meta paradigm change and the theory of the firm many seemingly unrelated debates on the theory of the firm are in fact part of a single deeper transformation of the social sciences as the foundational assumptions of 20th century social science have slowly been shown by science to be false new sub paradigms have emerged which cumulatively drop i theoretical assumptions about markets to explain firms ii epistemological assumptions about knowledge to explain diversity and iii metaphysical assumptions about causality to explain technical change debates occur across each of these levels

fidelity networks and long run trends in hiv aids gender gaps more than half of the hiv aids infected population today are women we study a dynamic model of in fidelity which explains the hiv aids gender gap by the configuration of sexual networks each individual desires sexual relationships with opposite sex individuals two markov matching processes are defined each corresponding to a different culture of gender relations the first process leads to egalitarian pairwise stable networks in the long run and hiv aids is equally prevalent among men and women the second process leads to anti egalitarian pairwise stable networks reflecting male domination and women bear a greater burden the results are consistent with empirical observations

preconditions windows of opportunity and innovation strategies successive leadership changes in the regional jet industry abstract we analyse the drivers of two successive leadership changes in the regional or mid sized jet market a particularly dynamic segment of the commercial aircraft industry in the first instance bombardier a canadian newcomer assumed leadership over the incumbents bae and fokker in 1995 in 2005 the brazilian firm embraer became the market leader in terms of number of regional jet deliveries our theoretical framework considers discontinuities in the building blocks of sectoral innovation systems as windows of opportunity for which challenger firms can devise strategic responses allowing them to assume market leadership it also considers preconditions as necessary capabilities limiting the number of potential challenger companies the analysis of leadership change shows that more efficient engines and technological improvements in subsystems changing oil prices business cycles liberalization of air transport services scope clauses and government interventions provided technological demand and regulatory windows of opportunity launching new aircraft families an architectural innovation targeting the 50 and the 100 120 seat niche markets gave first bombardier s crj family and later embraer s e jet family the leadership the fate of failed challengers and incumbents point to the importance of incumbent traps technological and financial capabilities the timing of windows of opportunity speedy strategic response a proper evaluation of future demand and sheer luck as long lead times and sunk costs entrap incumbents and other inadequately responding companies

understanding corporate coherence theory and evidence abstract multiproduct firms are perceived to be coherent in their scope yet there is no strong theoretical foundations to explain coherence in modern industrial organization theory this paper shows that as u s manufacturing firms grow more diverse they maintain a constant level of coherence between neighboring activities this finding runs counter to the idea that firms with many activities are generally more incoherent a framework is then presented which appeals to the nature of enterprise learning path dependencies and the nature of the selection environment to explain the ubiquity of coherent diversifiers

gender differences in the allocation of assets in retirement savings plans in 1995 40 percent of working men and 32 percent of working women were covered by a defined contribution dc plan a distinguishing characteristic of these plans is that workers can generally choose how their assets are invested using data from the 1992 and 1995 surveys of consumer finances scf this paper examines whether workers differ systematically by gender in the allocation of assets in dc plans previous researchers have reported that many workers tend to invest their retirement assets too conservatively and in particular that women are less likely than men to invest in risky assets such as stocks in the presence of an equity premium a lower propensity by women to invest in stocks could translate into large differences in the accumulation of financial wealth for retirement we establish that gender differences in investment decisions exist though they are more complicated than previous studies have suggested we show that these differences are not completely explained by differences in individual or household characteristics a few studies have examined gender differences in investment decisions vickie l bajtelsmit and jack l vanderhei 1997 richard p hinz et al 1997 these studies use administrative data and report that women tend to invest their retirement funds in less risky vehicles than men michael haliassos and carol c bertaut 1995 use the 1983 scf to examine why such a large fraction of households do not own any stock they report that gender does not have a significant effect on the probability of owning stock though gender differences are not the focus of their paper what these data sources lack haliassos and bertaut being the exception is a rich set of demographic and other variables on households that theory predicts should affect investment behavior this paper adds to the literature by examining gender differences in investment decisions conditioning on such variables the results highlight the importance of including marital status risk aversion measures and the portfolio of assets held outside dc plans when examining gender differences in investment decisions in these plans

marriage and managers attitudes to risk marital status can both reflect and affect individual preferences we explore the impact of marriage on corporate chief executive officers ceos and find that firms run by single ceos exhibit higher stock return volatility pursue more aggressive investment policies and do not respond to changes in idiosyncratic risk these effects are weaker for older ceos our findings continue to hold when we use variation in divorce laws across states to instrument for ceo marital status which supports the hypothesis that marriage itself drives choices rather than it just reflecting innate heterogeneity in preferences we explore various potential explanations for why single ceos may be less risk averse data as supplemental material are available at http dx doi org 10 1287 mnsc 2014 1926 this paper was accepted by wei jiang finance

technology capital spending and capacity utilization i introduction capacity utilization is a variable of longstanding macroeconomic interest many studies have found it to be a valuable indicator of inflationary pressure for example cecchetti 1995 finds that capacity utilization works as well as or better than other variables in predicting inflation over the next year or two similarly in models of the level of resource utilization above which inflation accelerates the utilization rate does as well as and sometimes better than the unemployment rate in predicting this level 1 this predictive value may reflect capacity utilization s ability to do double duty picking up the extent of slack in both labor and product markets corrado and mattey 1997 however in recent years the capacity utilization and unemployment rates have at times provided different signals about the degree of tightness in resource markets notably in the late 1990s the decline in the unemployment rate below 4 suggested a relatively tight labor market but the capacity utilization rate remained unexpectedly flat figure 1 part of this divergence may be due to effects of technology on capacity utilization as the 1990s saw both an investment boom that broadly increased manufacturing capacity and a shift in the composition of capacity toward high tech machinery and equipment in the 1940s and 1950s manufacturing methods typically involved assembly line production with large scale fixed units of machinery and equipment figure 1 omitted relationships between inputs and outputs were relatively fixed and adjustments in capacity were both costly and slow modern manufacturing methods however build considerable flexibility into the management of capacity technologies like numerically controlled machines programmable controllers and modular assembly make it easier to adjust the level and composition of output at the same time the use of automated design and modular tooling lowers the cost and time needed to expand capacity while the use of advanced technologies is far from universal it is increasingly widespread for example about three quarters of plants in equipment producing industries used at least one advanced technology in 1993 about 30 used five or more 2 with the investment boom that took place in the second part of the 1990s these shares are likely higher now conceptually how these advances in technology would affect capacity utilization is not clear a priori on the one hand flexible manufacturing makes it easier to ramp production up and down this may encourage firms to install a broader margin of excess capacity that is to operate at lower average utilization in order to be able to handle upswings in demand such a strategy would be favored by declining prices of high tech capital which make excess capacity cheap on the other hand automated design and modular tooling make it faster and cheaper for firms to expand capacity this may permit them to reduce the amount of excess capacity they maintain and to operate at higher utilization on average with these two offsetting forces at work determining how advances in technology affect capacity utilization at industry levels is ultimately an empirical question this paper investigates the relationship between capacity utilization and high tech investment for u s manufacturing the next section discusses conceptual considerations in the relationship between technological change capital spending and capacity utilization we show how technological change may lead either to lower average utilization by making it cheaper to hold excess capacity or to higher utilization by making further changes in capacity less costly and time consuming the third section discusses the data and specification used for our study the extent of investment in high tech machinery and equipment has varied importantly across industries and over time thus we use data on 111 manufacturing industries from 1974 to 2000 and panel data techniques to investigate effects of technology on utilization

the innovation potential of new infrastructure development an empirical study of heathrow airport s t5 project abstract we propose a conceptual framework to analyze technology adoption in mega infrastructure projects and assess their potential to innovating large socio technical systems drawing on an in depth empirical analysis of heathrow airport s terminal 5 project we find that innovation hinges on technology adoption decisions that are governed systematically by two intertwined determinants assessment of expected profitability and development of absorptive capacity both of which are distributed across various interdependent actors on an ad hoc basis technological decisions are also affected by other factors namely attitudes toward risk politics and lack of established standards we reveal how a schedule driven project framing creates an underlying boundary condition that constrains the longitudinal process of building a whole collective with capacity to absorb new technologies the innovation potential of mega projects is thus subjected to a fundamental unifying tension on the one hand they offer a one off opportunity to invest in cutting edge technologies and innovate socio technical systems on the other hand project stakeholders have limited time to develop capacity to absorb novel technologies and negotiate differences on assessments of profitability and risk stakeholders may therefore be compelled to agree to adopt proven technologies upfront to reduce uncertainty and mitigate risks thus limiting the innovation potential of new infrastructure development

are women more risk averse we find that single women exhibit relatively more risk aversion in financial decision making than single men using u s sample data we examine household holdings of risky assets to determine whether there are gender differences in financial risk taking as wealth increases the proportion of wealth held as risky assets is estimated to increase by a smaller amount for single women than for single men gender differences in financial risk taking are also influenced by age race and number of children greater financial risk aversion may provide an explanation for women s lower levels of wealth compared with men s jel j16 d81 g11

gender differentiation in risk taking behavior on the relative risk aversion of single men and single women we relate an observed difference between single men sm and single women sw in attitudes towards risk to the higher value assigned to social status by sm than by sw in the marriage market low status carries a harsher penalty for sm than for sw because when selecting a partner the social status of a man is more important to a woman than the social status of a woman is to a man correlating social status with relative wealth we show how intensified distaste at experiencing low relative wealth reduces relative risk aversion

an application of the shapley value to fair division with money the author considers fair division when monetary compensations are feasible and utilities are quasi linear four axioms are discussed individual rationality resource monotonicity population solidarity and the stand alone test the latter views the utility from consuming all the goods as an upper bound on every coalition s actual joint utility under efficiency the four axioms show little compatibility however when the goods have enough substitutability in everyone s preferences the shapley value of the surplus sharing game satisfies all four axioms an example is the optimal assignment of indivisible goods when every agent consumes only one good copyright 1992 by the econometric society

linking the insights of smith marx young and hirschman on the division of labour implications for economic integration and uneven development this article distinguishes between two types of division of labour discussed by smith the final product specialisation type has been adopted as the basis of mainstream trade models that champion the benefits of free trade the division of production operations type can be extended through the works of marx transition to modern industry based on forms of manufacture young industrial differentiation and hirschman linkages through this some countries started reaping more benefits from increasing returns engendering incipient uneven development that aggravates under unrestricted economic integration between them and the trailing countries in the modern era the leading countries trans national corporations have further shaped the international division of production operations resulting in different forms of enclave development when their activities are unregulated under recently reached multi lateral agreements that limit the use of subsidies and investment measures and strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights uneven development would be sustained some future research directions are considered

the red queen in action the longitudinal effects of capital investments in the mobile telecommunications sector organizations undertake capital investments in technology to generate revenues or decrease costs and thereby enhance profitability however red queen type responses by competing organizations in the form of rapid imitation and escalating of technology investments erode the ability of the investing organizations to sustain gains in profitability productivity gains from these investments may persist but they may not translate into sustained profitability gains owing to declining prices brought about by a hypercompetitive environment the emergence and erosion of benefits attributable to capital investments is examined by decomposing profitability into productivity price recovery product mix and capacity utilization and by regressing each performance measure on past technology investments a polynomial distributed lag model is estimated with quarterly data for 30 firms in the mobile telecommunications services sector from 1996 to 2005 the results indicate that capital investments are positively associated with productivity of current and future periods and their association with profitability is only positive in the future after six quarters these results highlight a unique outcome of the red queen hypothesis simply by imitating learning and investing in technology due to competition is beneficial to all firms in the industry

the dynamic capabilities of firms an introduction an expanded paradigm is needed to explain how competitive advantage is gained and held firms resorting to resource bas ed strategy attempt to accumulate valuable technology assets and employ an aggressive intellectual property stance however winners in the global marketplace have been firms demonstrating timely responsiveness and rapid and flexible product innovation along with the management capability to effectively coordinate and redeploy internal and external competences this source of competitive advantage dynamic capabilities emphasizes two aspects first it refers to the shifting character of the environment second it emphasizes the key role of strategic management in appropriately adapting integrating and re configuring internal and external organizational skills resources and functional competences toward changing environment 3 only recently have researchers begun to focus on the specifics of developing firm specific capabilities and the manner in which competences are renewed to respond to shifts in the business environment the dynamic capabilities approach provides a coherent framework to integrate existing conceptual and empirical knowledge and facilitate prescription this paper argues that the competitive advanis tage of firms stems from dynamic capabilities rooted in high performance routines z operating inside the firm embedded in the firm s processes and conditioned by its history it offers dynamic capabilities as an emerging paradigm of the modern business j firm that draws on multiple disciplines and advances with the help of industry studies in the usa and elsewhere

global investments and regional development trajectories the missing links abstractglobal investments and regional development trajectories the missing links regional studies regional economic development has been long conceptualized as a non linear interactive and socially embedded process these features were traditionally regarded as spatially mediated and highly localized however unprecedentedly fast technological change coupled with the intensification of global economic integration has spurred the need to place regional development in a truly open and interdependent framework despite substantial progress in the academic literature rethinking regional development in this perspective still presents a number of challenges in terms of concepts empirical evidence and policy approaches following an interdisciplinary assessment of how openness and connectivity proxied by one of the many cross border flows i e global investments interact with regional economic development trajectories this paper presents a picture of the geography of foreign investments from and

boundary choice interdependency evidence from the construction industry extant research on the theory of the firm has stressed the need to consider interdependencies when analyzing firm boundary choices we study the existence of interdependencies between boundary decisions using a unique database that includes detailed organizational information on 59 of the construction projects undertaken in the chilean housing sector between the years 2005 and 2009 specifically we show that integration between design and construction activities increases the likelihood of integration between ownership development and construction activities and vice versa this result is of a large magnitude supporting the view that boundary choices need to be studied in relation to each other a careful identification strategy also allows us to shed light on the mechanisms that likely drive this interdependency a coordination effect a transaction hazard effect and a production effect the latter is shown to be the most important mechanism at work suggesting that boundary choice complementarity is primarily motivated by the need to align investment incentives for the joint development of capabilities

systems integration a core capability of the modern corporation many of the world s leading firms are developing a new model of industrial organization based on systems integration rather than performing all productive tasks in house companies are building the capabilities to design and integrate systems while managing networks of component and subsystem suppliers this article illustrates how systems integration evolved from its military engineering based origins in the 1940s and 1950s to a modern day strategic capability across a wide variety of sectors taking a resource based view of the firm the article shows how systems integration capabilities underpin the way high technology companies compete by moving selectively up and downstream in the marketplace through the simultaneous twin processes of vertical integration and disintegration systems integrators of capital goods move downstream into service intensive offerings to expand revenue streams and increase profitability by contrast producers of high volume components and consumer goods use systems integration capabilities to exploit upstream relationships with input suppliers in both cases strategic options and capabilities are shaped by the life cycle of each product the article develops a clearer understanding of systems integration arguing that it now represents a core capability of the modern high technology corporation

the evolution of attitudes to risk lottery tickets and relative wealth abstract individual attitudes to risk are examined in an evolutionary model males obtain more offspring as a consequence of greater wealth both directly and because this attracts more mates the second effect induces gambling driven by relative wealth and can create pareto inefficiency fair bets involving small losses and large gains are taken if any fair bets at all are taken altogether the model accords with observations concerning bets taken and declined by typical individuals despite settings of widely varying per capita wealth journal of economic literature classification numbers c72 d81

the global business revolution the cascade effect and the challenge for firms from developing countries the global business revolution since the 1980s has witnessed an unprecedented degree of industrial consolidation and concentration of business power at a global level firms with powerful globally recognised technologies and or brands constitute the systems integrators at the apex of extended supply chains this paper examines the supply chains in four different sectors aerospace telecommunications automobiles and beverages it finds that these sectors have striking similarities in the way in which the core systems integrators have stimulated industrial concentration across the whole supply chain this cascade effect has profound implications for firms from developing countries in catching up at the firm level

institutional reform and technological practice the case of electricity this article proposes a framework for categorizing possible interrelations between technological and institutional change and applies this framework to the case of the restructuring of the electricity sector it is argued that there is a need for coherence between institutions and technological practice so as to safeguard the satisfactory functioning of electricity infrastructure the identification of possible incoherences between institutions and technological practice allows for a better understanding of the potential drivers for change and the evolutionary processes of which they may be part this article attempts to elaborate the nature of this co evolution in somewhat more detail using specific levels of analysis that are exemplified in a four level model in the case of the restructuring of the electricity sector the institutional framework has changed from a public utility oriented towards a market oriented system however the technological practice remained unchanged a system oriented approach that relies on centralized planning control and operation this discrepancy between institutions and technological practice leads to significant frictions in the functioning of the electricity sector but it also offers opportunities for innovation in order to make liberalization a success it might be necessary to stimulate certain technical developments i e distributed generation and intelligent networks

technological capabilities invisible infrastructure and the un social construction of predictability the overlooked fixed costs of useful research the paper explores the idea that unpredictability is a much more pervasive and important feature of technical change than is traditionally supposed it explains how economically important interactions between scientific explanations and technology require the construction of very specific artificially predictable conditions where explanations implications match technologies behaviour the iterative construction of these localised predictable conditions from unpredictable starting materials relies on generates and is made easier by reusable social and physical infrastructure the paper develops a non tautological model of technological capabilities and provides a novel explanation for a range of empirical findings theoretical and policy implications are reported

global technology development by colocating r d and manufacturing the case of swedish manufacturing mnes in this study we analyze the role of colocation between research and development r d and manufacturing for global technology development by multinational enterprises mnes the extant literature suggests that the main strategic role of colocated r d units is to locally adapt existing products and processes however data from 146 foreign r d units of sweden s 17 largest manufacturing mnes in 2013 show that they instead mainly develop new technology not only for the local and regional markets but to a large extent for the global market a likely explanation is that colocation positively contributes to joint problem solving and transfer of tacit knowledge between production and r d personnel all of which is necessary in new product development especially in industries characterized by complex products and systems and rapid technological change a theoretical implication is that depending on industry characteristics internal cross functional linkages between r d and manufacturing can be more critical than external supply and demand side factors when it comes to influence where r d units are located globally

reward patterns of fair solutions abstract the solutions proposed in the literature on fair allocations are sensitive to the preference profiles of the agents as a consequence each of them displays a specific distribution pattern which may be interpreted as rewarding certain kinds of preferences at the expense of others in the basic models with private goods and decreasing returns the equal income competitive equilibrium tends to favor the eccentric preferences whereas most egalitarian equivalent solutions tend to reward the agents who like particular resources the identification of the rewarding pattern of each mechanism sheds light on its ethical content and may help select the adequate solution in concrete applications in this analysis a preference monotonicity property turns out to be satisfied by many solutions

envy freeness and distributive justice the criterion of envy freeness according to which no agent should prefer any of his neighbours allocation to his own has become a central part of the economic theory of distributive justice it essentially corresponds to the need to express an ideal of equality in societies where preferences and endowments are heterogeneous this paper surveys various formulations of the idea of envy freeness starting with the simple distribution model then adding the possibility for agents to have different native talent endowments and finally moving to models with production many classical results are displayed but emphasis is also put on recent developments mainly the ideas of minimizing envy and of absence of domination five major difficulties facing envy freeness are identified and listed as directions of future research copyright 1994 by blackwell publishers ltd

buying big into biotech scale financing and the industrial dynamics of uk biotech 1980 2009 this article explores how the uk s biotech firms have evolved in response to their financial environment as investors expectations about the potential of biotech have changed funding options have opened up and closed down leading firms to develop new business models and routes of technology development after a favorable period new constraints on stock market funding have forced uk biotech firms to compress their life cycles constraining their ability to generate the late stage drug candidates sought by large pharmaceutical firms these changes are analyzed within a neo chandlerian framework in the context of a selection environment where rather than firms of varying inefficiencies being selected by an efficient market we find entrepreneurs submitting themselves to an inefficient investment selection process at the intersection of industries attempting to achieve their own scale economies the article highlights the importance of the scale of investment at the firm and industry level and suggests that decline in the size of the industry can have adverse consequences for investment and firm performance in this setting

transactions cost economics and the multinational enterprise an assessment abstract this paper applies transactions cost principles to the multinational enterprise in order to ascertain its distinctive properties as a mode of economic organization the analysis helps identify just when and where contractual alternatives to the multinational firm are likely to be viable this turns out to depend upon the nature of the technology the regime of appropriability within which the firm operates and the characteristics of the markets in question transactions cost analysis is also extended to the multinational enterprise host country relationship implications for management and public policy are derived

social norms savings behavior and growth we argue that many goods and decisions are not allocated or made through markets we interpret an agent s status as a ranking device that determines how well he or she fares in the nonmarket sector the existence of a nonmarket sector can endogenously generate a concern for relative position in for example the income distribution so that higher income implies higher status moreover it can naturally yield multiple equilibria it is thus possible to explain differences in growth rates across countries without recourse to differences in underlying preferences technologies or endowments different social organizations lead to different reduced form preferences which lead to different growth rates

capacity utilization revisited software control and the growth of large technical systems this paper explains how a class of it intensive capital goods called control systems are used to co ordinate the flow of goods traffic materials funds services or information through complex supply production or distribution systems the paper examines how they increase productivity by improving the utilization of installed capacity creating economies of system that are distinct from the traditional economies of scale speed and scope the paper explains which sectors they are important in and how innovation in control technologies relates to architectural changes in large technical systems it is illustrated by case studies of four very different sectors elevators retailing telecommunications and investment banking while control systems improve efficiency and enable product innovation they also create reliability problems and can alter the social distribution of risk

risk aversion experimental evidence from south african fishing communities we estimate the risk attitudes of a large sample of individuals from various fishing communities along the west coast of south africa female fishers and rights holders are found to be more risk averse than their male counterparts while rights holders are found to be less risk averse relative to subjects without fishing rights risk attitudes are found to be correlated with compliance with fisheries regulations in particular a greater degree of risk aversion translates into a reduction in compliance furthermore in the case of gender female fishers and rights holders are more likely to comply with fisheries regulations

all sorry to disagree a general principle for the provision of non rival goods a group of agents with identical rights but different preferences share the cost of a public good in a situation where each agent is held responsible for his own preferences the principle says that nobody can benefit from the difference between his and other agents preferences all are sorry to disagree this axiom is incompatible with the pay according to benefits approach and in particular with lindahl pricing methods however it is compatible with foley s stand alone core constraints the author s axiom unlike the stand alone properties applies to any number of public goods or bads and to arbitrary public decisions copyright 1992 by the editors of the scandinavian journal of economics

keeping one step ahead of the joneses status the distribution of wealth and long run growth assuming that the utility of each agent depends on its relative wealth position in the society this chapter constructs an endogenous growth model it is shown that even if the subjective discount rates differ across agents there exists a unique balanced growth equilibrium in which each agent owns a positive share of the world wealth it is also shown that if the agents are identical then an increase in savings incentives always raises the long run growth rate but if they are heterogeneous then an increase in savings incentives may lower the long run growth rate

securities markets with increasing numbers of traders abstract i show that the entry of new traders into a perfectly competitive securities market that is initially in competitive equilibrium leads to a series of equilibria each of which is pareto superior to the previous one thus all participants in the market gain from the entry of additional traders both existing participants and new entrants gain this provides an alternative formalization of the idea that depth or liquidity in a market is beneficial to all the result occurs although the entry of a new participant may in principle alter market prices in a way that is unfavorable to existing participants the proof is based on the classical welfare properties of competitive equilibria and on the fact that competitive equilibria are contained in the core and does not use assumptions about market imperfections or imperfect information

status the distribution of wealth private and social attitudes to risk this paper supposes an individual cares about his her own wealth not only directly but also via the relative standing that this wealth induces the implications for risk taking are investigated in particular such a model provides a natural explanation of the concave convex concave utility described by friedman and savage however there are a number of key differences between the present model and any model based on own wealth alone for example an equilibrium wealth distribution here may have a middle class further the status interaction involves an externality and an equilibrium wealth distribution may be pareto inefficient but also about the implied relative standing in the distribution of wealth has a long but checkered history an early exponent of such ideas was of course veblen 1899 it is indeed a notion which most economists reject albeit usually without explicit comment a notable and articulate exception however is frank 1985 for example see also the references frank cites on pp 33 34 it is however a notion with substantial intuitive appeal and it seems useful to ascertain its consequences before coming to a final judgement as to its merits the present paper is concerned with deriving the consequences of such valuation of status for risk taking what seems to be the sharpest possible model is adopted here this assumes that what is essentially ordinal rank in the wealth distribution enters von neumann morgenstern utility as an argument in addi tion to wealth itself thus higher wealth increases utility not only directly but also indirectly via higher status in the interests of both simplicity and drama it is typically assumed here that all individuals have identical utility functions which are concave in wealth but convex in status section 2 discusses how the model provides a natural explanation of the fundamental phenomenon addressed by friedman and savage 1948 that individuals may simultaneously purchase insurance and participate in lotteries although each individual here has a utility function which is concave in wealth itself utility can nevertheless be convex in wealth over some range when the indirect effect via status is included this effect is enhanced by the convexity of utility in status but will follow in any case if increasing wealth entails moving up in status much more rapidly than losing wealth entails moving down it is shown

towards an economic theory of the multiproduct firm this paper outlines a theory of the multiproduct firm important building blocks include excess capacity and its creation market imperfections and the peculiarities of organizational knowledge including its fungible and taut character a framework is adopted in which profit seeking firms are seen to diversify in order to avoid the high transactions costs associated with using various markets to trade the services of various specialized assets neoclassical explanations of the multiproduct firm are shown to be seriously deficient

multiple public goods lexicographic preferences and single plateaued preference rules abstract we study the problem of providing a menu of identical public goods for a group of agents with single peaked preferences over 0 1 a decision rule selects for each preference profile and for each public good a location in miyagawa 1998a phd dissertation an agent consumes of each menu without rivalry only his most preferred public good we extend preferences from 0 1 to the set of alternatives lexicographically we identify a certain agent who might leave and require population monotonicity only if he leaves the entire population when we provide two public goods we characterize the class of single plateaued preference rules by pareto optimality anonymity and population monotonicity

latecomer systems integration capability in complex capital goods the case of iran s electricity generation systems this article introduces the concept of latecomer systems integration capability lsic as a construct for theory development in the area of emergence and competitiveness of producers of complex capital goods from developing economies the study draws on three bodies of the literature to conceptualize lsic and then presents an in depth case study of the development of lsic in a major iranian firm engaged in producing electricity generation systems although an exploratory study the findings suggest that in this case lsic evolved in a fairly short period of time from simple low cost project management skills to innovative capabilities supported by some sophisticated engineering and design know how leading to successes in local and overseas markets the conclusion touches on the implications of the study for theory business strategy and policy