stores lower their price at the same time and to the same level

from the editors explaining theoretical relationships in international business research focusing on the arrows not the boxes distinctive features of articles accepted by the journal of international business studies are that they are multidisciplinary in scope and interdisciplinary in content and methodology and they make a substantial theoretical contribution to international business studies failure to meet this last requirement is an often cited reason given by reviewers for article rejection sometimes reviewers mean that a manuscript does not conform to the dominant paradigm in that it is not the next logical step in the study of a phenomenon or they mean that there is little if any integration of several theories used to explain a phenomenon however perhaps the most common underlying meaning when reviewers cite lack of a theoretical contribution for rejection is that the nature of the relationships proposed is not well explained while the first two meanings may be influenced by the specific discipline or methodology involved this final one is not in this editorial we provide a set of guidelines that authors can use to ensure that their paper meets the standard of explaining the logic of the relationships they propose

texas s operating reserve demand curve s generation investment incentive abstract faced with reserve margin projections well below the adopted target of 13 75 of the system peak forecast the public utility commission of texas on 01 17 2019 ordered the state s grid operator the electric reliability council of texas to right shift the operating reserve demand curve ordc to increase generators revenue from energy sales in ercot s real time market rtm using a large sample of 15 min data for the backcast period of 01 01 2015 through 12 31 2018 we calculate the ordc shift s impact on rtm prices and investment incentives for natural gas fired generation ngfg had the ordc shift been in effect in the backcast period the resulting rtm price increases in 2018 could suffice to justify ngfg investment though not in the prior years of 2015 2016 and 2017 while the actual ordc shift occurred on 03 01 2019 had a large impact on rtm prices in the ensuing six month period of march august 2019 texas s planned renewable generation is expected to erode ngfg s operating profit thus diminishing the ordc s investment incentive over time hence texas s energy only market design will likely need further refinements to solve the missing money problem of inadequate ngfg investment incentive

a microfoundations approach to transnational capabilities the role of knowledge search in an ever changing world scholars seeking to understand the origin of dynamic capabilities have struggled to articulate specific capabilities and locate their source of variation within the firm we propose that the transnational imperative and a microfoundations approach to knowledge search can help to develop this topic adopting an engaged scholarship approach hypotheses are tested in a global consulting company counter to traditional capabilities arguments we find that drawing from globally dispersed colleagues will more strongly impact local responsiveness than drawing from locals outside the company though both may still be needed efficiency increases when teams draw upon codified knowledge but decreases when they draw upon embedded tacit knowledge finally through continual learning teams can change and re direct the composition of their responsiveness and efficiency activities in ways sensitive to an ever changing world

bridging history and reductionism a key role for longitudinal qualitative research longitudinal qualitative research combining grounded theorizing and insights from modern historical methods can generate novel conceptual frameworks that establish theoretical bridges between historical narratives and reductionist quantitative models to capitalize fully on this potential theory bridging role qualitative scholars should seek to study social systems characterized by complexity and nonlinear causation effectively serving this theory bridging role provides a basis for securing a distinctive place for qualitative research in the social sciences in general and for international business research in particular

how to deal with negative power price spikes flexible voluntary curtailment agreements for large scale integration of wind for the large scale integration of electricity from renewable energy sources res e the german system seems to reach its limits in 2009 the electricity wholesale market experienced serious negative prices at times of high wind and low demand the feed in system in germany consists of a fixed feed in price a take off obligation and a res priority rule and in practice only very restrictive use of res e curtailment exactly the latter is the problem we argue that the overall performance of the system would improve seriously by lifting the restrictions on the use of voluntary curtailment agreements while retaining the priority rule as such since generators of res e can only improve under this system reform investment conditions improve leading to higher installed res e capacity this in turn implies that reduced wind output due to curtailment can actually be offset by higher wind output in all periods in which there is no problem

from a distance and generalizable to up close and grounded reclaiming a place for qualitative methods in international business research journal of international business studies 2011 42 573 581 doi 10 1057 jibs 2011 19 it is exhilarating to write the introduction to this special issue as it presents an important opportunity for qualitative research to reclaim its position as an integral part of international business ib research the field of ib was founded on a rich qualitative research legacy e g bartlett 1979 crozier 1965 fayerweather 1969 johanson vahlne 1977 kindleberger 1956 prahalad 1975 wilkins 1970 1974 over time however such methods have been progressively marginalized in our field as quantitative methods have become the norm this shift in emphasis has mirrored the broader trend toward more positivistic empirical methods in the social sciences the field of ib is multidisciplinary in scope and interdisciplinary in content and methodology statement of jibs editorial policy however as our respective home disciplines came under growing pressure to solidify their legitimacy as scientific endeavors that merit scholarly attention it is not surprising that we began to take on the norms propagated within our own academic communities that typically equated quantitative data with hard science while there are clear merits associated with quantitative methods the multi cultural multi dimensional and dynamic nature of the field of ib lends itself to a broad range of research methodologies qualitative methods being one of them in order to understand the complexities of emergent and evolving phenomena scattered over distance and the differentiated contexts typical to many topics under investigation in ib it is often inappropriate to engage in large scale cross sectional studies or reductionist methods in the absence of well developed theory rather thick description exploratory research and comparative case analysis that focus on inductive theory building and hypotheses generation may be more suitable

a structural approach to identifying the sources of local currency price stability the inertia of the local currency prices of traded goods in the face of exchange rate changes is a well documented phenomenon in international economics this paper develops a structural model to identify the sources of this local currency price stability and applies it to micro data from the beer market the empirical procedure exploits manufacturers and retailers first order conditions in conjunction with detailed information on the frequency of price adjustments following exchange rate changes to quantify the relative importance of local non traded cost components markup adjustment by manufacturers and retailers and nominal price rigidities in the incomplete transmission of such changes to prices we find that on average approximately 60 of the incomplete exchange rate pass through is due to local non traded costs 8 to markup adjustment 30 to the existence of own brand price adjustment costs and 1 to the indirect strategic effect of such costs though these results vary considerably across individual brands according to their market shares

a dynamic oligopoly game with lags in demand more on the monotonicity of price in the number of sellers this paper explores a game theoretic model of oligopoly the game is played by sellers of a single product in each discrete time period each seller sets a single price for his output and satisfies all demand at that price his costs are assumed to be zero each seller s demand is the sum of two parts a monopolistic part that is unaffected by other sellers prices and a competitive part that is positive only for the low price setter so far the model is just a repeated version of the game in rosenthal 1980 the added feature of this paper is that competitive demand at any time depends not only on this period s low price but also on last period s low price this feature introduces a dynamic aspect to the situation monopolistic demand on the other hand is assumed to be the same function at every time for every seller although the buyers are not modeled as players in the game the kind of competitive demand behavior mentioned above might result for example from a stationary overlapping generations model in which consumers live for two periods and can purchase their second period consumption in either period if on the basis of currently available information a lower price could be forecast for the next period some delay in the purchase decisions of the young and hence a functional form of the type specified might be expected it turns out that if competitive demand is monotone nondecreasing in previous period price then the process of low prices produced by the equilibrium of primary interest in this paper is a stationary ergodic markov process that has the property that the conditional expectation of low price at time t given low price at t 1 is a nonincreasing function of low price at t1 hence a decision to delay increasing quantities of purchases the higher the price in the current period can be justified on average by correspondingly lower prices in the succeeding period the economic environment is assumed to be deterministic and known with certainty by the sellers the only sources of randomness are then the decisions of the sellers notice that if there were no monopoly demand competition bertrand among the sellers would drive the price in every period to zero the presence of monopoly demand as in the static model in rosenthal 1980 leads to randomized decisions at least at the principal equilibrium here and therefore

electricity market design for facilitating the integration of wind energy experience and prospects with the australian national electricity market abstract australia has been an early and enthusiastic adopter of both electricity industry restructuring and market based environmental regulation the australian national electricity market nem was established in 1999 and australia also implemented one of the world s first renewable energy target schemes in 2001 with significant recent growth in wind generation australia provides an interesting case for assessing different approaches to facilitating wind integration into the electricity industry wind project developers in australia must assess both potential energy market and tradeable green certificate income streams when making investments wind farm energy income depends on the match of its uncertain time varying output with the regional half hourly market price a price that exhibits daily weekly and seasonal patterns and considerable uncertainty such price signals assist in driving investments that maximize project value to the electricity industry as a whole including integration costs and benefits for other participants recent nem rule changes will formally integrate wind generation in the market s scheduling processes while a centralized wind forecasting system has also been introduced this paper outlines experience to date with wind integration in the nem describes the evolution of market rules in response and assesses their possible implications for facilitating high future wind penetrations

storable good monopoly the role of commitment we study dynamic monopoly pricing of storable goods in an environment where demand changes over time the literature on durables has focused on incentives to delay purchases our analysis focuses on a different intertemporal demand incentive for consumers the key force on the consumer side is advance purchases or stockpiling this stockpiling motive can be present in the case of standard durables as well in environments unmodeled in the prior literature we show that if the monopolist cannot commit then prices are higher in all periods and social welfare is lower than in the case in which the monopolist can commit this is in contrast with the durable goods analysis in the literature on the coase conjecture