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Mathematics and Democracy : Recent Advances in Voting Systems and Collective Choice
In this book, different quantitative approaches to the study of electoral systems have been developed: game-theoretic, decision-theoretic, statistical, probabilistic, combinatorial, geometric, and optimization ones. All the authors are prominent scholars from these disciplines. Quantitative approaches offer a powerful tool to detect inconsistencies or poor performance in actual systems. Applications to concrete settings such as EU, American Congress, regional, and committee voting are discussed.
Mathematical Models of Distribution Channels
In Chapters 1 and 2 the authors provide an introduction to the current, analytical literature on distribution channels, and they present an intuitively appealing prologue to the Channel Myths that are developed rigorously in later Chapters. In Chapters 3, 4, and 10 they extend the literature by ascertaining the relationship between the manufacturer-optimal wholesale-price strategy and channel breadth. Specific analyses include multiple, non-competing retailers, multiple states-of-nature, and multiple, competing retailers. In Chapters 5-7 the authors determine the profitability of various wholesale-price strategies; this analysis culminates in Chapters 8 and 9 with the determination of the (very limited) conditions under which channel coordination can be optimal for the manufacturer. In Chapter 11 they prove that existing methods of measuring the effect of a change in the degree of inter-retailer substitutability are totally misleading. They then develop an original, theoretical basis for measuring the impact of a change in the degree of inter-retailer substitutability that yields insightful, intuitively appealing results. In Chapter 12 the authors set forth an agenda for future research based on a meta-model that embraces all existing models in the literature. They also issue an appeal for creation of a "Unifying Theory of Distribution Channels" that will enable researchers to work independently and yet to contribute toward the common goal of deepening the marketing science professions’ understanding of distribution channels.
Irreversible Decisions under Uncertainty : Optimal Stopping Made Easy
In real life, as well as in economic models, individuals often make decisions in an uncertain environment. In many cases, a problem which an optimizing agent faces can be formulated or reformulated as a problem of optimal timing of a certain irreversible or partially reversible action or optimal stopping problem. In this book, the authors present an alternative approach to optimal stopping problems. The basic ideas and techniques of the approach can be explained much simpler than the standard methods in the literature on optimal stopping problems. The monograph will teach the reader to apply the technique to many problems in economics and finance, including new ones. From the technical point of view, the method can be characterized as option pricing via the Wiener-Hopf factorization.
Investment Management and Mismanagement : History, Findings, and Analysis
These issues include performance, anomalies, market timing, suitability, and churning, among others. The construct of mismanagement is presented in light of the impact of various costs on investment returns.
Investment Appraisal : Methods and Models
Investment decisions are of vital importance to all companies. Getting these decisions right is crucial but, due to a complex and dynamic business environment, this remains a challenging management task. Effective appraisal methods are valuable tools in supporting investment decision-making. As organisations continue to seek a competitive edge, it is increasingly important that management accountants and strategic decision-makers have a sound knowledge of these tools. This book presents a range of investment appraisal methods and models, some of which are not widely known, or at least not well covered in other books. Each approach is thoroughly described, evaluated and illustrated using examples, with its assumptions and limitations analysed in terms of their implications for investment decision-making practice.
Investing in Private Equity Partnerships : The Role of Monitoring and Reporting
Private equity has become an important asset class for institutional investors. As the asset class grows and investors get more experienced, the debate concerning transparency and governance of private equity funds has intensified. Fund investors demand more disclosure from private equity fund managers. Are these calls justified? What information do fund investors need? How can private equity fund investors manage their exposure to the asset class effectively? Kay Müller presents an in-depth analysis into the monitoring activities of institutional investors and explores their information requirements by interviewing leading European private equity fund investors. He contrasts these results with the actual reporting by fund managers and reveals essential information gaps based on a disclosure study of private equity fund reports. Since effective and open communication supports long-lasting and trusted partnerships, these findings provide important guidance on how to improve the relationships between investors and fund managers in the private equity industry.
Inventory Control
The strategic importance of efficient Supply Chain Management is today fully recognized by top management. The total investment in inventories is enormous, and the control of capital tied up in raw material, work-in-progress, and finished goods offers an important potential for improvement. At the same time, advances in information technology have drastically changed the possibilities to apply improved inventory control techniques. Furthermore, the recent progress in research has resulted in new and more general methods that can reduce the supply chain costs substantially.
Inventory and Supply Chain Management with Forecast Updates
Inventory and Supply Chain Management with Forecast Updates is concerned with the problems of inventory and supply chain decision making with information updating over time. The models considered include inventory decisions with multiple sources and delivery modes, supply-contract design and evaluation, contracts with exercise price, volume-flexible contracts allowing for spot-market purchase decisions, and competitive supply chains. Real problems are formulated into tractable mathematical models, which allow for an analysis of various approaches, and provide insights for better supply chain management. The book provides a unified treatment of these models, presents a critique of the existing results, and points out potential research directions. Attention is focused on solutions – that is, inventory decisions prior and subsequent to information updates and the impact of the quality of information on these decisions.
Introduction to the Theory of Cooperative Games
This book systematically presents the main solutions of cooperative games: the core, bargaining set, kernel, nucleolus, and the Shapley value of TU games, and the core, the Shapley value, and the ordinal bargaining set of NTU games. To each solution the authors devote a separate chapter wherein they study its properties in full detail. Moreover, important variants are defined or even intensively analyzed. The authors also investigate in separate chapters continuity, dynamics, and geometric properties of solutions of TU games. The study culminates in uniform and coherent axiomatizations of all the foregoing solutions (excluding the bargaining set). Such axiomatizations have not appeared in any book. Moreover, the book contains a detailed analysis of the main results on cooperative games without side payments. Such analysis is very limited or non-existent in other books on game theory.
Introduction to Modern Time Series Analysis
This excellent textbook presents an introduction to the time series analysis. It provides a good source of information for graduate and master students in economics and statistics. It is a well-written and easy to read book, illustrated by 56 good examples. Also, many important references are listed at the end of each chapter.This book presents to beginners a readable and easily accessible introduction to modern developments in time series econometrics and financial time series with an emphasis on basic concepts and practical applications. The book is a textbook consisting of seven chapters the greatest merit of this textbook is that it enables readers to grasp the basic framework of time-series econometrics without relying on extensive reading
Introduction to Data Envelopment Analysis and Its Uses : With DEA-Solver Software and References
Recent years have seen a great variety of applications of DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) for use in evaluating the performances of many different kinds of entities engaged in many different activities in many different contexts in many different countries. One reason is that DEA has opened up possibilities for use in cases which have been resistant to other approaches because of the complex (often unknown) nature of the relations between multiple inputs and multiple outputs involved in many of these activities (which are often reported in non-commeasurable units). It provide a systematic introduction to DEA and its uses as a multifaceted tool for evaluating problems in a variety of contexts.
Introduction to Computational Optimization Models for Production Planning in a Supply Chain
In this book we strive to provide models that capture many of the - tails faced by ?rms operating in a modern supply chain, but we stop short of proposing models for economic analysis of the entire multi-player chain. In other words, we produce models that are useful for planning within a supply chain rather than models for planning the supply chain. The usefulness of the models is enhanced greatly by the fact that they have been implemented - ing computer modeling languages. Implementations are shown in Chapter 7, which allows solutions to be found using a computer.
Introducing competition into the piped water market : A theoretical analysis of common carriage and franchise bidding
Water scarcity is not exclusively a concern of the poor. Developed countries are increasingly facing problems related to higher per capita consumption and pollution so that enhancing the efficiency of the water supply ranks among the main global challenges of the future. The necessary improvements are not only a matter of technical progress but also of institutional design.
Interorganisational Standards : Managing Web Services Specifications for Flexible Supply Chains
Standards play crucial roles in many different aspects of today’s economy. They can define meanings of semantics, product interfaces, process steps, or performance levels. Interorganisational standards are specifications that define business-related semantics and processes, which are made accessible to other organisations’ information systems. While modular organisation forms such as supply chain networks demand such standards for higher flexibility, XML-based Web Services offer a relatively new technological platform to develop such standards.
Internationalization and Economic Policy Reforms in Transition Countries
The project is devoted to analyzing the internationalization of the Russian economy and the associated changes in major policy fields. This book contains the revised analytical papers from the St. Petersburg conference in 2003 when the city celebrated its 300 year anniversary. We are very grateful to the Leontief Center for excellent organization of the conference.
Internationalisation of European ICT Activities : Dynamics of Information and Communications Technology
The internationalisation of information and communication technologies has accelerated since the 1990s in Europe and worldwide. Taking a close look at the empirical analysis of competitive trade positions, trends in foreign direct investment and the internationalisation of research and development in ICT brings many new insights about the expansion, innovation and adjustment in the EU’s most dynamic sector. Moreover, the analysis discusses case studies on key players in ICT and suggests major policy conclusions for a field considered fundamental in the context of the EU’s Lisbon Agenda. The theoretical and empirical analysis gives a new and differentiated picture of European ICT where the links between telecommunications dynamics, software innovation and digital services are crucial. Outsourcing, insourcing and offshoring are natural elements of a new digital international division of labour which require reforms in both the EU member countries and at the supranational level.
International trade theory : Capital, knowledge, economic structure, money, and prices over time
The development of international trade theory has created a wide array of different theories, concepts and results. Economic students are trained to understand international interactions by severally incompatible theories one by one in the same course. In order to overcome incoherence among multiple theories, we need a general theoretical framework which enables us to account for the phenomena explained by the current theories in a unified manner to draw together all of the disparate branches of trade theory into a single organized system of knowledge. This book provides a powerful – but easy to operate - engine of analysis that sheds light not only on trade theory per se, but on many other dimensions that interact with trade, including inequality, saving propensities, education, research policy, and knowledge. The book starts with the traditional static trade theories. Then, it develops dynamic models with capital and knowledge under perfect competition and/or monopolistic competition.
International Trade and Multinational Activity : Heterogeneity of Firms, Incentives for Foreign Direct Investment, and International Business Cycle Dynamics
During the last 25 year, the neoclassical Heckscher-Ohlin trade theory has been extended to the ‘new’ trade theory by including imperfect competition and fixed costs into the analysis of trade relations. Furthermore, these micro-oriented trade models are increasingly used to analyze macro-oriented questions. Chapter 2 of this study investigates the dynamic welfare effects of exposure to trade in a new trade model, which is extended by firm heterogeneity.
International Finance in Emerging Markets : Issues, Welfare Economics Analyses and Policy Implications
The book "International Finance in Emerging Markets" reviews contemporary issues in international monetary and financial economics in an emerging financial market using the example of Thailand. The book adopts the elements of new welfare economics and asymmetric information paradigms in analyzing those issues including financial liberalization, crisis, exchange rate determination, and domestic capital market reform. The book suggests for the first time a normative social approach for addressing the contemporary issues in international monetary and financial economics. It provides an example of cutting edge research in international finance and monetary economics within a welfare economics framework. It also suggests some policy implications of the welfare economic analysis of international financial issues in an emerging market.
International Economic Policy Coordination
The book investigates the interplay of brand equity and technological assets at the corporate level. In a grounded theory approach it develops a model of how companies in technology intensive industries can improve the appropriation of the returns of their intangible technological assets with the help of brand equity and thus improve their competitiveness. The theoretical discussions are supported by two extensive case studies on Bayer Aspirin and Cisco Systems as well as an extensive econometric analysis. The developed model points out how the strategic relevance of immaterial technological assets and brand equity develop along the technology-life-cycle and indicates how companies can, by an integrated technology and brand equity management, appropriate the returns of their initial technological advantage in the long-run. The implications of the findings for business companies as well as researchers are clearly revealed.
