We provide the first econometric study of efficiency for a member of the Mondragon group of worker cooperatives. Eroski is a retail distribution chain and, most unusually, there are two distinct types of hypermarkets: (i) cooperatives with significant employee ownership and voice; and (ii) GESPAs...

This paper offers an economic model of the operation of a multi-level marketing (MLM) firm in competitive and non-competitive markets. The model takes a recursive approach to analyse decision making at the distributor level. This model is used to understand basic issues in the MLM market and...

The paper analyzes investment behavior of industrial enterprises in the period immediately following price and foreign trade liberalization in the Czech Republic. It also focuses on the effect of soft macroeconomic environment on the microeconomic decisions. A dynamic investment function with...

Approaches to manpower scheduling are dealt with in different problem areas where similarities between the approaches have been neglected. To overcome this deficit a general model to manpower scheduling has been formulated which is based on new modeling concepts extending the Multi-Mode...

This paper deals with integral inventory control in multi-echelon divergent systems with stochastic lead times. The policy considered is an echelon stock, periodic review, order-up-to (R, S) policy. A computational method is derived to obtain the order-up-to level and the allocation fractions...

Many companies use successful WIP limiting strategies such as CONWIP, kanban or drum-buffer-rope to control parts flows in complex production systems. This paper analyzes assembly systems with a tree structure, random processing times and a constant WIP control system. A heuristic version of the...

The economics literature generally considers products as points in some characteristics space. With more products being flexible or self-customizable to some degree, it makes sense to model products with positive measure. I develop a model of firms which can offer interval-long 'fat' products in...

Using data from the EPA's EGRID and Clean Air Markets databases, we investigate the energy (technical) and emissions (ecological) efficiencies of 437 of the largest U.S. electricity generators. We focus on fossil-fuel based electricity generating plants because of their significant impact on...

Using firm-level data for Estonia for the years 1997-2005, we analyze the impact of international competition on firm dynamics, considering both firm closedown and product switching. We contribute to the literature in two important ways: (1) this is the first paper to study the determinants of...

This paper models a generalized form of monopolistic competition such that consumers are differentiated horizontally by taste while firms are differentiated vertically by quality location. Consumers have quadratic transportation costs of disutility from consuming a non-ideal brand, and firms are...