perishable inventory theory a review this paper reviews the relevant literature on the problem of determining suitable ordering policies for both fixed life perishable inventory and inventory subject to continuous exponential decay we consider both deterministic and stochastic demand for single and multiple products both optimal and sub optimal order policies are discussed in addition a brief review of the application of these models to blood bank management is included the review concludes with a discussion of some of the interesting open research questions in the area

energy transitions in small scale regions what we can learn from a regional innovation systems perspective the prevalent theories in the debate on sustainability transitions have been criticised for not sufficiently addressing energy change processes at the local level this paper aims to enhance our understanding of local energy reorganisation processes drawing on the regional innovation systems ris approach we argue that local development dynamics result from the interaction of various subsystems science politics public administration industry finance intermediaries and civil society the analysis of the involved subsystems and their interaction shows how energy transitions are shaped by different individual and organisational actors as well as institutions on the local level empirical evidence from case studies on the german cities of emden and bottrop illustrates our theoretical conceptualisation of energy transitions we conclude by presenting characteristic interaction patterns for energy transition drawn from the two cases

trade foreign direct investment and economic growth in asian economies despite the increasing role of foreign direct investment fdi in economic development very limited research has been carried out on the causal links between trade fdi and economic growth in asian economies this study examines empirically the inter play between exports imports fdi and economic growth for nine asian economies by conducting multivariate causality tests in the vector error correction model vecm framework the results reveal two way causal connections between trade inward fdi inward merger and acquisitions m as and growth for most of the sample economies there is a unidirectional causal link running from outward m as to growth and trade these findings suggest that export expansion import liberalization fdi inflows and inward m as are integral elements of the growth process in asian economies

wage and price control policies in transition economies abstract this paper studies the structural impact of wage and price control policies in transition economies using a two sector three factor small open economy model it illustrates the results quantitatively via simulation exercises at the earlier stage of the transition when labor is immobile a strict control on the price of the nontradables and the wage rate minimizes the fall in employment and output also a more severe control on the price of the nontradables than on the wage rate alleviates the fall in the real wage at negligible costs in lost employment and output at the later stage of the transition when labor becomes mobile the liberalization of the price of the nontradables can proceed faster than that of the wage rate this policy combination increases employment and output and reduces the shortage for the nontradables but lowers the real wage

a stochastic production function for machine repair although work by levhari and sheshinski 1970 and syrquin 1972 suggests that general functional forms such as the cobb douglas and ces accurately approximate a machine repair stochastic production process this paper shows that these authors have not adequately captured the stochastic nature of the production process more importantly while general forms are convenient and widely employed this paper argues that there is a more direct method for determining the properties of the production process

the philippine electricity sector reform and the urban question how metro manila s utility is tackling urban poverty in the early 2000s the philippine government reformed its electricity sector following neoliberal principles unbundling of the power industry privatisation of assets and commodification of electricity this paper shows that the reform was primarily driven by the need to secure electricity supply and cut down tariffs these national objectives ousted other issues and notably those that find their expression at the urban level among which the question of access to electricity in metro manila s urban poor communities the central state withdrew its attention from the issue of electrification and local actors had to react as they were confronted to social tensions and practices of pilferage as a consequence city governments and local administrations are getting involved in this issue which opens the way to participation of civil society this paper shows how the rolling back of the central state led to new partnerships and arrangements between the distribution utility local governments and community organisations this movement points to an urbanisation of energy issues which could bring positive results for end users provided that it is accompanied by a clearer regulatory framework

governing the transition to natural gas in mediteranean metropolis the case of cairo istanbul and sfax tunisia recent scholarship on urban energy governance has focused on low carbon energy strategies seen as a response to climate change and energy pressure threats but such approaches tend to overlook the situations of cities from the global south and emerging countries concerned with strong energy demand growth the development of urban natural gas networks is an understudied response to such a challenge focusing on three cities istanbul cairo and sfax tunisia the article analyses the factors and the governance of these energy transitions it uses a geographical approach to such processes that highlight the mutual influence of the territory in its material and political dimensions and of the policy goals and tools in the implementation the development of urban gas networks rests upon the proximity of gas deposits it is determined by metropolitan strategies for economic development as well as by programs aiming to cut energy subsidies though urban gas networks have a strong potential for restructuring the physical and social landscapes in cities the dominant commercial approach taken by energy utilities and morphological constraints in the urban fabric limit their universalization natural gas is part of a mix of energies at the urban level and often competes with other energy forms specifically renewables like solar water heaters lastly the development of urban natural gas networks sparks heated politics in relation to unfulfilled energy demand and affordability

the determinants of fdi location choice in china a discrete choice analysis this study addresses two questions what are the determinants of foreign direct investment fdi location choice in china what are the factors that determine investors choice between economic zo

environmental management under subnational institutional constraints this study uses the institutional perspective to examine the interaction effects between the subnational institutional context and firm level parameters on corporate environmental behaviors based on a unique cross sectional data set of private firms compiled from three different sources in china our results suggest that both enforcement stringency of environmental regulations at the provincial level and private firms foreign ownership negatively affect compensation fees which are levies charged for firms emissions enforcement stringency also moderates the firm level relationship between foreign ownership and compensation fees but such a cross level moderating effect holds only for private firms with non hmt hong kong macau or taiwan investments

lost in transition comparing strategies of electricity companies in delhi this paper examines the notion of energy transition when implemented by private utilities in 2000 the delhi government privatized electricity distribution to three private distribution companies most research was concerned with the impact of privatization on energy reliability tariff settings and regulation issues this paper looks at two under researched themes the expansion of services to poorer neighborhoods and the rollout of clean energy policies this focus allows to unpack the materiality of socio technical systems to analyze how energy infrastructures are being technically deployed on the ground and to identify which social approach is used to detail the specific practices of each company provides a more nuanced and accurate understanding of the reform in depth analysis of the three private utilities show that they interpret the reform mandate differently they use a varied range of technical tools they respond differently to social concerns in poorer neighborhoods and they have distinctive internal management choices and corporate cultures all these four factors can strengthen or undermine the transition towards increased access and clean energy

geographies of energy transition space place and the low carbon economy this paper makes a case for examining energy transition as a geographical process involving the reconfiguration of current patterns and scales of economic and social activity the paper draws on a seminar series on the geographies of energy transition security climate governance hosted by the authors between 2009 and 2011 which initiated a dialogue between energy studies and the discipline of human geography focussing on the uk government s policy for a low carbon transition the paper provides a conceptual language with which to describe and assess the geographical implications of a transition towards low carbon energy six concepts are introduced and explained location landscape territoriality spatial differentiation scaling and spatial embeddedness examples illustrate how the geographies of a future low carbon economy are not yet determined and that a range of divergent and contending potential geographical futures are in play more attention to the spaces and places that transition to a low carbon economy will produce can help better understand what living in a low carbon economy will be like it also provides a way to help evaluate the choices and pathways available

a var approach to the economics of fdi in china using a vector autoregression var approach this study re examines several hypotheses suggested by the economic literature on the economics of fdi applying quarterly time series data from china a country which has recently become the second largest host country for fdi innovation accounting variance decomposition and impulse response function analysis is applied to analyse the various interrelationships between fdi and other economic variables of interest in a var system the empirical research using this method in the case of china is limited the study therefore provides an interesting advance in the literature on the economics of fdi in china

institutional constraints and ecological processes evolution of foreign invested enterprises in the chinese construction industry 1993 2006 in the current study expansion of foreign investment in transition economies such as china is analyzed as an organizational selection process in a community ecology setting insights from organizational ecology are used to explain how institutional forces constrain ecological processes together driving the evolution of the population size of foreign invested enterprises fies privately held domestic firms and state owned domestic organizations we argue that the variation in the relative forces of ecological processes and institutional constraints across fies and their domestic rivals accounts for the expansion of fies in china on the one hand in many transition economies institutional constraints are imposed on foreign enterprises by regulation that limits fdi opportunities on the other hand after entry foreign enterprises can benefit from their competitive advantages in their ecological struggle against domestic rivals this logic produces different sets of hypotheses as to foreign enterprises density and sales growth in interaction with domestic organizations using a data set of the chinese construction industry in 29 provinces over the 1993 2006 period estimation of a partial adjustment growth model produces support for our theoretical claim

improvising innovation in uk urban district heating the convergence of social and environmental agendas in aberdeen abstract research on district heating has focused on technical economic appraisal of its contribution to energy and carbon saving in urban centres there is however lack of analysis of political and social processes which govern its actual take up this paper examines these processes through a case study of aberdeen scotland interviews and documentary analysis are used to examine the 2002 development of aberdeen heat and power ahp an independent energy services company esco technical economic feasibility was a necessary component of appraisal but not sufficient to govern decision making in the uk centralised energy market dh investment is unattractive to commercial investors and local authorities lack capacity and expertise in energy provision in aberdeen the politics of fuel poverty converged with climate politics creating an a typical willingness to innovate through improvisation the welfare priority resulted in creation of a non profit locally owned esco using cost rather than market based heat tariffs ahp has developed three combined heat and power energy centres and heat networks supplying 34 mwh pa of heat carbon savings are estimated to be 45 in comparison with electric heating and heating costs are reduced by a similar amount the conclusion outlines potential policy improvements

introduction to the special issue urban energy governance local actions capacities and politics introduction to a special issue showing how there is much to be gained for deeper understandings of energy policy from a specifically urban analysis of rationales forms and repercussions of energy systems in transition the special issue offers an in depth examination of the variety of urban responses to quite distinctive and sometimes competing energy related challenges

relationships between economic growth foreign direct investment and trade evidence from china this study investigates the causal links between trade economic growth and inward foreign direct investment fdi in china at the aggregate level the integration and cointegration properties of quarterly data are analysed long run relationships between growth exports imports and fdi are identified in a cointegration framework in which this paper finds bi directional causality between economic growth fdi and exports economic development exports and fdi appear to be mutually reinforcing under the open door policy

hospital scale economies due to stochastic demand and service abstract this paper uses queuing theory to approximate empirically the potential for hospital scale economies due to the stochastic nature of hospital demand and service these results suggest that scale economies due to stochastic demand and service are likely to be important only for the consolidation of small specialized hospital units

fdi by firms from newly industrialised economies in emerging markets corporate governance entry mode and location previous studies emphasise that the foreign direct investment fdi strategies of firms from newly industrialised economies nies are different from the fdi strategies of firms from developed economies it has also been shown that nie firms are often controlled by founding families who make key strategic decisions and that they rely heavily on network linkages when developing their fdi strategies what is less clear however is how the corporate governance factors in nies the risk preferences of the main shareholder constituencies and the network based business culture affect the decision to undertake fdi in emerging markets this paper explores the entry mode and location choices of firms from an asian nie taiwan in an emerging market the people s republic of china it shows that the choice of equity stake in an affiliate depends upon the extent of family and institutional share ownerships in the parent company high commitment entry is found to be positively associated with the affiliate being located in areas with strong economic cultural and historic links with the parent company furthermore the entry mode and location decisions appear to be interrelated with the parent s equity stake in the affiliate depending inter alia upon the location within china and the favoured location depending inter alia upon the equity stake

energy supply and urban planning projects analysing tensions around district heating provision in a french eco district abstract through the analysis of energy supply choices this article explores the way in which energy priorities and their climate related features are incorporated into urban public policy these choices must take account of different factors as is the case with district heating which is justified as a vehicle of renewable energy while subject to pressure in eco districts because its techno economic balances are destabilised by falls in demand our study focuses particularly on the city of metz france which has chosen district heating as the primary source for provision for the municipal area and for its first eco district we analyse the tensions within these choices with particular attention to the way in which they are negotiated inside municipal departments and with the local energy operator this enables us to explore the tensions in defining the scale that governs decisions and the linkages between energy related and urban priorities

conflicting strategies towards sustainable heating at an urban junction of heat infrastructure and building standards approaches to sustainability transitions stress the possibility of aligning actors around a shared vision of the future e g at the scale of a city empirical accounts reveal how difficult such

exogenous shocks social skill and power urban energy transitions as social fields abstract the constantly growing scholarship on urban energy transitions needs a framework to analyze these transitions this article proposes the field perspective fp as an approach for the study of urban energy transitions fp analyses how the interplay of actors who are dedicated to a similar purpose and the structures guiding this interplay co evolve by applying fp to the energy transition in the german city emden the article shows how the transition evolves through a alterations in the exogenous context of the city e g national feed in tariffs for renewables b the social skill and changing interplay of local actors engaged in the transition and c the emergence of power constellations and rules

operations research in inventory management a review and critique the objectives of inventory management including the relevant related costs are examined in this paper a brief review of standard problems that have been effectively solved is presented however we point out that a serious gap exists between theory and practice in many organizations suggestions are made for bridging this gap finally a list is provided of a number of research problems whose implementable solution would have a major beneficial impact on the practice of inventory management

economic development and sectoral unions in china drawing on qualitative fieldwork in china s guangdong and zhejiang provinces the author asks how post socialist unions respond to worker unrest and why the development of sectoral level bargaining has been uneven in different regions of china while zhejiang has had relative success in establishing the organizational infrastructure for sectoral bargaining guangdong has had little success despite ongoing attempts by unions the author explains variation in sectoral level bargaining through an analysis of the different models of economic development which are characterized as local entrepreneurialism and global integration for zhejiang and guangdong respectively despite having different organizational forms unions in both places suffer from a lack of credibility and capacity to enforce contracts given the acftu s ongoing focus on sectoral level bargaining however experiments will likely continue in various regions and industries throughout china

the economies of massed reserves the economy of massed reserves first mentioned by e a g robinson 1958 pp 26 27 is now firmly established in the industrial organization literature as an example of a potential plant level scale economy the massing of reserves results in a savings in the proportion of required reserves to expected output as the scale of a facility increases examples of such reserves are bank tellers specialized tools and equipment repairmen inventories spare parts and checkout lines the potential economies from massing reserves are dependent on the underlying stochastic processes governing the supply and or demand of the service provided theoretical justification for the economies of massed reserves has usually been based on an appeal to the law of large numbers for example donald hay and derek morris wrote the law of large numbers makes the number of breakdowns more predictable in a plant using a large number of machines so that the number of stand by maintenance staff need not be increased in proportion to size 1979 p 44 this paper demonstrates that the law of large numbers does not provide a theoretical explanation of massed reserves scale economies instead it is shown that the expected economies of massed reserves can be calculated from the steady state properties of well known queuing models queuing models apply to any case where a servicing input is held in reserve to cope with the stochastic nature of the market or production process in addition a method for quantifying the expected economies of queuing processes is developed the magnitude of these expected economies is shown to be significant and calculable for example the expected economies inherent in a widely applied queuing model are shown to exceed 23 percent in some cases section i establishes the irrelevance of the law of large numbers as a theory of scale economies section ii provides a formal method for determining the scale economies inherent in the most often mentioned massed reserves example machine repair section iii shows that the same method can be used to calculate scale economies for the remaining massed reserves examples specialized repair tools and equipment checkout counter clerks bank tellers and other service personnel capacity and inventories and spare parts in addition it is demonstrated that the same method can be used to calculate scale economies for some multiproduct operations

technical change and scale economies given stochastic demand and production abstract this paper provides a formal attempt to separate the effects of changes in scale and technology for a relatively general class of queuing models the paper makes a distinction between the output rate and capacity while changes in technology affect the output rate and lead to larger indivisible production units this change in the output rate has often been confused in the literature as a change in scale as a result the importance of scale economies claimed has often been due more to the potential for technological change not the potential for scale economies inherent to these queuing processes

the landscape of energy initiatives in sub saharan africa going for systemic change or reinforcing the status quo abstract this article examines recent interventions by major players in sub saharan africa s energy sector and asks whether they acknowledge or seek to address energy as a complex problem and energy systems as socio technical systems several scholars have begun advocating the socio technical approach to energy by noting that the mainstream conceptualization of energy challenges in strictly technological or economic terms does not capture the complexity and inertia inherent to energy systems moreover the article also seeks to examine how well have recent interventions integrated pro poor and low carbon concerns two of the major tenets of un s sustainable development goal 7 findings suggest that initiatives studied take only partial consideration of key aspects of a socio technical approach to the energy problem nonetheless the initiatives have taken on board pro poor and low carbon concerns to a certain extent two main policy implications are drawn from this study a continued focus on status quo approaches has the potential to generate investment inefficiencies and an effective low carbon transition will require a broader discussions about the types of lifestyles people in sub saharan africa aspire to

low carbon transition in a distributed energy system regulated by localized energy markets abstract low carbon transition becomes an urgent need of modern societies for energy conservation and environmental protection the purpose of this work is to evaluate the roles of market regulation energy consumption and energy capacity in low carbon transition for distributed energy systems through an agent based simulation a set of agent behavioral rules for the competition of high carbon and low carbon energies mimics the local dynamics of the energy production of distributed energy systems and the energy consumption of industrial firms under the impact of energy market fluctuation simulation results show that under the condition of increased energy capacities with a positive feedback between supply and demand low carbon transition can be facilitated by the combination of market adjustment favoring low carbon energies and the policy adjustment for low energy consumptions by contrast with low energy capacities and high energy consumptions transitions from high carbon economy to low carbon economy inevitably render a catastrophic economic depression policy implications for different situations of countries are drawn regarding the regulation of localized energy markets for restricting the supply of high carbon energy while cultivating the demand for low carbon energy and the improvement on energy saving energy production efficiency and storage capacity

uk local authority engagement with the energy service company esco model key characteristics benefits limitations and considerations abstract this paper explores how some uk local authorities las have opted to engage with the energy service company esco model in a bid to enhance their influence over local energy system change and help them to deliver on their political public good objectives three common approaches to la esco model engagement are outlined including the 1 la owned arm s length model 2 private sector owned concession agreement model and 3 community owned and run model the la s decision to establish its own esco or alternatively enter into a partnership with another predominantly depends on its willingness to expose itself to risk the level of strategic control it desires and the resources it has at its disposal however the business case is contingent on the extent to which the national policy and regulatory framework facilitates and obligates las to play an active energy governance role stronger alignment of local and national energy agendas through communication and coordination between different governance actors could help to remove critical barriers to la esco engagement and their wider energy governance activities

the distribution of foreign direct investment in china foreign direct investment fdi has played a major role in china s push toward a market oriented economy recent inflows account for 40 percent of combined flows of fdi to all developing countries making china the biggest developing country fdi recipient this record is impressive but certain problems must be overcome if fdi is to continue to help sustain the country s record growth rate and further its economic development for one thing fdi in china is highly concentrated geographically and its sector distribution is highly uneven the authors empirically analyze the geographic determinants of fdi in china they find that fdi s geographical distribution in china is determined mostly by gnp infrastructure development level of general education and coastal location although the sectoral distribution of fdi is coming into line with the rest of the world in the past fdi has been biased toward speculative types of investment especially in the real estate sector

regional characteristics and the location of foreign firms within poland this article investigates the location determinants of firms with foreign capital participation within poland using the regional data set from 1993 to 1998 it is found that the concentration of foreign economic activity is positively related to industry and service agglomeration and the road network and negatively to the unemployment rate traditional regional characteristics such as gdp wage rate and education often regarded as important location determinants are not robust with respect to the specification of the estimating equation the special economic zone variable is not found to be statistically significant in any specification estimated geographic location dummies confirm that foreign firms prefer central and south western regions over eastern parts of poland having controlled for their characteristics