In this paper, we propose two decision models for decentralized and centralized fresh produce supply chains with stochastic supply and demand and controllable transportation time. The optimal order quantity and the optimal transportation time in these two supply chain systems are derived. To improve profits in a decentralized supply chain, based on analyzing the risk taken by each participant i...

Using aggregate data from the Annual Survey of Industries, we analyze profitability in India’s organized manufacturing sector from 1982-83 to 2012-13. Over the whole period of analysis, the rate of profit grew at about 1 percent per annum, primarily driven by a rising share of profits. We use structural break tests to identify medium and short run regimes. We find two medium run regimes, one of...

The implications of the causal and ubiquitous use, by doctors health-workers and politicians, of the word 'patient' are here discussed. Given that the many implications of this noun do not include health or normality (rather the contrary), it is questionable who, if anyone, profits from its indiscriminate use--and its use, even, at all.

Angola’s difficulties in achieving macro-economic stability and economic liberalization have serious implications for private-sector development. Hyperinflation, and frequent policy reversal, constrain and distort investment in both the informal and formal parts of the private sector. But macro-economic instability arises in part out of mechanisms that subsidize powerful oligopolies, enabling t...

"With intellectual property, the upfront costs are what it's all about, " (Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates) explained to the business titans assembled at the Redmond, Wash., campus (last May). " Say a piece of software costs $10 million to create and the marginal costs, because it's going to be distributed electronically, are basically zero. " Once the costs of development have been recouped, " e...

We study the static and dynamic implications of non-linear pricing schemes (i.e., bundling) for otherwise unrelated products but for multimarket contact. Bundling is always present in competition but unlikely in a cartel agreement. Although it brings extra profits to the cartel –sometimes charging a premium rather than a discount for the bundle–, bundling makes deviation from the agreement far ...

The First Welfare Theorem fails to hold for standard pure exchange overlapping generations economies because no agent exploits the profit opportunities which can arise from mediating intertemporal trade. This paper modifies the standard economy by introducing an optimizing corporate intermediary which distributes net earnings back to consumer-shareholders. The Pareto inefficient no-trade state,...

Exchanges often sell both trading services and price information. We study the effect of combining the sale of these two products on price discovery, in a rational expectations model. We show that pricing errors and thereby speculators’ trading profits decline when price information becomes available in real-time to a wider number of speculators. As a result, speculators’ willingness to pay for...