getting big too fast strategic dynamics with increasing returns and bounded rationality neoclassical models of strategic behavior have yielded many insights into competitive behavior despite the fact that they often rely on a number of assumptions including instantaneous market clearing and perfect foresight that have been called into question by a broad range of research researchers generally argue that these assumptions are good enough to predict an industry s probable equilibria and that disequilibrium adjustments and bounded rationality have limited competitive implications here we focus on the case of strategy in the presence of increasing returns to highlight how relaxing these two assumptions can lead to outcomes quite different from those predicted by standard neoclassical models prior research suggests that in the presence of increasing returns tight appropriability and accommodating rivals in some circumstances early entrants can achieve sustained competitive advantage by pursuing get big fast gbf strategies rapidly expanding capacity and cutting prices to gain market share advantage and exploit positive feedbacks faster than their rivals using a simulation of the duopoly case we show that when the industry moves slowly compared to capacity adjustment delays boundedly rational firms find their way to the equilibria predicted by conventional models however when market dynamics are rapid relative to capacity adjustment forecasting errors lead to excess capacity overwhelming the advantage conferred by increasing returns our results highlight the risks of ignoring the role of disequilibrium dynamics and bounded rationality in shaping competitive outcomes and demonstrate how both can be incorporated into strategic analysis to form a dynamic behavioral game theory amenable to rigorous analysis

wealth and health at the base of the pyramid modelling trade offs and complementarities for fast moving dairy product case abstract this paper models the localized base of the pyramid bop supply and demand chain of a fast moving dairy product within its social and business environment for identifying the effects of various pricing strategies on wealth and health of the poor population of bangladesh the joint venture of the grameen bank and danone gd in bangladesh is a showcase of integrative bop projects it produces fortified yoghurt in a micro plant and distributes it through micro entrepreneurs following a strictly localized approach the objective of this bop project is twofold 1 integrating as many people as possible into productive processes and paying decent prices wages and commissions wealth and 2 regularly serving as many people as possible with fortified yoghurt health by means of dynamic simulation we analyse how volatility in raw material prices affects the economic viability of the business model and hence both objectives the gd case provides the motivation as well as empirical data for the presented research and has been used for model validation additionally we use further literature sources our results show the outstanding importance of sales effectiveness for buffering against negative consumer reaction to sudden price increases sales effectiveness aggregates various performance factors regarding product distribution and perceived product quality and value in this respect awareness raising campaigns by governmental and civil society organizations as well as changes regarding distribution mode and selection of distributors may enhance sales effectiveness

rationality in the analysis of behavioral simulation models an important task in the analysis of a behavioral simulation model is to explain clearly how the model s organizational assumptions lead to its simulated behavior all too often model based arguments involve an uncomfortable leap of logic between equations and consequences this paper proposes two methods of analysis premise description and partial model testing which provide stepping stones between model equations and their simulated consequences premise description examines the bounded rationality of policies or decision functions in the model pointing out the process and cognitive limitations assumed in decisionmaking partial model tests expose the intended rationality of smalt combinations of policies showing that policies produce sensible actions with respect to their premises the application of those methods is illustrated with a simulation model of a sales organization in which sales force productivity is prone to decline the behavior of productivity is traced to dysfunctional interact

the relationship between gdp and electricity consumption in 10 asian countries the purpose of this study is to estimate the relationships between gdp and electricity consumption in 10 newly industrializing and developing asian countries using both single data sets and panel data procedures the empirical results from single data set indicate that the causality directions in the 10 asian countries are mixed while there is a uni directional short run causality running from economic growth to electricity consumption and a bi directional long run causality between electricity consumption and economic growth if the panel data procedure is implemented these empirical findings imply that electricity conservation policies through both rationalizing the electricity supply efficiency improvement to avoid the wastage of electricity and managing demand side to reduce the electricity consumption without affecting the end user benefits could be initiated without adverse effect on economic growth the findings on the long run relationship indicate that a sufficiently large supply of electricity can ensure that a higher level of economic growth

pricing a network good to deter entry of a network good we show that the installed user base of a network good can serve a preemptive function similar to that of an investment in capacity if the entrant s good is incompatible with the incumbent s good and there are network externalities in demand consequently the threat of entry can lead the incumbent to set low prices we identify some factors that should be considered in thinking about the welfare eiects of entry deterrence in this and similar models i introduction both sides in us v microsoft seem to agree that microsoft s pricing of windows does not correspond to short run pro t maximization by a monopolist schmalensee s direct testimony argues that microsoft s low prices are due at least in part to its concern that higher prices would encourage other rms to develop competing operating systems while this idea may seem intuitive it has been seen as controversial by some commentators e g hall and hall 1999 because neither side has proposed a formal model where such limit pricing would make sense in response this paper develops a highly simpli ed model of complete information limit pricing based on the idea that the installed base of a network good can ll a preemptive role similar to that of investment in physical capacity to model the role of the incumbent s installed base we assume that there are overlapping generations of consumers each of whom lives for two periods and purchases only when young we also assume there are only two types of consumers and we further assume that the distribution of values is such that the incumbent s steady state pro t is highest when it

household energy consumption versus income and relative standard of living a panel approach our fundamental premise is that energy consumption at the household level is a key indicator of standard of living we employ state of the art panel cointegration techniques to evaluate the nature of the relationship between income measures and energy consumption measures for seven east indian ocean countries the general finding is that income and household electricity consumption are not cointegrated given this finding we conclude that standard of living measures that rely on income measures and do not include household level energy consumption information will necessarily miss important indications of both levels and changes of standard of living

meat consumption and production analysis of efficiency sufficiency and consistency of global trends abstract the sustainability challenges that the food system is facing are ever increasing the traditional approach to monitoring these changes considers economic societal and environmental sustainability a strong case has been made however that a fourth dimension ethical should also be considered conventionally two main strategies have been used to assess the improvements in sustainability efficiency and sufficiency efficiency is usually linked with technological improvements and sufficiency is connected with a reduction in production or consumption we introduce a third strategy to the analysis namely consistency that is related mainly to the ethical dimension of sustainability trends of the indicators related to the three strategies are calculated on both a global and regional scale from 1962 to 2009 efficiency measured as land requirement for animal products has increased by about 13 percent globally sufficiency measured as the amount of meat consumed has declined by 91 percent and consistency measured as the number of animals slaughtered has declined by 264 percent in addition convergence analysis emphasizes that industrialized and developing countries are moving towards similar patterns of animal products consumption such results suggest that measures should be taken to develop a food system that is not only efficient but also ethically just

the impact of electricity supply on economic growth in sri lanka abstract yang energy econ 22 2000 309 has found a bi directional causal relationship between gross domestic product and electricity consumption in taiwan roc this study applies yang s model to examine the impact of electricity supply on economic growth in sri lanka morimoto and hope an extended cba model of hydro projects in sri lanka 2001 have found that the expected increase in economic output due to increased electricity supply parameter eo plays a crucial role in their cost benefit analysis model this study shows that the application of yang s regression analysis is one possible approach to estimate a better range for the parameter eo the estimated figure is that an extra output of rs 88 000 137 000 us1120 1740 for every 1 mw h increase in electricity supply

determinants of environmental investments testing the structural model abstract the main purpose of this study is to provide the needed additional quantitative evidence regarding the introduction of environmental technologies and to increase the possibility for generalization and thus policy application of conclusions to achieve that purpose a conceptual model is developed and then tested on a large database of firms from various industries with the use of structural equation modeling the results show that policy measures past environmental investments the importance of environmental technologies for customers and the firm performance have a positive effect on environmental investments furthermore the results show that policy measures are a second order three factor construct

investment in lumpy capacity abstract investment in lumpy capacity is usually fraught with uncertainty divergent opinions about the future can then lead to adverse selection optimistic competitions tend to be the ones that expand few firms correct this bias formally they rely instead on payback criteria portfolio planning risk sharing and self restraint

non hbox co _2 co 2 generating energy shares in the world cross country differences and polarization the aim of this paper is to examine the spatial distribution of non hbox co 2 generating energy sources in the world for the period 1990 2009 paying special attention to the evolution of cross country disparities to this end after carrying out a classical convergence analysis a more thorough investigation of the entire distribution is presented by examining its external shape the intra distribution dynamics and the long run equilibrium distribution this analysis reveals the existence of a weak rather insignificant convergence process and that large cross country differences are likely to persist in the long run next as polarization indicators are a proper way of appraising potential conflict in international environmental negotiations we test whether or not the distribution dynamics concurs with the presence of polarization our results indicate that two poles can be clearly differentiated one with high and other with low non hbox co 2 generating energy shares in view of these findings and to ensure a fair transition to a sustainable energy system the paper calls for the development of an ambitious clean energy agenda especially in countries with low non hbox co 2 generating energy shares

learning curve spillovers and market performance this paper examines the effect of learning curve spillovers on market structure and performance we derive a simple characterization of the true marginal cost for a broad class of learning curves and use calculated examples to show that spillovers substantially undercut the barriers to entry erected by proprietary learning unlike the case of cost reducing research and development spillovers also tend to improve market performance the increased efficiency of the industrywide reduction process typically outweighs the decrease in firms incentives to reduce costs by expanding output

opportunities incentives and the collective patterns of technological change in a few pages in the introductory article for this debate vernon ruttan succeeds in the unlikely task of flagging many issues at the core of the economic interpretation of technological change and by doing so he implicitly addresses also a few sensitive spots for the economic discipline at large here i will not attempt to provide any thorough view of what i consider the achievements and limitations of the current state of the art see however freeman i 994 for a critical survey which i largely share rather i shall put forward a series of remarks which hopefully could be seen as part of a much wider and still largely unexplored research programme as a premise just note that some form of attention to technology related phenomena has spread over the last 20 30 years from small enclaves of heterodox economists and economic historians to become an important concern even for quite mainstream theories of e g the firm industrial organisation macroeconomics trade growth etc from patent races all the way to new trade and new growth theories and even real business cycle macro models technical change has drawn a consideration which is less by default than it was say in robert solow s original growth models orjoe bain s barriers to entry views on industrial structures and in parallel empirical studies at the levels of specific technologies firms sectors and countries have boomed for overviews cf dosi i988 nelson i993 freeman i982 i 994 cohen i 995 and granstrand i 994 among others so at least in this sense those decreasing returns to the economics of technical change suggested by ruttan do not seem to have set in however ruttan s paper raises also substantive questions about the relative success of three interpretative perspectives which he calls induced evolutionary and path dependent in the following i shall argue that an evolutionary perspective broadly defined can easily accommodate both inducement effects and path dependent patterns of technical change let me start from what i consider the major building blocks of an

how do value creation and competition determine whether a firm appropriates value how does competition among economic actors determine the value that each is able to appropriate we provide a formal general framework within which this question can be posed and answered and then provide several results chief among them is a condition that is both required for and guarantees value appropriation we apply our methodology to i assess the familiar notion that uniqueness inimitability and competition imply value appropriation and ii determine the value appropriation possibilities for an innovator whose unique discovery is of use to several others who can compete for the right to use it

drift and adjustment in organizational rule compliance explaining the regulatory pendulum in financial markets this article integrates research on rule development compliance and organizational change to model rule development and compliance in organizations using causal loop modeling from system dynamics to articulate explicitly a few key underlying processes we focus on financial markets as a case area suggesting that recurring regulatory problems in financial markets in the united states over the past 60 years although differing in specifics are structurally similar at the heart of the model is the tension between production goals that focus on short term certain salient benefits and required adherence to production constraining rules that attempt to mitigate long term uncertain nonsalient risks it describes systemically how organizations attend to rules depending on the nature of the benefits of production compared with those of rule compliance the model captures the operative mechanisms responsible for the development of pressures for production and for rule compliance in organizations providing a structural explanation both for problem prone organizations characterized by erosion of standards and increased violations and for organizations following rules more reliably drawing on studies of institutional work we conclude by suggesting research on how agency through strategic and tactical choice potentially modifies structure in rule compliance

monopolist pricing with dynamic demand and production cost this paper deals with pricing of a new product over time by a monopolist who maximizes the discounted profit stream the interdependency of cost and demand on cumulative production makes the problem inherently dynamic cost is assumed to be declining with cumulative production learning curve effect while demand is a function of price and cumulative sales representing word of mouth and saturation effects the paper addresses this problem in a general framework that includes several previous results as special cases and provides new insights in other situations while the learning curve and word of mouth effect cause prices to be lower than the price that maximizes immediate revenues the saturation factor has the opposite effect the price path over time is affected by these factors and the interest rate we characterize the price path under several different situations and interpret the results for policy guidelines

electricity consumption and economic growth a time series experience for 17 african countries abstract while the availability of electricity by itself is not a panacea for the economic and social problems facing africa the supply of electricity is nevertheless believed to be a necessary requirement for africa s economic and social development this paper tests the long run and causal relationship between electricity consumption per capita and real gross domestic product gdp per capita for 17 african countries for the period 1971 2001 using a newly developed cointegration test proposed by pesaran et al 2001 and using a modified version of the granger causality test due to toda and yamamoto 1995 the advantage of using these two approaches is that they both avoid the pre testing bias associated with conventional unit root and cointegration tests the empirical evidence shows that there was a long run relationship between electricity consumption per capita and real gdp per capita for only 9 countries and granger causality for only 12 countries for 6 countries there was a positive uni directional causality running from real gdp per capita to electricity consumption per capita an opposite causality for 3 countries and bi directional causality for the remaining 3 countries the result should however be interpreted with care as electricity consumption accounts for less than 4 of total energy consumption in africa and only grid supplied electricity is taken into account

electricity consumption and economic growth in china abstract this paper applies the error correction model to examine the causal relationship between electricity consumption and real gdp for china during 1971 2000 our estimation results indicate that real gdp and electricity consumption for china are cointegrated and there is unidirectional granger causality running from electricity consumption to real gdp but not vice versa in order to overcome the constraints on electricity consumption the chinese government has to speed up the nation wide interconnection of power networks to upgrade urban and rural distribution grids and to accelerate rural electrification

complementary credit networks and macroeconomic stability switzerland s wirtschaftsring abstract the swiss wirtschaftsring economic circle credit network founded in 1934 provides residual spending power that is highly counter cyclical individuals are cash short in a recession and economize by greater use of wir credits a money in the production function mipf specification implies that transactions in wir form a stabilizing balance that makes up for the lack of ordinary currency thus unlike the ordinary money wir money is negatively correlated with gdp in the short run this implication is confirmed by empirical estimates such credit networks play a stabilizing role that should be considered in monetary policy

a note on the causal relationship between energy and gdp in taiwan abstract this paper re examines the causality between energy consumption and gdp by using updated taiwan data for the period 1954 1997 as a secondary contribution we investigate the causal relationship between gdp and the aggregate as well as several disaggregate categories of energy consumption including coal oil natural gas and electricity applying granger s technique we find bidirectional causality between total energy consumption and gdp we find further that different directions of cause exist between gdp and various kinds of energy consumption

is there convergence in per capita renewable energy consumption across u s states evidence from lm and rals lm unit root tests with breaks abstract given the federal and state policy initiatives to curb fossil fuel consumption and expand the use of renewable energy sources in the u s this study investigates the convergence properties of per capita renewable energy consumption across u s states including the district of columbia in addition to cross sectional tests of and convergence our study employs lm and rals lm unit root tests with endogenously determined structural breaks to test for stochastic convergence traditional cross sectional tests indicate that both and convergence of per capita renewable energy consumption exists across u s states moreover our results also provides clear support for stochastic convergence of per capita renewable energy consumption for a majority of u s states including the district of columbia once allowance is made for structural breaks

information distortion in a supply chain the bullwhip effect this article originally appeared in management science april 1997 volume 43 number 4 pp 546 558 published by the institute of management sciences consider a series of companies in a supply chain each of whom orders from its immediate upstream member in this setting inbound orders from a downstream member serve as a valuable informational input to upstream production and inventory decisions this paper claims that the information transferred in the form of orders tends to be distorted and can misguide upstream members in their inventory and production decisions in particular the variance of orders may be larger than that of sales and distortion tends to increase as one moves upstream a phenomenon termed bullwhip effect this paper analyzes four sources of the bullwhip effect demand signal processing rationing game order batching and price variations actions that can be taken to mitigate the detrimental impact of this distortion are also discussed

disaggregated industrial energy consumption and gdp the case of shanghai 1952 1999 abstract this paper investigates the causal relationship between various kinds of industrial energy consumption and gdp in shanghai for the period 1952 1999 using a modified version of the granger 1969 causality test proposed by toda and yamamoto j econ 66 1995 225 the empirical evidence from disaggregated energy series seems to suggest that there was a uni directional granger causality running from coal coke electricity and total energy consumption to real gdp but no granger causality running in any direction between oil consumption and real gdp

convergence in energy consumption per capita among asean countries abstract we test for convergence in energy consumption per capita among asean countries over the period 1971 to 2011 using the panel kpss stationarity test and panel lagrange multiplier lm unit root test the results for the panel stationarity and unit root tests with structural breaks find support for energy convergence in asean

electricity consumption in g7 countries a panel cointegration analysis of residential demand elasticities this article applies recently developed panel unit root and panel cointegration techniques to estimate the long run and short run income and price elasticities for residential demand for electricity in g7 countries the panel results indicate that in the long run residential demand for electricity is price elastic and income inelastic the study concludes that from an environmental perspective there is potential to use pricing policies in the g7 countries to curtail residential electricity demand and thus curb carbon emissions in the long run

cointegration and causality between electricity consumption and gdp empirical evidence from malawi abstract the granger causality gc and error correction ecm techniques were applied on 1970 1999 data for malawi to examine cointegration and causality between electricity consumption kwh and respectively overall gdp agricultural gdp agdp and non agricultural gdp ngdp cointegration was established between kwh and respectively gdp and ngdp but not with agdp the gc results detect bi directional causality between kwh and gdp suggesting that kwh and gdp are jointly determined but one way causality running from ngdp to kwh the ecm results detect causality running one way from gdp also from ngdp to kwh suggesting that a permanent rise in gdp may cause a permanent growth in electricity consumption

the causal relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth in the asean countries abstract this paper investigates the causal relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth among the association of south east asian nations asean 4 members namely indonesia malaysia singapore and thailand using modern time series techniques for the period 1971 2002 the results indicate that there is a bi directional causality between electricity consumption and economic growth in malaysia and singapore this means that an increase in electricity consumption directly affects economic growth and that economic growth also stimulates further electricity consumption in the two countries however uni directional causality runs from economic growth to electricity consumption in indonesia and thailand without any feedback effect thus electricity conservation policies can be initiated without deteriorating economic side effects in the two countries

electricity consumption and economic growth evidence from korea abstract this paper investigates the short and long run causality issues between electricity consumption and economic growth in korea by using the co integration and error correction models it employs annual data covering the period 1970 2002 the overall results show that there exists bi directional causality between electricity consumption and economic growth this means that an increase in electricity consumption directly affects economic growth and that economic growth also stimulates further electricity consumption

the learning curve and pricing in the chemical processing industries data on 37 chemical products are used to test a number of hypotheses about the learning curve and industrial price behavior the results document a strong and consistent learning effect learning is found to be a function of cumulated industry output and cumulated investment rather than calendar time standard economies of scale appear significant but small in magnitude relative to the learning effect variations in the slope of the learning curve are linked to differences in r d expenditures and capital intensity market concentration is found to be a strong influence on price flexibility and the timing of learningrelated price changes

the evolution of new industries and the determinants of market structure several empirical regularities concerning firm growth rates and industry firm size distributions have been developed by studying primarily mature industries the primary purpose of this article is to bring together and extend empirical regularities on the evolution of new industries and to use these regularities to gain further insight into the forces governing industry evolution to explain these regularities a model is constructed which emphasizes how factors governing the early evolution of industries may shape their market structure at maturity it stresses how chance events and exogenous factors that influence the number of potential entrants to the industry the growth rate of incumbents and the ease of imitation of industry leaders will influence the ultimate number and size distribution of firms in the industry

two sided network effects a theory of information product design how can firms profitably give away free products this paper provides a novel answer and articulates trade offs in a space of information product design we introduce a formal model of two sided network externalities based in textbook economics a mix of katz and shapiro network effects price discrimination and product differentiation externality based complements however exploit a different mechanism than either tying or lock in even as they help to explain many recent strategies such as those of firms selling operating systems internet browsers games music and video the model presented here argues for three simple but useful results first even in the absence of competition a firm can rationally invest in a product it intends to give away into perpetuity second we identify distinct markets for content providers and end consumers and show that either can be a candidate for a free good third product coupling across markets can increase consumer welfare even as it increases firm profits the model also generates testable hypotheses on the size and direction of network effects while offering insights to regulators seeking to apply antitrust law to network markets

electricity consumption and economic growth in india abstract this paper tries to examine the granger causality between electricity consumption per capita and gross domestic product gdp per capita for india using annual data covering the period 1950 51 to 1996 97 phillips perron tests reveal that both the series after logarithmic transformation are non stationary and individually integrated of order one this study finds the absence of long run equilibrium relationship among the variables but there exists unidirectional granger causality running from economic growth to electricity consumption without any feedback effect so electricity conservation policies can be initiated without deteriorating economic side effects

the world per capita electricity consumption distribution signs of convergence abstract considering residential per capita electricity consumption as one of the most suitable economic welfare indicators the aim of this paper is to explore worldwide differences on this variable over the period 1980 2007 the paper adds to the standard practice of and convergence analysis by tracking the external shape and time evolution of the entire distribution applying nonparametric techniques density functions and stochastic kernels to a sample of 98 countries the main finding is that a weak process of electricity consumption convergence has taken place this reduction of disparities is clearly related to at least three issues firstly the rapid economic changes experienced by some developing countries secondly the energy conservation policies implemented by most developed countries following the first oil shock and thirdly the growing awareness on energy issues in rich countries notwithstanding this the ergodic distribution on per capita electricity consumption indicates that large cross country disparities will persist in the long run

systems competition and network effects this paper discusses firm behavior market performance and the public and private institutions that arise in systems markets i e markets where consumers use compatible components together to generate benefits in such markets which include communications networks and hardware software networks popular products are inherently more valuable these network effects can drive corporate strategies and are critical in understanding innovation in many high technology markets the discussion here emphasizes the dynamics of consumer adoption decisions in the presence of network effects competition between incompatible systems and how suppliers choose which components are compatible and which are not

early employment expansion and long run survival examining employee turnover as a context factor abstract we investigate under which circumstances early employment growth translates into greater long run survival drawing on penrose s growth theory we suggest that the relationship between early employment growth and long run survival is conditional on employee turnover we argue that higher employee turnover reduces joint experience in the firm and disrupts the development and eventual exploitation of the firm s productive opportunity set thereby reducing long term utilization of early employment expansion these arguments suggest that the firm s ability to realize long term benefits of early employment growth is contingent upon low employee turnover following this initial expansion using the danish integrated database for labor market research we show that only when employee turnover is low will early employment growth lead to higher survival in the long run

use of coupled incentives to improve adoption of environmentally friendly technologies abstract we devise a system of coupled incentives that stimulate economic agents to coordinate their actions the agents are price takers and their actions would be independent of one another uncoupled if incentives were not implemented the action coordination is expected to help a technology transition from the current one to a modern one the latter is assumed more environmentally friendly than the former with the incentives in place the problem becomes one of a principal multi agent game in the game the principal chooses instruments sufficient to generate an environmentally friendly agent reaction we define a specific coupled incentive scheme cis in which individual agents are rewarded for their joint actions effect rather than for their own actions accomplishments we show that a technology switch can be realised through cis for a budget for which no technology change would be achieved if only individual agent actions were compensated we show under which conditions the agents game has a unique solution and what the principal s choices are for the solution s implementation

optimal incentives for teams much of the existing theory of incentives describes a static relationship that lasts for just one transaction this static assumption is not only unrealistic but the resulting predictions appear to be at odds with many work organizations the current paper introduces possible long term interaction among agents and studies how the design of explicit incentives and work organizations can exploit and interact with the implicit incentives generated by the repeated interaction of the agents the optimal incentive scheme is shown to display observed features of the increasingly popular teams such as the use of low powered group incentives