The paper raises the proposition that Central Europe?s integration into the international division of labour has added significantly to competitive pressure in the German automobile industry. Based on production and trade data, we trace two dimensions of competitive pressure: relocation of...

Even though the automobile industry is technologically advanced, the increasing integration of low-income countries into the global division of labor has put competitive pressure on traditional automobile producing countries. New end-producers emerged in Asia, Latin America as well as Southern...

Der Beitrag analysiert die internationalen Produktionsverlagerungen und Investitionsverflechtungen in der Automobilindustrie, um die These zu überprüfen, dass es selbst bei der Herstellung relativ wissens- und technologieintensiver Güter zu einem nachdrängenden Wettbewerb aus Ländern mit...

The paper develops a simple theoretical model of inventory control in global supply chains. It identifies a role for intermediaries in managing inventory, and shows that inserting an intermediary as an additional link in a supply chain is profitable when demand volatility is high. It also...

The author analyses delegation in homogenous duopoly under the assumption that the firm-managers compete in supply functions. In supply function equilibrium, managers' decisions are strategic complements. This reverses earlier findings in that the author finds that owners give managers...

National and multinational companies coexist in many sectors of all developed countries. However, economic models fail to reproduce this fact because of the assumption of symmetry between companies. To show that the symmetry assumption is the reason for this failure, a two-country general...

Hybrid governance structures between markets and hierarchies in many industries, e.g., in energy and telecommunications, challenge antitrust and regulation policy. The paper focuses on the theoretical and methodological basis provided by the New Institutional Economics (NIE) for analyzing the...

This paper presents some ideas about determinants of merger waves and some evidence on their effect on profitability and employment. A brief survey of previous merger waves and an analysis of the recent one give support to the hypothesis that sectoral shocks are at the root of merger waves....

With the transition to the European Monetary Union (EMU), the instrument of monetary policy for individual member countries has been abolished. This step has led to serious challenges for the diferent states to stabilize their economies to various economic shocks. Diferent labor market...

We argue that the measures of backward linkages used in recent papers on spillovers from multinational companies are potentially problematic, as they depend on a number of restrictive assumptions, namely that (i) multinationals use domestically produced inputs in the same proportion as imported...