Electrical Equipment Industry Research Articles

International Knowledge Spillovers and Technology Imports: Evidence from Japanese Chemical and Electric Equipment Industries

This paper clarifies the role of licensed technology imports by investigating data from over 200 Japanese firms in the chemical and electric equipment industries. The results from various estimation methods suggest that licensed technology imports encourage licensees' innovation, since they enhance foreign knowledge inflow. Moreover, the size of this effect depends on the industry and on firm-specific characteristics such as the technological level. Technology imports tend to have the greatest impact when substitute domestic knowledge is less developed than in foreign countries. The significance of technology imports also varies within each industry according to a firm's R&D capability. J. Japan. Int. Econ., September 2001, 15(3), pp. 271–297. Graduate School of Decision Science and Technology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1 Ōokayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, Japan 152-8550. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: O31, O34, F29.

Developing an instrumental capacity model for industry

Discusses the difficulties of measuring, defining and managing capacity; and develops a model which splits it into two components (resource and ability) plus several sub‐components, and recognizes the interfaces between them. Illustrates and defines the sub‐components and identifies three states of capacity loading: resource‐loaded (over‐resourced), ability‐loaded (e.g. over‐qualified staff) and even‐capacity (i.e. resources compatible with ability). Asserts that the relative capacities of firms within an industry form a “capacity curve” with ability‐loaded small firms, medium firms at even capacity and large firms resource‐loaded. Analyses 1994‐1997 data for the US electronics and electrical equipment industry to plot its capacity curve, explains the methodology used, and shows how the regression model can be applied to individual firms within the industry to improve capacity management. Recognizes the limitations of the study.

R&D Intensity and Acquisitions in High‐Technology Industries: Evidence from the US Electronic and Electrical Equipment Industries

Theory suggests R&D intensity and acquisition activity may be either directly or inversely related. However, we know relatively little about which firms are responsible for acquisition activity in high‐technology industries, which are not only R&D‐intensive, but also have substantial acquisition activity in the United States. Using a panel of 217 US electronic and electrical equipment firms from 1985–93 and limited dependent variable estimation techniques, we find a substantial negative correlation between R&D‐intensity and a firm’s propensity to acquire. This result is surprisingly robust to numerous sensitivity tests and is significant in both the ‘within’ and ‘between’ dimensions of our data.

The Influence of Federal Laboratory R&D on Industrial Research

This paper studies the influence of R&D in the U.S. federal laboratory system, the world's largest, on firm research. Our results are based on a sample of 220 industrial research laboratories that work with a variety of federal laboratories and agencies and are owned by 115 firms in the chemicals, machinery, electrical equipment, and motor vehicles industries. Using an indicator of their importance to R&D managers, we find that cooperative research and development agreements (CRADAs) dominate other channels of technology transfer from federal laboratories to firms. With a CRADA industry laboratories patent more, spend more on company-financed R&D, and devote more resources to their federal counterparts. Without this influence, patenting stays about the same, and only federally funded R&D increases, mostly because of government support. The Stevenson-Wydler Act and amendments during the 1980s introduced CRADAs, which legally bind federal laboratories and firms together in joint research. In theory the agre...

Highlights from a new electrical equipment industry report

AbstractEnvironmental Information Services, Inc. (EIS) publishes detailed reports and offers custom research related to the full spectrum of environmental issues facing corporations. This article highlights several key sections from EIS's new 1998 Electrical Equipment Industry Report. It details the environmental performance, policies, and expenditures of the largest companies in the electrical equipment industry. EIS industry reports contain data on five key performance criteria—toxic waste management, hazardous waste generation, penalties and enforcement actions, and spills. Here we examine one of those—penalties and enforcement actions—and the policies of the largest companies.

Determinants of long-term loans: a theory and empirical evidence in Japan

The purpose of this paper is to investigate what type of firm chooses long-term loans. Our theoretical result shows that if a liquidation risk is present, the firm tends to choose long-term debt when it has large amount of external debt, when its average revenue is large, and when the manager has his own non-assignable control rent. It also shows that if there exists a chance of renegotiation, the firm tends to choose long-term debt when it has large amount of external debt and when its average revenue is small. Except for the electric and electronic equipment industry, the empirical results in Japan support our hypotheses for the case where a liquidation risk is present. However, in the electric and electronic equipment industry, the results support our hypotheses for the case where there exists a change of renegotiation. In addition, the hypotheses are supported more significantly for the data of smaller companies and for the data after smaller financial liberalization.

Scale properties and input substitution in mexican electrical equipment manufacturing

This paper investigates the existence of scale economies in the Mexican electrical equipment industry and estimates direct and cross price input demand elasticities using a translog cost function. Although the estimated value of the cost elasticity was consistent with economies of scale, it was significantly less than 1 only at a significance level slightly greater than 5 percent. The estimated cross price elasticities indicated that all of the inputs were substitutes. Nevertheless, while lower trade barriers under the North American Free Trade Agreement, ceteris paribus, may have a short-term adverse effect on the demand for labor in this industry by increasing imports of cheaper capital and intermediate goods, the relatively low values for ELK and ELM also support the conclusion that the impact on employment may be relatively small.

The Localisation Of Corporate Technological Trajectories In The Interwar Cartels: Cooperative Learning Versus An Exchange Of Knowledge

By itself, an exchange of knowledge between complementary activities is inadequate to bring the localised technological specialisation of firms closer together, but cooperative 1earning tends to like the technological profile of partner companies more closely cornplementary Interwar cartels in the electrical equipment industry were restricted to an exchange of knowledge at the corporate group level, but in chemicals they sometimes included cooperative Learning. US patent data for the interwar period arc used to construct a measure of the pattern of the localised technological trajectories of the largest US and European firms. Cartels had a limited impact on the overall level of research or the propensity to patent ar the corporate group level. hut cooperative learning made the technological trajectories of chemical firms more similar or closely complementry. Instend. electrical equipment firms became more localised in their learning, paths, by separating products while exchanging knowledge between activities that remained complementary. The findings are relevant to the study of current technological cooperation through inter-firm alliances.

Appropriation Of Returns From Technological Assets And The Values Of Patents And R&D In Japanese High-Tech Firms†

This paper investigates the extent that technological assets contribute to the value of the firm, using the sample of 90 Japanese firms in pharmaceutical, chemical, and electrical equipment industries. We use the firm's R&D expenditures and the number of patents (in stock) as the measures of its technological assets and show that the relative usefulness of these two measures varies across industries. Particularly, Tobin's q is positively related to the technological assets most strongly in the pharmaceutical industry. It is also most sensitive in this industry to the level of patent stock, coinciding with the view that drug patents are more effective than other patents as a means of appropriating returns from innovation. The communications equipment industry is also characterized by its q's dependence on patent stock. In addition, this industry's q is particularly sensitive to the level of net R&D investment in the most recent year, presumably because of the rapid technological progress in this industry.

Delivery lead time compression an integral part of a time based strategy

The objective of this study is to examine factors influencing delivery lead time in a manufacturing environment. It presents the results of a survey of the electronic and other electrical equipment and components industry' in California to illustrate the relative importance of these factors in delivery time reduction. The degree of importance of each factor is then compared with the extent of emphasis the survey participants actually placed on the factor in attempting to reduce delivery lead time.

Inventive efficiency: How the U.S. compares with Japan

AbstractThis study argues that inventive (R&D) efficiency may be an important factor in the competition for global market shares and goods and services. The authors compare R&D efficiency for 14 industrial groups in the United States and Japan using multiple indices of inventive efficiency. Findings show interesting differences in inventive efficiency across industrial groups and between the United States and Japan. United States food, textile, chemical, rubber, metals, fabricated metals, and other miscellaneous manufacturing industries appear to be relatively more efficient in inventive efficiency than their Japanese counterparts. In contrast, Japanese paper, petroleum, machinery, and scientific equipment industries display greater inventive efficiency than their United States counterparts. The electrical equipment, transportation, and stone industries in the two countries appear to be equally efficient. The implications of these differences are discussed.

Taxes, incentives and production: The case of Turkey

This paper investigates the effectiveness of investment incentives and corporate income taxes in influencing production and investment decisions in the Turkish electrical machinery, non-electrical machinery and transportation equipment industries. Three tax instruments are considered; the corporate income tax (CIT), the investment tax allowance (ITA), and the capital cost allowance (CCA). The results show that since there are significant capital adjustment costs, it is important to distinguish between the short, intermediate, and long-run effects associated with the tax instruments. Production decisions are relatively more responsive to changes in the ITA rate compared to changes in either the CCA or CIT rates in each of the runs. However, the ITA and CCA rates are equally cost effective in stimulating investment and superior to the CIT. The CCA and ITA rates generate investment expenditures of 1.5 to 2.5 times the loss in government revenue. Thus targeted instruments outperform the general CIT instrument. In addition, although the incentive to invest is enhanced, there is little effect on output and employment. Therefore, these tax incentives essentially after production techniques.

The Social Organization of Conspiracy: Illegal Networks in the Heavy Electrical Equipment Industry

We analyze the social organization of three well-known price-fixing conspiracies in the heavy electrical equipment industry. Although aspects of collusion have been studied by industrial organization economists and organizational criminologists, the organization of conspiracies has remained virtually unexplored. Using archival data, we reconstruct the actual communication networks involved in conspiracies in switchgear transformers, and turbines. We find that the structure of illegal networks is driven primarily by the need to maximize concealment, rather than the need to maximize efficiency. However, network structure is also contingent on information-processing requirements imposed by product and market characteristics. Our individual-level model predicts verdict (guilt or innocence), sentence, and fine as functions of personal centrality in the illegal network, network structure, management level, and company size. People of the same trade seldom meet together but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some diversion to raise prices.

Universities and the Startup of New Companies: Can We Generalize from Route 128 and Silicon Valley?

In order to increase the commercialization of basic research, policymakers have tried to foster closer ties between university research and industry R&D. To empirically test whether there is a link between commercialization and university research, this paper models firm startups during 1976-78 for six two-digit manufacturing industries located in twenty-five metropolitan areas. The findings are mixed: the relationship between university research and firm births in the electrical and electronic equipment industries (SIC 36) is positive and statistically significant, while in the instruments and related industries (SIC 38) the relationship is statistically insignificant. Copyright 1993 by MIT Press.

The Political Economy of Electrical Power Generation

This article examines the procurement practices of Canada s three largest electric power utilities, Ontario Hydro, Hydro Quebec, and B.C. Hydro in terms of their impact on the technological development of the electrical power equipment industry in Canada. The theoretical underpinnings of this analysis are that under certain economic, technical and institutional conditions, procurement as managed by large publicly owned corporations with a high level of technical capacity can be a powerful instrument of industrial innovation. The paper describes how in the face of weakening market power following the twenty‐year expansion phase in the industry (1960–80) and global restructuring among electrical power equipment suppliers, the three utilities have been forced to reassess conflicting commercial and technological objectives. The authors point to Hydro Quebec's signing of a recent series of strategic production agreements with key suppliers as an example of a new approach lo procurement through concentrated use of limited market power in critical product areas. The paper concludes that the distribution of risks involved in technology development between buyers and sellers is dependent on market structures. Secondly, the nature of these client‐supplier interactions in management of risk will reflect the internal coherence of an organization's commercial and technological strategies.

Financing Future Exports of Canada's Electrical Power Equipment Industry

In the 1980s, the Canadian power equipment manufacturing sector underwent a significant rationalization and restructuring, resulting in a modem, efficient industry. With longer product lines and improved labour productivity, the industry is now better positioned to face the competition of larger European, Japanese and US players, both at home and abroad.

Managerial Pay and Company Performance: UK Electrical and Office Equipment Goods Industry

It appears that the role of money as a motivator in work tasks has increased substantially during the past decade. This applies particularly to managerial and executive grades. First, why this might be the case is discussed. Second, the literature on the early research into the pay of the chief executive is reviewed, since a major point of consideration was the relationship between CEOs′ pay and firms′ performance. Third, the evidence on profit sharing and company performance is examined, as it appears that this form of linkage has increased in the last decade, particularly for managerial and executive grades. Fourth, a model for testing the relationship between managerial remuneration and the performance of the firm is presented. This model is then applied to internal and external measures of performance for a sample of 147 firms in the UK electrical and office equipment industry for the year 1987, and conclusions are drawn.

How electrical contractors choose distributors

Abstract The literature pertaining to channels of distribution is reviewed and some general conclusions are drawn about its applicability to managing actual industrial channels. The role of price management is discussed and several important aspects are illustrated. The dimensions of customer power and choice are shown to be critical issues in channel management. Empirical evidence is presented from the electrical distribution equipment industry.

The changing electric power equipment industry and the future role of the Power Engineering Society

The author discusses industry changes and their impact on the IEEE Power Engineering Society (PES). Some of the actions proposed or already being taken by some PES in response to these changes are presented. They concern non-US membership, standardization activities, and power education.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

The use of corrostion-resistant steels for dies

1. The erosion resistance of corrosion-resistant steels is significantly higher than of die steels. 2. Replacement of die steels by corrosion-resistant ones for the working surface of dies is desirable and necessary in those cases in which the requirement of high erosion resistance prevails over heat resistance. In this case 18Kh12VMBFR steel (All-Union State Standards 5632-72 and 5949-75) is recommended. 14Kh17N2 steel supplied to the same specification may be a substitute. 3. For the lock portion (housing) of large assembled dies for die casting of aluminum alloys, types 5KhNM or 4Kh5MFS die steels heat-treated to >55 HRC are recommended. 4. The investigated steels are intended for the production of dies for the die casting of aluminum and copper alloys and the cover die halves of dies for molten Silumins, brasses, and bronzes and also for hot work dies. They may also be used in machine building and the electrical equipment, instrument, and automobile and tractor industries.