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How might free enterprise have dealt with Hurricane Katrina and her aftermath. This article probes this question at increasing levels of radicalization, starting with the privatization of several government 'services' and ending with the privatization of all of them.

Summary The growth of the Swedish economy has slowed. With global growth still relatively strong though falling off, a healthy tendency in household income and an expansionary fiscal policy, GDP [...]

In this paper, we analyze empirically the determinants of export performance for Chilean manufacturing plants. We are particularly interested in investigating the factors that determine success in the exporting process by distinguishing between firms as non-exporters, sporadic exporters, and permanent exporters. Our findings show that initial firm characteristics such as labor skills and technological innovation are positively associated with exporting, but these same factors are unable to explain why some firms export permanently. In addition, our evidence suggests that previous export experience, multinational spillovers, and an increase in productivity positively contribute to the probability of becoming a permanent exporter. Key words--exports, spillovers, multinationals, Chile, manufacturing industry

Byline: Erkko Autio (1), Annaleena Parhankangas (1) Abstract: This article analyzes the employment generation potential of new, technology-based firms during a recessionary period. The empirical data is from Finland, a country that was hit particularly hard by the economic recession between years 1990 and 1993. In spite of the recession, the number of NTBFs (new, technology-based firms) rose by 17% from 1986 to 1993. In traditional manufacturing industry branches, the overall employment fell by as much as 33% during the same period. Alternative hypotheses to explain the increase in the importance of NTBFs are presented and discussed in the light of research findings. Both flexible specialization and recession-push hypotheses receive support in the empirical data. Author Affiliation: (1) Institute of Strategy and International Business, Helsinki University of Technology, Otakaari 1F, FIN-02150, Espoo, Finland Article History: Registration Date: 06/10/2004

Byline: K. Raja, C. Arumugam, V. Selladurai Manufacturing industries frequently face the problem of reducing earliness and tardiness penalties, owing to the emerging concept of the just-in-time production philosophy. The problem studied in this work is the Non-identical Parallel-machineEarliness-Tardiness Non-common Due DateSequence-dependent Set-up Time Scheduling Problem (NPETNDDSP) for jobs with varying processing times, where the objective is to minimise the sum of the absolute deviations of job completion times from their corresponding due dates for the different weighted earliness and tardiness combinations. A Genetic Algorithm-Fuzzy Logic Approach (GA-Fuzzy) has been proposed to select the optimal weighted earliness-tardiness combinations in a non-identical parallel-machine environment. The performance of the combined objective function obtained by the proposed GA-Fuzzy technique has been compared with the solutions yielded by the Genetic Algorithm (GA) techniques available in literature, known as GA with Partially Mapped Crossover Operator (GA-PMX) and GA with Multi-Component Uniform Order-based Crossover Generator (GA-MCUOX). The comparison shows that the proposed GA-Fuzzy technique outperforms both the GA-PMX and GA-MCUOX.

Several organizations have taken the initiative to put London in the map of the UK as a prime manufacturing base. One such group, the London Manufacturing Group, published the booklet 'London Manufacturing - 100 Facts' in 1997 to demonstrate the importance of London as an industrial capital. It reported that London is responsible for about 10% of the whole of the UK's manufacturing output. The problem in the lack of recognition lies in cultural diversity, skills shortages and the absence of effective London-wide government.