Business Economics articles from October 1994

Business Economics archives from October 1994

Outlook for the North American auto industry.
October 1, 1994... SALES OF CARS and trucks in the U.S. account for about 90 percent of the North American auto market. The Canadian market is not quite 10 percent the size of the U.S. Mexico's auto market is just over one-third of Canada's. Because of its...

Restructuring of the Japanese automakers.
October 1, 1994... IN THE 1970s and 1980s, the Japanese automakers seemingly could do nothing wrong. Their superior quality, careful business focus, and aggressive export drives won them millions of happy customers worldwide and huge increases in market share. They...

Key issues facing European car manufacturers and their strategic responses.
October 1, 1994... AFTER FIVE YEARS of relative stability in demand and generally high facility utilization rates, in 1993 European demand for cars plunged 15 percent, taking production down with it and exposing many of the underlying issues facing the industry....

Regulating the automobile: learning from cost-effective analysis.
October 1, 1994... REQUIRING technological improvements to the automobile has been a prominent strategy for meeting major public policy objectives. Current fleet fuel economy standards and current vehicle tailpipe emissions standards are the specific policies that...

The automobile industry and monetary policy: an international perspective.
October 1, 1994... CENTRAL BANKS in the U.S. and Germany place a high premium on understanding conditions in the automotive industry. In fact, in terms of influencing changes in economic activity, few sectors, except perhaps housing, are a primary driver of...

It's not broke: so don't fix it; why the Federal Reserve should not be reformed.
October 1, 1994... DURING THE PAST FEW YEARS, proposals have been made that would reform the Federal Reserve System (the Fed) in at least five areas: (1) the conduct of monetary policy; (2) the Fed's role in bank regulation; (3) the degree of Fed independence,...

"Too-big-to-fail" and the stability of the banking system: some insights from foreign countries.
October 1, 1994... THE "TOO-BIG-TO-FAIL" (TBTF) doctrine states that uninsured depositors will be protected in full at insolvent banks that are considered TBTF by the FDIC, while uninsured depositors may suffer losses at smaller banks. The main rationale for TBTF...

The greatest of them all. (the US economy)
October 1, 1994... EMERGING MARKETS are the hottest game in town today. Everyone seems to be getting into the act -- even fixed-income funds are taking the plunge. Few investment sectors have ever had as much glamour and excitement as this one. I offer here the...

The business economist at work: the economist as entrepreneur.
October 1, 1994... WE KNEW IT WAS COMING. For six months had been told that the company was downsizing and restructuring, familiar buzzwords in the business press, and that major layoffs were over the horizon. This gave us time to think about our future and to...

Industry corner: advanced materials in automotive vehicles.
October 1, 1994... IN SPITE OF the glamour of high-tech fields and the pervasiveness of the service sector, one mature manufacturing industry remains most visible and significant on a worldwide basis and especially in the U.S., Canada, Japan and Western Europe....

Statistics corner: reliability and accuracy of quarterly GDP. (gross domestic product)
October 1, 1994... CAUSES OF GDP REVISIONS IN THE STUDY, reliability refers to revisions in the estimates while accuracy refers to total measurement error. Revisions come about for four reasons: (1) replacement of preliminary source data with later data, (2)...

Statistics producers' corner.
October 1, 1994... REGIONAL ECONOMIC DATA REGIONAL DATA -- by state, county and metropolitan area, and economic area -- add texture and depth to national developments. Their sheer volume, especially when provided with industry or other detail, has made...

The PC corner. (Windows 3.1 program)
October 1, 1994... AS MY EXPERIENCE with Windows 3.1 continues, I am finding out more and more about the program. There is an incredible wealth of undocumented (or obscurely documented) features about the system that really make it easier to use and allow you to...