Governments and Free Markets: Comparative or Strategic Advantage?

Markets Versus Governments

We provide a simple framework for comparing market allocations with government-regulated allocations. Governments can collect information about individuals’types and enforce transfers across individuals. Markets (without signi…cant government intervention) have to rely on transactions that are ex post bene…cial for individuals. Consequently, governments achieve better risk sharing and consumpti...

Strategic Interaction Among Governments

Strategic information systems planning: deriving comparative advantage from EDI

In this paper we argue that EDI should not be viewed simply as a technological infrastructure, but as a technology which may enable an organisation taking a strategic view to derive comparative advantage from utilising it as part of a process of business reengineering in other words, as a socio-technical entity. We suggest that Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP) is a suitable superst...

Comparative Advantage and Competitive Advantage:

There is a considerable amount of controversy about the model(s) of comparative advantage and its applicability to international business, in particular as a guide to the success of nations and/or firms in international markets. This perception (or understanding) of inapplicability of the model(s) of comparative advantage has lead international business experts to develop new models, or what ma...

Incentives in Markets, Firms, and Governments

We construct a simple career concerns model where high-powered incentives can distort the composition of effort by inducing excessive signaling. We show that in the presence of this type of career concerns, markets typically fail to limit competitive pressures and cannot commit to the desirable low-powered incentives. Firmsmay be able to weaken incentives and improve efficiency by obscuring inf...