Publications of Cukrowski, J.

Does Demand Uncertainty Influence Location of Industry?

The analysis presented in this paper shows that in countries with relatively high wages risk-averse firms operating in perfectly competitive markets will reduce production of commodities with high uncertainty of demand. Such commodities will be produced mainly in countries having sufficiently lower labor costs. Thus, an increase in demand uncertainty may shift the production from developed to developing countries even though additional per unit transaction and transportation costs in the latter offset the advantage of lower wages. The predictions of the model are then checked through an analysis of the toy industry concerning the level of demand uncertainty and location of outsourced production activities.

On the Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment in Transition Economies

Foreign direct investment (FDI) brings host countries capital, productive facilities, and technology transfer as well as new jobs and management expertise. Thus, it is important to understand why in many transition countries FDI inflow is lower than expected. The goal of this study is to explore some important factors determining flow of FDI into transition countries. In particular, we analyze the legal environment for FDI in some transition economies. Then we model the impact of stability of the economic and legal environment on the pattern of FDI. Our analysis shows that (1) higher variability of basic macroeconomic fundamentals reduces the flow of FDI, (2) high volatility of fiscal and business regulations makes the inflow of FDI smaller, and (3) macroeconomic and legal instability leads to adverse selection of the investors. Based on theoretical findings we formulate a clear message to policy makers stating that in order to attract significant inflows of long-term and nonspeculative foreign capital, first of all, a stable economic and institutional environment is needed. ABSTRACT FROM AUTHORCopyright of Problems of Economic Transition is the property of M.E. Sharpe Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Organizational restructuring in response to changes in information-processing technology

<div class="Abstract"><a name="Abs1"></a><span class="AbstractHeading">Abstract.  </span> This paper examines the effects of changes in information-processing technology on the efficient organizational forms of data-processing in decision-making systems. Data-processing is modelled in the framework of the dynamic parallel processing model of associative computation with an endogenous set-up costs of the processors. In such a model, the conditions for efficient organization of information-processing are defined and the architecture of the efficient structures is considered. It is shown that decreasing returns to scale of the function describing data- processing technology and the information overload of the system are necessary and sufficient conditions for the hierarchical information- processing, respectively. Moreover, the size of the efficient structures is determined exclusively by their information workload and the current state of information-processing technology. </div>