It is important to manage the multifaceted risks associated with international construction projects, in particular in developing countries, not only to secure work but also to make profit. This research seeks to identify and evaluate these risks and their effective mitigation measures and to...

This Paper focuses on two distinct facets of globalization: the decrease in the trade costs of goods and the decline of communication costs between headquarters and production facilities within firms. When the unskilled have about the same wage in the two regions, the decrease of these costs...

Much of the construction industry improvement agenda has been focused on achieving integration of the design and construction processes. However, the current approaches do not create an organizational framework to deal with the full integration of the supply chains for component based...

This paper uses real option methodology to compare the cost of a long-term contract with a price cap to that of spot purchases in construction material procurement. In construction, material procurements are usually short-term, project-based and subject to high price volatility. These...

There has recently been considerable interest in construction research in paradigms developed for the manufacturing sector. Using lean thinking and agile production as examples of innovative organizational and business process design, this paper explores their commonalities and differences. In...

Some observers argue that increased real integration has led to greater co-movement of prices internationally. We examine the evidence for cross-border price spillovers among economies participating in the pan-Asian cross-border production networks. Starting with country-level data, we find that...

Private pension provision faces the challenging task of providing stable income streams during retirement. The challenge has increased markedly in the last decades due to volatile financial markets, falling interest rates and the withdrawal of employers and external insurers as risk bearers of...

The dangers of shouting ``fire'' in a crowded theater are well understood, but the dangers of rushing to the exit in the financial markets are more complex. Yet, the two events share several features, and I analyze why people crowd into theaters and trades, why they run, what determines the...

Financial crises are associated with reduced volumes and extreme levels of rates for term inter-bank transactions, such as in one-month and three-month LIBOR markets. We provide an explanation of such stress in term lending by modelling leveraged banks’ precautionary demand for liquidity. When...