Pace Of Convergence Research Articles

An International Relations Perspective on the Convergence of Corporate Governance: German Shareholder Capitalism and the European Union, 1990-2000

The corporate convergence debate is usually presented in terms of competing efficiency and political claims. Convergence optimists assert that an economic logic will promote convergence on the most efficient form of economic organization, usually taken to be the public corporation governed under rules designed to maximize shareholder value. Convergence skeptics counterclaim that organizational diversity is possible, even probable, because of path dependent development of institutional complementarities whose abandonment is likely to be inefficient. The skeptics also assert that existing elites will use their political and economic advantages to block reform; the optimists counterclaim that the spread of shareholding will reshape politics. This article tries to move the corporate governance convergence debate away from these familiar (and important) arguments towards an international relations perspective. This move has two implications. First, the pace of convergence in corporate governance is understood to depend crucially on a country's, or, perhaps more importantly, on a group of countries' commitment to a project of transnational economic and political integration. Second, this transnational project may be best advanced by the spread of diffusely-held public firms on the Anglo-American model, because such ownership structures facilitate the contestability of corporate control, which, crucially, helps curb economic nationalism. In particular, such contestability may be necessary for state-level acquiescence to crossborder merger activity, which creates economic organizations that are special conduits for the transnational flow of capital, good, services, and people, and, no less, a transnational attitude. So both as a positive and normative matter, strong form convergence responds to a particular sort of political aspiration, not necessarily efficiency objectives conventionally understood. Examples drawn from the evolution of German shareholder capitalism during the 1990s in the context of the European Union project will illustrate the argument.

Real Convergence and Regional Policy in the European Union: Evidence from 1990s

The paper addresses two problems in the analysis of regional convergence in the European. First, typical convergence studies use data that is only available for some of the regions in the EU. This introduces a selection bias, as the lack of data is likely to be systematically linked to the regional income level. Secondly, the estimation takes the EU regional policy explicitly into account. The empirical evidence points to conditional convergence, with a relatively fast pace of convergence compared to other studies. The estimations indicate that regional differences in R&D account for some income variation between EU regions. EU regional policy does not seem to affect regional growth in the EU.

Perturbation techniques for accelerated convergence of cyclic steady state (CSS) in oxygen VSA simulations

Non-isothermal PSA bulk gas separations are notoriously slow to converge to cyclic steady state (CSS). Most numerical simulators that model the slow transient behaviour of these processes share this slow pace of convergence. This difficulty with numerical simulators has long been recognised, and has hampered the optimisation of oxygen VSA. This paper outlines the application of perturbation techniques to enable more rapid determination of CSS temperature profiles. A number of different techniques are proposed. The simplest approach based on experimental observations involves a two-time-scale decomposition of the adsorbent temperature profile. This decomposition of the temperature term enables the rapid numerical determination of the fast (or adsorptive) component of the temperature, followed by the direct determination of an estimated cyclic steady-state slow time-scale (or convective) temperature. It is demonstrated that this approach is the same as a zeroth-order multiple scale analysis (MSA) approach and a simple application of the Krylov–Bogoliubov (K–B) method of averaging. This study compares the results of this acceleration technique for determining CSS with a full numerical model. The results indicate that the proposed acceleration technique based on perturbation methods provides fast and reasonable estimates of the CSS temperature profile with some limitations. Recognising these limitations of the zeroth-order approach, a first-order MSA is developed. This compares better with full numerical simulations, and could be used to augment and complement existing acceleration techniques. It is shown that a first-order MSA approach can also be used to capture the dynamic temperature response of the oxygen VSA process, in addition to the CSS axial temperature profile. The perturbation techniques presented here are limited to a series expansion of the temperature term in the energy balance, and mass balance is ignored in this analysis. A procedure is outlined where a K–B approach can be used to incorporate a perturbation series expansion in the mass balance. We show that these perturbation techniques not only offer potential for simulation acceleration, but also offer useful insights into the thermal convergence to CSS in oxygen VSA.

Changes and trends in alcohol consumption patterns in Europe

Consumer behaviourists and consumer policy‐makers are interested in the degree to which global convergence is occurring for various consumer behaviour dimensions, the extent to which the consumption patterns in different parts of the world are becoming similar and the extent to which these trends may be influenced and/or influence consumer policy. With increasing internationalization and cultural cross‐fertilization, the industrialized societies of the world are converging in many ways. Shifts in alcohol consumption patterns in Europe over the past 50 years represent a case in point. As traditional cultural boundaries become blurred, consumer preferences for alcoholic beverages appear to be driven less by long‐standing local and regional traditions and more by growing acceptance of a wider choice. The disparity in total alcohol consumption among the 15 countries studied has also decreased. Other powerful forces are likely to accelerate the pace of convergence in the future.

Changing Patterns in Wine Consumption: The North‐South Divide

Consumer researchers are interested in the degree to which global convergence is occurring along with various consumer behaviour dimensions and to what extent the consumption patterns in different parts of the world are becoming similar. With increasing internationalisation and cultural cross‐fertilisation, the industrialised societies of the world are converging in many ways. Shifts in alcoholic beverage consumption patterns in Europe over the past 50 years may represent a case in point. As traditional cultural boundaries become blurred, consumer preferences for wine appears to be driven less by long‐standing local and regional traditions, and more by growing acceptance of a wider choice. The disparity of wine consumption among the 12 countries studied has also decreased. Other powerful forces are likely to accelerate the pace of convergence in the future.