This case study shows that wood was a viable industrial boiler fuel as long as the price of natural gas stayed near 1980 levels. The wood-fired steam and electric cogeneration power plant at the Dow Coming Corp. in Midland, MI, generated 22 MW of electricity and 46 MW of process...
Almost any expert will tell you that having a strong resume is one of the most important parts of your job search (and one of the more nerve-racking parts). Using resume templates provided by Microsoft Word and other desktop publishers is one way to format your resume; however, there are...
This paper studies the effects of trade barriers in the internal and the international organization of firms. It builds on the Antras and Helpman (2004) North-South model in which firms choose from among four organizational form types corresponding to the combined decisions: outsource vs. integrate, and North vs. South. It...
One of the challenges faced by farmers who direct market their products is determining the target market. What do the customers look like? Where do they live? And probably most importantly and most difficult to answer: What do they want? A marketing plan is an integral part of developing a...
Today, many biotechnology firms are using strategic alliances to contract with other companies. In this paper, the author contends that the governance structure of these alliances - specifically, the "Contractual board" - provides an integrated restraint on opportunism. While an alliance agreement's exit structure could provide a check on opportunism...
Equity capital is often an important source of funds for growing firms. This paper investigates the regional differences in the size of newly organized Initial Public Offerings, an important source of equity capital. It also investigates the importance of underwriter reputation and location to the size of the offering. The...
This empirical research focuses on examining the relationship of family meetings and the characteristics of those family meetings (who attends, issues discussed and issues decided) to planning processes (succession planning, estate planning, family mission and business mission) and performance outcomes revenues and number of generations survived. Of the 926 surveys...
Farmers who sell their products by direct marketing need to take the time to reflect on successes and failures in the business. Reflection is not enough, however. Change can be difficult, but assessing what worked and what didn't will provide successful direct marketers with the opportunity to anticipate and respond...
Those of a certain age may remember fondly the days of milk bottles on the doorstep and the Fuller Brush man peddling his wares door-to-door. In the past ten years, there has been a resurgence of interest in door-to-door or "direct delivery" marketing of farm products. Direct delivery marketing allows...
This paper proposes a life-cycle model of the housing market with a property ladder and a credit constraint. It focuses on equilibria, which replicates the facts that credit constraints delay some households' first home purchase and force other households to buy a home smaller than they would like. The model...
Commercial real estate has done just fine, in a non-inflationary environment. This would suggest that real estate is more of a stagnation hedge than an inflation hedge. Furthermore, the weakness in fundamentals has been driven by demand?not supply. This article provides seven reasons why commercial real estate prices will hold...
This paper looks at how actual federal order Class prices compare with the prices that would have been generated using the current federal order product price formulas applicable to the Upper Midwest order. Two-week and monthly average prices for butter, cheese, dry whey and nonfat dry milk were derived using...
People are poor because they have no money. Countries are less developed because they have no capital. These truisms have a profound impact on the development assistance provided by rich countries to the poor countries, as evidenced by the tendency to measure development assistance by the amount of resources transferred...
The paper examines financing, investment, and investment performance in the equity REIT sector over the 1981-1999 time period. Analysis reveals significant differences between the old-REIT (1981-1992) and new-REIT (1993-1999) eras. The sector experienced rapid growth in the new-REIT era, primarily from firm-level investment as opposed to new entry. Firm-level investment...
Experts suggest that a crisis is unpredictable but not unexpected. Companies must know how to deal with a situation before, during, and after a crisis. When encountering crisis, companies must try to figure out its root cause and how it can be tackled. It is the duty of the top...
This paper provides background information for farmers who are considering selling their products through retail stores. It may also help farmers already working with retail buyers improve their business opportunities. Brokers or representatives of farmers' marketing cooperatives will find this report helps build strong relationships with retail buyers. This paper...
This paper analyzes a mortgage loan market in which an incumbent lender employs a proprietary screening technology to produce a precise estimate of loan credit quality. When the information underlying the technology has significant strategic value, the incumbent introduces noise to block inferences from potential competitors. As a result, the...
The Army Management Staff College's leadership development program has a set of building blocks for "soft skill development" embedded in every aspect of the program's curriculum. By focusing the students on the requirements and what they are to do and how they are to do it, the content gets covered...
This paper uses a bilevel game to model markets for delivery of electrical power on looped transmission networks. It analyzes the effectiveness of an Independent System Operator ISO when generators (and, in some cases, retailers) have market power. Generators respectively retailers bid a single parameter of their quadratic supply demand...
