Geoffrey Reed

Importance‐Performance Analysis and the Measurement of Service Quality

The intangibility of services presents a number of problems for the measurement of quality and customer satisfaction. Proposes a simple index which can be applied to ordinal or cardinal data and will provide a convenient aggregate summary of the extent to which a product or service meets consumer expectations. The index, though simple, is robust, and is applied to the problem of analysing the quality of banking services provided to small firms in the United Kingdom.

What does a University add to its local economy

The local multiplier effects of a university are estimated using data for the University of Nottingham. Gross output and disposable income multipliers are calculated. The latter are adjusted to exclude the incomes of induced migrants, whose welfare is assumed unchanged.

Antidumping Policies in the United States and the European Community

Since the early I98os, US and EC antidumping (AD) policies have converged in their aims, outcomes and legal detail. This is revealed by close similarities in the structures and time pattern of their procedures (see Palmeter (1995) and Vermulst and Driessen (I995) on the legal aspects in the United States and the Community respectively). It was manifest during the Uruguay Round, where a US-EC coalition resisted any substantial change in the code for interpreting Article VI of GATT. Such convergence has not happened by chance: section II argues that it arises from the same basic policy choices having been made during the i980s. Sections III and IV describe and analyse the various aspects of this convergence. Finally, section V offers some conclusions about future consequences.

The excess comovement of commodity prices revisited

Abstract It is commonly held that commodity prices have a tendency to comove over time due to the effects of microeconomic influences which are common to all commodity prices. In this paper we present a conceptual framework for the identification and testing of the excess comovement hypothesis, i.e. price correlation over and above that which can be explained by microeconomic determinants. We find previous approaches to be deficient in important respects and these deficiencies may explain the contrasting results that have been obtained. Our empirical analysis suggests that excess comovement occurs only infrequently in monthly time series. Moreover, the results cast doubt on the existence of commodity price comovement.

Estimating the Impact of Anti‐dumping and Anti‐cartel Actions Using Intervention Analysis

Intervention analysis is proposed as a method for estimating the effects of antidumping actions in the presence of a domestic cartel. Data requirements and modeling effort compare favorably with traditional structural model approaches. The method is applied to an antidumping action brought to the European Commission and in which the European producers of the product were fined after an anticartel action by the Commission covering an overlapping period. Intervention analysis is applied to distinguish the effects of the antidumping action from those of changes in cartel behavior.

A comparative analysis of some policy options to reduce rationing in the UK's NHS: Lessons from a general equilibrium model incorporating positive health effects

Abstract This paper seeks to determine the macro-economic impacts of changes in health care provision. The resource allocation issues have been explored in theory, by applying the Rybczynski theorem, and empirically, using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model for the UK with a detailed health component. From the theory, changes in non-health outputs are shown to depend on factor-bias and scale effects, the net effects generally being indeterminate. From the applied model, a rise in the National Health Service (NHS) budget is shown to yield overall welfare gains, which fall by two-thirds assuming health care-specific factors. A nominally equivalent migration policy yields even higher welfare gains.

Import-Substitution versus Export-Promotion

Chapter 7 gave us some insights into the effects of economic growth on international trade. The preceding chapters in Part 2 have treated some aspects of the theory of trade policy. It is now opportune to analyse some trade-based strategies for development and survey some experiences that the last few decades have provided.

An empirical analysis of comparative advantage in Egyptian agriculture

Egyptian comparative advantage in each of 18 agricultural commodities is assessed for a number of years, using both the domestic resource coefficient and net social profitability. It is found that Egypt enjoys a comparative advantage in most cash crops, but a comparative disadvantage in many grains and pulses. The results suggest that foreign exchange could be earned more efficiently by altering relative incentives in favour of export-oriented crops.

The Differentiation of Bank Services to Small Firms

Increased competitive pressure in the market for loanable funds has encouraged the banks to place greater emphasis on the marketing of their services to both corporate and personal customers. The small business sector of the corporate market covers the majority of corporate accounts and for a substantial volume of bank lending. However, the proliferation of product differentiation in relation to small business customers in order to improve banks′ competitive position appears to have been less than successful. The small business sector is heterogeneous; customer needs vary but there is little evidence to suggest that banks differentiate their products sufficiently to appeal to distinct market segments. On the contrary, despite competitive pressures and new marketing strategies, small business customers generally perceive the services provided by the different banks as indistinguishable.

Macroeconomic Policy with Fixed and Pegged Exchange Rates

The distinction between fixed and pegged exchange rates is often rather blurred, sometimes by design. The essential distinction between the two is that a fixed exchange rate is just that: fixed. The epitome of the fixed exchange rate system was the gold standard (strictly the gold currency standard), in which the exchange rate between two currencies was determined by the relative weight in gold of the main coin of the realm.1 That is, if the weight in gold of a sovereign was four times that of a US dollar coin then the exchange rate was £1 =