Raising rivals’ fixed costs

This article demonstrates that raising fixed costs can serve as a credible mechanism for a well placed firm to exclude its rivals. We identify a number of credible avenues, such as increased regulation, vexatious litigation and increased prices for essential inputs, through which such a firm can raise fixed costs. We show that for a wide range of oligopoly models this may be a profitable strategy, even if the firm’s own fixed costs are affected as much (or even more) than its rivals and even if it is less efficient. The resulting reduction in the number of firms in the market is detrimental to consumer welfare and hence worthy of scrutiny by competition and regulatory authorities.

Short-term wind power forecasting using Gaussian processes

Since wind has an intrinsically complex and stochastic nature, accurate wind power forecasts are necessary for the safety and economics of wind energy utilization. In this paper, we investigate a combination of numeric and probabilistic models: one-day-ahead wind power forecasts were made with Gaussian Processes (GPs) applied to the outputs of a Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) model. Firstly the wind speed data from NWP was corrected by a GP. Then, as there is always a defined limit on power generated in a wind turbine due the turbine controlling strategy, a Censored GP was used to model the relationship between the corrected wind speed and power output. To validate the proposed approach, two real world datasets were used for model construction and testing. The simulation results were compared with the persistence method and Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs); the proposed model achieves about 11% improvement in forecasting accuracy (Mean Absolute Error) compared to the ANN model on one dataset, and nearly 5% improvement on another.

Short cycle times for cost-efficient processing in lyophilized formulations

Pharmaceutical scientists who bulk freeze dry need to foremost identify what quality factors are of a priority during cycle development since the economics of freeze-drying do not allow for both the cost-efficient production and the ability to obtain the highest quality score across all quality factors. Consider; morphology, activity, dissolution, long-term storage, packaging and cost.

Ökoszisztéma-szolgáltatások nagyságrendi becslése vízgyűjtő szinten a vízkörforgást leíró vízháztartási jellemzők alapján

Az írás célja, hogy rámutasson: egy táj természetitőke-ellátottsága meghatározható annak vízháztartási alapfolyamatai alapján. Az ökoszisztéma-szolgáltatások értékelésének a tájhasználati különbségekből érdemes kiindulnia, ehhez nyújt első lépésben közelítést a természetitőke-ellátottságról nyerhető információ. A cikk gondolatmenete a Kárpát-medence területére alkalmazza a Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) és a The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) kutatások során kialakított elemzési keretet, a ökoszisztéma-szolgáltatások és a természeti tőke szemléletmódját. Az alkalmazott példa segítségével továbblép a természeti tőke értelmezésében, rámutat annak szoros kapcsolatára a kis-vízkör táji folyamatával. Ez a kapcsolat lehetőséget nyújt arra, hogy egy táj vízháztartási folyamatairól rendelkezésre álló információk alapján elhelyezzük a táj jelenlegi, megvalósított állapotát a természeti adottságaiból fakadó, potenciális természetitőke-szinthez képest. A Tisza magyarországi vízgyűjtőjére alkalmazva a vízháztartás alapú összevetést kiderül, hogy a jelenlegi természetitőke-szint a megújuló természeti erőforrások biztosította potenciál felén áll. A szélsőséges vízháztartási helyzetek gyakoribbá válása jelentős részben ezen alacsony természetitőke-szintből fakadó hiányjelenség, és emellett nagyok a helyzetből fakadó haszonlehetőség-költségek (elszalasztott lehetőségek) is. E kedvezőtlen helyzetből a területhasználat differenciálását lehetővé tevő és azt egyben igénylő tájfenntartási-szolgáltatások (vízkárelhárítás, területi vízgazdálkodás) alkalmazkodásán keresztül lehet továbblépni. Ezt az elkerülhetetlen folyamatot akkor lehet a legolcsóbban véghezvinni, ha mind a területhasználat, mind az azt kiszolgáló tájfenntartási rendszerek alkalmazkodása során figyelembe veszik a természetitőke-szint emelésének követelményét.

Cooperation under incomplete contracting

We examine the notion of the core when cooperation takes place in a setting with time and uncertainty. We do so in a two-period general equilibrium setting with incomplete markets. Market incompleteness implies that players cannot make all possible binding commitments regarding their actions at different date-events. We unify various treatments of dynamic core concepts existing in the literature. This results in definitions of the Classical Core, the Segregated Core, the Two-stage Core, the Strong Sequential Core, and the Weak Sequential Core. Except for the Classical Core, all these concepts can be defined by requiring absence of blocking in period 0 and at any date-event in period 1. The concepts only differ with respect to the notion of blocking in period 0. To evaluate these concepts, we study three market structures in detail: strongly complete markets, incomplete markets in finance economies, and incomplete markets in settings with multiple commodities.

Sportvállalatok külpiacra lépése - Elméleti alapok

A tanulmány célja, hogy megteremtse a kapcsolatot a sportgazdaságtan és a nemzetközi üzleti gazdaságtan között, felhívva a figyelmet a két terület metszetének jelentőségére. Azt állítjuk, hogy a sportszolgáltatások sajátosságai, az üzleti gazdaságtan fókuszában álló termeléstől való különbözőségük indokolttá teszi a sportvállalatok nemzetközivé válásának vizsgálatát. A tanulmány bemutatja a sportszolgáltatások néhány egyediségét, amelyek a nemzetközivé válás szempontjából is relevánsak, majd a nemzetközivé válás első logikai lépéseként megvizsgálja, hogyan és milyen okból lépnek külpiacra a sportszolgáltatást nyújtó cégek. Miután a sportvállalatok bevételei öt különböző piacról származnak, az egyes piacokon külön tárgyaljuk a nemzetközi terjeszkedés motivációit, és formáit. ----- Abstract: The aim of the study is to connect economics of sports with international business economics while enhancing the significance of the commonalities of the two disciplines. We found that the specialties of sport services, that are profoundly different from the production-centered business economics, highlight the importance of separate scientific analysis of the internationalization of sport companies. The study projects the characteristics of sport services that are relevant regarding the process of sports companies becoming international. Furthermore, it explores the first logical step of internationalization: the reasons of sports companies appearing on foreign markets. Since the revenues of sports companies flow from five different markets, we separately describe the motives and forms of international expansion on each market.

Bevezetés a Központosítás és piaci reform című kötethez = Introduction to the volume Centralization and Market Reform

Az alábbi írás Kornai János életműsorozata közeljövőben megjelenő harmadik kötetének bevezetője alapján készült. (A sorozat első kötete, A hiány és második kötete, A szocialista rendszer 2012-ben jelent meg.) Ritkán fordul elő, hogy életművét rendszerezve, egy szerző maga veszi tételesen sorra írásait, tárja fel az írások megszületésének körülményeit, és elemzi őket több évtized távlatából. Kornai János életműsorozatának összeállításakor erre a rendkívüli feladatra vállalkozott. A kötetben megjelenő 22 íráshoz fűzött gondolatainak közlésekor mai szemmel veszi górcső alá az egy kivételével a rendszerváltás előtt írt cikkeit, valamint 1956-ban írott első könyvét, A túlzott központosítást. Az írásokat rendszerező bevezető a központosításra és a piaci reformra összpontosítja a figyelmet - e témakörről bebizonyosodott, hogy korai még csupán a közgazdaságtani elmélettörténet fejezeteként számon tartani. A kötetben megjelenő írások egy része közvetlenül kapcsolódik a magyar gazdaság tapasztalataihoz, másik része pedig elméleti jellegű. Ennek megfelelően az itt közölt bevezetés is foglalkozik mind a magyar gazdaságtörténet máig is figyelemre méltó és tanulságos gyakorlati problémáival, mind pedig a szocializmust és a kapitalizmust, a centralizált és decentralizált formákat összehasonlító általános elméletekkel. ______ This piece forms the introduction to the forthcoming third volume of János Kor-nai s life s work series reissued in Hungarian. (The first and second volumes, Economics of Shortage and The Political Economy of the Socialist System, ap-peared in 2012.) It is rare for an author to arrange his own life s work, taking his writings item by item, presenting the circumstances in which they arose, and ana-lysing them decades later. His thoughts on the twenty-two writings in the volume, at the time of republication, involve scrutinizing with present-day eyes articles written, with one exception, before the change of system, along with his first book, Overcentralization, written in 1956. The introduction that systematizes these fo-cuses on centralization and on market reform - events show it is still too soon to see these subjects simply as a chapter in the theoretical history of economics. Some of the articles draw directly on experiences with the Hungarian economy, while others have a theoretical nature. So the introduction also deals both with practical problems of Hungarian economic history that remain notable and instructive, and with comparative general theories of socialism and capitalism and centralized and decentralized forms.

From Anti-equilibrium to The Socialist System and Beyond

This essay attempts to understand János Kornai’s works from a political economy perspective. It argues that Kornai has significantly contributed to the formation of a new paradigm of political economy. The main endeavor of Kornai has been the combination of analytical concepts of economics with the empirical description of real economies. After a certain period of theoretical experimentation János Kornai formulated his research program that can be called the shortage economy explanation of the socialist system. The Economics of Shortage and The Socialist System have created a new theoretical paradigm in a framework in which it has become possible to establish a connection between the analytical and empirical, universal and historical aspects of the theory studying the socialist system as a real economic entity. János Kornai has built his analysis of the socialist system on the primary role of politics in the creation of economic institutions. In his present work on capitalism he has extended this thesis to the capitalist system. This seems to be an important contribution of his to a new political economy paradigm that is just in the process of formation.

Labor turnover : its causes, consequences, and control strategy in five selected restaurants in the Miami area

The purpose of this study is to identify and analyze the basic causes of food service employee turnover in five selected restaurants in the Miami area. The withdrawal behavior in this study is treated in terms of controllable turnover, for the purpose of management, learning more about what action to take to solve this problem which has eaten into the fabric of the hospitality industry. The aim is to find out from the food service employees and management view of work for the purpose of identifying the variables which cause an employee to voluntarily leave a job. The objective is therefore, to analyze and describe the problem of labor turnover in these selected restaurants. Such description must precede efforts to arrive at solutions to the problem if these efforts are ever to be more than haphazard and superficial. Sigmund Freud once stated: "The true beginning of scientific activity consists in describing phenomena and only then in proceeding to group, classify and correlate them."1 The nature of the study is basically descriptive survey. Data is collected by the use of management questionnaire, food service employee questionnaire and finally employees job description index. The survey consisted of a series of well defined questions with open and closed endings dealing with employee with employee turnover. As Robert Ferber and P. J. Verdoom state in their book titled Research Method in Economics of Business: "Structured questionnaires, by supplying question formulations in very specific terms as well as the different possible answers are easier for the sample members to answer and also serve to reduce the danger of interviewer bias."2 The answers to the prepared questionnaire by sample members were then recorded. The results of the questionnaire responses were then compiled for presentation and analysis. 1 Julian Simon, Basic Research Methods in Social Science. Random House, New York, 1969, p.53. 2 Robert J. Ferber and P.J. Verdoon, Research Methods in Economics and Business, The McMillan Company, 1962, p. 20 9 .

The Economic Case for Electric Mining Equipment and Technical Considerations Relating to their Implementation

Underground hardrock mining can be very energy intensive and in large part this can be attributed to the power consumption of underground ventilation systems. In general, the power consumed by a mine’s ventilation system and its overall scale are closely related to the amount of diesel power in operation. This is because diesel exhaust is a major source of underground air pollution, including diesel particulate matter (DPM), NO2 and heat, and because regulations tie air volumes to diesel engines. Furthermore, assuming the size of airways remains constant, the power consumption of the main system increases exponentially with the volume of air supplied to the mine. Therefore large diesel fleets lead to increased energy consumption and can also necessitate large capital expenditures on ventilation infrastructure in order to manage power requirements. Meeting ventilation requirements for equipment in a heading can result in a similar scenario with the biggest pieces leading to higher energy consumption and potentially necessitating larger ventilation tubing and taller drifts. Depending on the climate where the mine is located, large volumes of air can have a third impact on ventilation costs if heating or cooling the air is necessary. Annual heating and cooling costs, as well as the cost of the associated infrastructure, are directly related to the volume of air sent underground. This thesis considers electric mining equipment as a means for reducing the intensity and cost of energy consumption at underground, hardrock mines. Potentially, electric equipment could greatly reduce the volume of air needed to ventilate an entire mine as well as individual headings because they do not emit many of the contaminants found in diesel exhaust and because regulations do not connect air volumes to electric motors. Because of the exponential relationship between power consumption and air volumes, this could greatly reduce the amount of power required for mine ventilation as well as the capital cost of ventilation infrastructure. As heating and cooling costs are also directly linked to air volumes, the cost and energy intensity of heating and cooling the air would also be significantly reduced. A further incentive is that powering equipment from the grid is substantially cheaper than fuelling them with diesel and can also produce far fewer GHGs. Therefore, by eliminating diesel from the underground workers will enjoy safer working conditions and operators and society at large will gain from a smaller impact on the environment. Despite their significant potential, in order to produce a credible economic assessment of electric mining equipment their impact on underground systems must be understood and considered in their evaluation. Accordingly, a good deal of this thesis reviews technical considerations related to the use of electric mining equipment, especially ones that impact the economics of their implementation. The goal of this thesis will then be to present the economic potential of implementing the equipment, as well as to outline the key inputs which are necessary to support an evaluation and to provide a model and an approach which can be used by others if the relevant information is available and acceptable assumptions can be made.

El interés de la audiencia por las intervenciones televisivas de Pablo Iglesias: estrategia comunicativa de Podemos

Este artículo analiza la eclosión mediática y política del partido político Podemos durante sus primeros meses de vida tras las elecciones europeas. Comprobaremos si el interés que despierta el partido en sus inicios, en intención de voto, se traslada a las audiencias de televisión con dos hipótesis que muestran la estrategia comunicativa de Podemos y su repercusión: la H1 afirma que los programas en los que participa Pablo Iglesias obtienen mayor audiencia de la habitual y la H2 plantea que la apuesta del líder de Podemos por el medio televisivo es muy superior y con mejores resultados con respecto a los partidos clásicos. Los resultados demuestran que los programas en los que participa (N=14) crecen un 62% y baten récord de audiencia. Concluimos que la estrategia comunicativa de Podemos da importancia a la televisión, además de continuar con la estrategia en redes aprendida en el 15M.

La gestión de proyectos en la formación de los profesionales de la información: análisis internacional de la materia en los estudios universitarios de Información y Documentación

Se presentan los resultados de un estudio sobre la formación universitaria que reciben los profesionales de la información sobre la materia gestión de proyectos, tras el análisis de las titulaciones en Información y Documentación a nivel internacional. Para ello, se han utilizado fuentes y directorios sobre la educación internacional en Library and Information Science y se ha creado una base de datos con 106 registros de asignaturas sobre gestión de proyectos incluidas en las titulaciones en Información y Documentación. Como resultado de este proceso, los parámetros de análisis de la investigación han sido la ubicación geográfica, las instituciones de educación superior, las titulaciones académicas y las propias asignaturas sobre gestión de proyectos. Entre las conclusiones más notables, destaca la obligatoriedad de las asignaturas, la enseñanza de las mismas en modo presencial y el caso de las universidades públicas de Estados Unidos, Alemania y Francia.

La museología en la encrucijada de los caminos

Durante los últimos años han aparecido un gran número de publicaciones sobre las perspectivas de evolución del mundo de los museos. La reflexión sobre el futuro de estas instituciones no es reciente: la prospectiva, método dirigido a elaborar posibles escenarios en el futuro, no es estrictamente hablando museológica, pero necesariamente interesa al museólogo interrogarse sobre el campo museal. A decir verdad, en su mayoría son profesionales del museo quienes han escrito sobre el tema (en el contexto museal) para adaptar la institución a los nuevos retos. Algunos museólogos, se han arriesgado a este ejercicio, de manera más o menos afortunada. El artículo pretende, después de presentar la literatura prospectiva sobre el museo durante los últimos cincuenta años, y de analizar los recientes resultados de los informes de prospectiva, interrogarse sobre la contribución específica de una reflexión museológica acerca del futuro de los museos más allá de los ejes clásicos (demografía, economía, nuevas tecnologías) que se utilizan con más frecuencia.

Att marknadsföra en stadskärna : En kvalitativ studie om hur Sandvikens stadskärna kan marknadsföras och ses som mötesplats

This study takes its basis in preliminary talks with stakeholders active in the development of the city center in Sandviken. Sandviken is a small town that like many other cities has experienced both economic and demographic stagnation. This is due to the great extent of external retail which affects the economics of city core negative. This study was developed through the complex of problems that show that Town Centre Managements has visions to increase the attractiveness of the city center, but lack a clear strategy of how the vision will be achieved. The study therefore aims to examine how a city center can be marketed and examine ways and beliefs that exist around the production of the city center as a meeting place. The importance of the city center to take a new role as a meeting place is demonstrated in this study's analysis where this approach proved to be a winning concept, in which important values can take place, to in turn help to satisfy the needs of today's urban centers. As a conclusion, and also presented in the discussion how marketing can go to and which actors are responsible and how a community can be created.

'Scratch' locative audio drama - report to BBC executives on trial at BBC FreeThinking 2008

‘Scratch’ investigates the use of physical space as a representation of narrative and dramatic structure. An audio-drama, it is a world-first in being location-sensitive without being tied to any particular place (preceding attempts by others have emphasised location-specific aspects of the genre). Developed in collaboration with and part-funded by BBC Radio Drama, it builds on research undertaken for ‘Dragons’ (output 4). It uses pre-recorded audio on GPS-enabled mobile devices allowing sounds to be virtually attached to locations in an outdoor space. As participants move, they encounter scenes forming a coherent drama which behave differently if the same place is visited more than once. This translocational approach opens novel artistic possibilities exploited through team expertise in narrative, sound design and advanced interaction. It is also significant in the economics of broadcast media as a more viable proposition than the many experimental locative experiences which have been site-specific: this was of great interest to the BBC. The public performance selected for BBC FreeThinking, 1-2 September 2008 in Liverpool as part of European Capital of Culture was reported in a co-authored 2009 conference presentation at ISEA, Belfast, 26-29 August 2009 and in a co-authored short chapter in Spierling and Szilas (eds.) Interactive Storytelling, Springer 2008. Boyd Davis directed the project and devised and undertook the evaluation with 40 trial listeners, reporting to BBC executives (http://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/1000/) for whom a second trial was also run in London in 2009. The evaluation used interview, video observation and a questionnaire combining an open question at the beginning with more specific questions later, avoiding channelling respondents' reactions immediately after the experience into issues which might not be uppermost in their minds, while also yielding data capable of rigorous analysis. The evaluation was to provide feedback to the makers of the drama and to guide policy at the BBC. [287] Participants were recruited principally through the publicity for FreeThinking 2008 – mainly via the festival website. The average age of participants was 40. The gender of participants was 20 males, 17 females and 3 null returns. The evaluation strategy was to combine an open question at the beginning with more specific questions later. In this way we avoided channeling respondents' initial opinions immediately after the experience into issues which might not be uppermost in their minds, while also yielding data capable of rigorous analysis. The purpose of the evaluation was to provide guidance for ourselves as the makers of the drama and to guide policy at the BBC on locative and other interactive media. The responses are analysed in the report.