The Impact of Bullwhip Effect on the Cash Flow in Two-Parallel Supply Chain Systems with the Competition Effect

While considering the competition effect and market share, this study discusses how the cash flow bullwhip effect (CFBE) is impacted in two-product and two-parallel supply chain systems by comparing the situation that it has one kind of product in two-level supply chain (SC). Specifically, the study aimed to examine two-product and two-parallel SC systems that include two suppliers and two retailers. Assuming that the demand function is a linear relationship of price self-sensitivity coefficient and price cross-sensitivity coefficient, which is an AR(1) process, two retailers share the demand. After that, the quantitative equation of the CFBE was deduced from two-product and two-parallel SC systems. Finally, we get the condition that the competition effect and the market share increase or decrease the CFBE, which was in contrast to the situation without the competition effect and the market share. The paper suggested that the manager can cooperate with their partner if two products are substitutable. On the other hand, the firm should improve the forecasting accuracy of the customer’s demand and improve the service quality so that it can increase the market share and reduce the CFBE in two-parallel SC systems.

Investment-Timing and the Threat of Disruption

<p>An incumbent firm needs to determine how to best manage the risk of the arrival of a disruptive technology. The numerous actions available to the incumbent firm indicates a complex real-options model of investment is required. This thesis investigates the behaviour of an incumbent firm, with assets-in-place, when they have access to an investment opportunity. The incumbent must not only choose when to invest in the opportunity, but also the optimal structure with which to compete against a new entrant who also has this investment opportunity. In order to delay competition in the market the incumbent can elect to permanently abandon the innovative option rather than seek to compete with the new entrant. The assets-in-place contributes significant value to the incumbent and by delaying the competition effect, the incumbent can reduce the cannibalization of assets-in-place. This is despite the fact that the incumbent can attempt to profitably invest in the innovation before the entrant. Clearly the assets-in-place provide a benefit to firm value for the incumbent, but act as a burden for the growth option’s development. Should consumer preferences begin to favour the innovation, then the decision to abandon the growth option loses its value. The incumbent in this instance does not care that they may accelerate the entrant’s investment as they can still profitably preempt the entrant. In a competitive market, when the incumbent efficiently produces the innovation at no extra cost compared to an independent firm, the incumbent will elect to internalise, rather than spin off, the growth option. When the incumbent produces the innovation at a higher cost, than other market participants, they will spin off the growth option instead of internalising. When consumers favour the innovation, the incumbent becomes indifferent between spinning off and internalising the growth option as the objective functions in both cases converge to maximising the value of the growth option.</p>

Investment-Timing and the Threat of Disruption

<p>An incumbent firm needs to determine how to best manage the risk of the arrival of a disruptive technology. The numerous actions available to the incumbent firm indicates a complex real-options model of investment is required. This thesis investigates the behaviour of an incumbent firm, with assets-in-place, when they have access to an investment opportunity. The incumbent must not only choose when to invest in the opportunity, but also the optimal structure with which to compete against a new entrant who also has this investment opportunity. In order to delay competition in the market the incumbent can elect to permanently abandon the innovative option rather than seek to compete with the new entrant. The assets-in-place contributes significant value to the incumbent and by delaying the competition effect, the incumbent can reduce the cannibalization of assets-in-place. This is despite the fact that the incumbent can attempt to profitably invest in the innovation before the entrant. Clearly the assets-in-place provide a benefit to firm value for the incumbent, but act as a burden for the growth option’s development. Should consumer preferences begin to favour the innovation, then the decision to abandon the growth option loses its value. The incumbent in this instance does not care that they may accelerate the entrant’s investment as they can still profitably preempt the entrant. In a competitive market, when the incumbent efficiently produces the innovation at no extra cost compared to an independent firm, the incumbent will elect to internalise, rather than spin off, the growth option. When the incumbent produces the innovation at a higher cost, than other market participants, they will spin off the growth option instead of internalising. When consumers favour the innovation, the incumbent becomes indifferent between spinning off and internalising the growth option as the objective functions in both cases converge to maximising the value of the growth option.</p>

Does Money Buy Happiness?

After a relatively low level of survival and comfort, additional consumption does not increase happiness significantly, especially at the social level. At the individual level, people want more due to the relative competition effect which cancels out at the social level. In addition, the adaptation effects and environmental disruption effects also work to limit the contributions of higher consumption and enlarge the gap between expectation and actuality.

Assessing the Economic Impact of North-South Free Trade Agreements -- China-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement and China-Australia Free Trade Agreement

<p>This research develops a model of assessing the economic impact of free trade agreements (FTAs) between developed countries and developing countries (north-south FTAs). This model goes beyond the conventional studies that use static effects in traditional gains as primary indicators of the economic impact, and incorporates dynamics effects as well as non-traditional gains for a more accurate assessment. The research uses China's north-south FTAs, namely, China's FTA with New Zealand - the first comprehensive FTA that China has signed with a developed country - and the proposed FTA between China and Australia. Both cases provide an ideal empirical basis for testing the proposed model. After introduction of the research problem, design and methodology, Part I of the study provides a general discussion of the FTAs between China and New Zealand, and China and Australia as a background to the research. Part II starts with the conventional model of traditional gains. It first demonstrates how the static effect of the north-south FTA is analyzed in Robson's three-country model. It shows that in his model, the trade creation effect is dominant in the free trade area. The study then introduces the concept of dynamic effect of traditional gains. The study first uses the Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) index to analyse the competition effect of trade in goods by industries among China, New Zealand and Australia. It then discusses the competition effect of trade in services in categories through Trade Competitive Power (TC) indexes. The study further examines the effect of investment creation after the China-New Zealand FTA and China-Australia FTA entered into force. The findings of this section on the dynamic effect are that China would have negative impact on cattle husbandry, forestry, mining and some categories of services which are also the industries that New Zealand and Australia would further develop in China's market. In Part III, the study discusses non-traditional gains as important indicators of the economic impact of FTAs. It incorporates the hub & spoke theory (H&S) with Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) strategies of China, New Zealand and Australia. The study shows that the north-south FTAs are important components for both developed countries and developing countries' RTAs strategies. The China-New Zealand FTA and the proposed China-Australia FTA are the wedges between China and the advanced economies system. Meanwhile, the China-New Zealand FTA will be a model for future north-south FTAs involving China. This thesis contributes to our understanding of the complicated and dynamic relationship between FTAs among countries of different levels of economic development and their overall economic growth and development. It also adds to our knowledge about how this relationship can be better analyzed and explained.</p>

Assessing the Economic Impact of North-South Free Trade Agreements -- China-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement and China-Australia Free Trade Agreement

<p>This research develops a model of assessing the economic impact of free trade agreements (FTAs) between developed countries and developing countries (north-south FTAs). This model goes beyond the conventional studies that use static effects in traditional gains as primary indicators of the economic impact, and incorporates dynamics effects as well as non-traditional gains for a more accurate assessment. The research uses China's north-south FTAs, namely, China's FTA with New Zealand - the first comprehensive FTA that China has signed with a developed country - and the proposed FTA between China and Australia. Both cases provide an ideal empirical basis for testing the proposed model. After introduction of the research problem, design and methodology, Part I of the study provides a general discussion of the FTAs between China and New Zealand, and China and Australia as a background to the research. Part II starts with the conventional model of traditional gains. It first demonstrates how the static effect of the north-south FTA is analyzed in Robson's three-country model. It shows that in his model, the trade creation effect is dominant in the free trade area. The study then introduces the concept of dynamic effect of traditional gains. The study first uses the Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) index to analyse the competition effect of trade in goods by industries among China, New Zealand and Australia. It then discusses the competition effect of trade in services in categories through Trade Competitive Power (TC) indexes. The study further examines the effect of investment creation after the China-New Zealand FTA and China-Australia FTA entered into force. The findings of this section on the dynamic effect are that China would have negative impact on cattle husbandry, forestry, mining and some categories of services which are also the industries that New Zealand and Australia would further develop in China's market. In Part III, the study discusses non-traditional gains as important indicators of the economic impact of FTAs. It incorporates the hub & spoke theory (H&S) with Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) strategies of China, New Zealand and Australia. The study shows that the north-south FTAs are important components for both developed countries and developing countries' RTAs strategies. The China-New Zealand FTA and the proposed China-Australia FTA are the wedges between China and the advanced economies system. Meanwhile, the China-New Zealand FTA will be a model for future north-south FTAs involving China. This thesis contributes to our understanding of the complicated and dynamic relationship between FTAs among countries of different levels of economic development and their overall economic growth and development. It also adds to our knowledge about how this relationship can be better analyzed and explained.</p>

The Processing of the Second Syllable in Recognizing Chinese Disyllabic Spoken Words: Evidence From Eye Tracking

In the current study, two experiments were conducted to investigate the processing of the second syllable (which was considered as the rhyme at the word level) during Chinese disyllabic spoken word recognition using a printed-word paradigm. In Experiment 1, participants heard a spoken target word and were simultaneously presented with a visual display of four printed words: a target word, a phonological competitor, and two unrelated distractors. The phonological competitors were manipulated to share either full phonemic overlap of the second syllable with targets (the syllabic overlap condition; e.g., 小篆, xiao3zhuan4, “calligraphy” vs. 公转, gong1zhuan4, “revolution”) or the initial phonemic overlap of the second syllable (the sub-syllabic overlap condition; e.g., 圆柱, yuan2zhu4, “cylinder” vs. 公转, gong1zhuan4, “revolution”) with targets. Participants were asked to select the target words and their eye movements were simultaneously recorded. The results did not show any phonological competition effect in either the syllabic overlap condition or the sub-syllabic overlap condition. In Experiment 2, to maximize the likelihood of observing the phonological competition effect, a target-absent version of the printed-word paradigm was adopted, in which target words were removed from the visual display. The results of Experiment 2 showed significant phonological competition effects in both conditions, i.e., more fixations were made to the phonological competitors than to the distractors. Moreover, the phonological competition effect was found to be larger in the syllabic overlap condition than in the sub-syllabic overlap condition. These findings shed light on the effect of the second syllable competition at the word level during spoken word recognition and, more importantly, showed that the initial phonemes of the second syllable at the syllabic level are also accessed during Chinese disyllabic spoken word recognition.

Richtmyer–Meshkov instability on two-dimensional multi-mode interfaces

Shock-tube experiments on eight kinds of two-dimensional multi-mode air–SF $_6$ interface with controllable initial conditions are performed to examine the dependence of perturbation growth on initial spectra. We deduce and demonstrate experimentally that the amplitude development of each mode is influenced by the mode-competition effect from quasi-linear stages. It is confirmed that the mode-competition effect is closely related to initial spectra, including the wavenumber, the phase and the initial amplitude of constituent modes. By considering both the mode-competition effect and the high-order harmonics effect, a nonlinear model is established based on initial spectra to predict the amplitude growth of each individual mode. The nonlinear model is validated by the present experiments and data in the literature by considering diverse initial spectra, shock intensities and density ratios. Moreover, the nonlinear model is successfully extended based on the superposition principle to predict the growths of the total perturbation width and the bubble/spike width from quasi-linear to nonlinear stages.