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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Kentucky, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 140-144).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

TFT-LCD industry had been developed rapidly in Taiwan. Our value of output in FDP field was became the world first in 2007,it was one of the most important industry that drive economic advancement in our country. In order to keep the competition in TFT-LCD industry,to produce the relative components and material locally is the must way in the future.And many manufacturers strengthen their relationships with the component suppliers positively to reduce the production cost and enhance their ability of vertical integration. The purpose of this research is to study the benefit of vertical integration in TFT-LCD industry.We discuss the definition,types,the motive and benefit in the part of theory and use it as the foundation of case study.In the part of case study,we took CMO as our object to study the vertical integration relationship between the vendors in supply chain. By collecting the secondary material and case interview to get the information to analyze the present situation and the future tendency of vertical integration in CMO. We generalize some conclusions as follows. 1.Cost is the key factor of vertical integration in TFT-LCD industry. 2.Technique independence is the key factor of vertical integration in TFT-LCD industry. 3.Stable supply is key factor of vertical integration in TFT-LCD industry. 4.Special area of TFT-LCD industry could strengthen the benefit of vertical integration.

In recent years, there is a widely witnessed phenomenon among domestic infrastructure construction industry. For those active contractors carrying over majority of domestic infrastructure works, a substantial number of them is professional acting sub-contractors rather than the initial bidding construction contractors. As a result, overall quality of works and lead-time control of construction projects are mainly predetermined by original bidding firms¡¦ sub-contracting management. Apart from above perspective, for years the construction industry in Taiwan has long been caught in a fierce price-cutting competition. Inevitably it has directed the whole industry into a micro-profit era. So to speak, a systematic subcontracting processing for selection of capable sub-contractors, and an effective managerial control of that processing during the implementation time span are key success factors among final outcomes of projects.The following case scenario, based upon a construction contractor¡¦s work on MRT projects, can be best exemplified as an in-depth study of the portrayed company¡¦s management capability on sub-contracting. A prototyped processing includes but will not be confined to the following highlights: ¡EMaking decisions on sub-contracting ¡ESourcing quality sub-contractors ¡ESelecting capable sub-contractors ¡EDefining pivotal points for the contract agreements ¡EFine-tuning Q&A issues for project implementation Other than above briefing, the portrayed construction contractor had meticulously and often unwittingly transformed its role during project implementation by gaining Industrywide vertical integration capability. This derivative occasion is another aspect on this case study.The main causes of above managerial transition can be attributed to the fact that involved sub-contractors may demonstrate tendencies of schedule delays. In lieu of that possibility, the construction company has to proactively take necessary measures to safeguard it from happening. Considering primary requirements of containing overheads and meeting work deadlines, the construction company in the end has to decisively intervene the supply chain system that is mainly operated only among sub-contractors. As evidenced from the presented case, the portrayed construction company ends up creating its own strategic blueprint to evolve into an integrated conglomerate in its industry.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2009. / "Graduate Program in Economics." Includes bibliographical references (p. 96-99).

The focus of this thesis is on the vertical integration of mechatronics in the mechanical engineering curriculum at Virginia Tech. It reports the details of an experimental strategy to integrate mechatronics at an early level in the education of engineers. A proposal was submitted to and accepted by the NSF/SUCCEED coalition to fund this experiment. Through this assistance, the experiment of vertically integrating mechatronics was initiated. The methodology in which it was integrated is presented -- through optional participation in a sophomore design class and a required design project in a junior system dynamics course. The material developed for the vertical integration of mechatronics is in the appendices. This material is appropriate for other institutions to use to vertically integrate mechatronics into their curriculums, which is part of the NSF/SUCCEED coalition's initiative. For the sophomore class, ME 2024, Introduction to Engineering Design and Economics, selected sections were exposed to the concepts of mechatronic design, along with the normal course material. Students in the mechatronic sections were given an opportunity to incorporate the use of a custom-built VT Project Box and the PIC Visual Development (PVD) software, both of which were created specifically for the task of vertical integration of mechatronics. Throughout the semester, the students were given several demonstrations of mechatronic systems through the use of the project box and software. Many students decided to implement mechatronic concepts in their final design projects. A smaller number of students made a decision to use the project box and software to develop a prototype of their final design project. Candid remarks about the students experiences, obtained from a survey at the semester's end, indicated that the vertical integration of mechatronics was a motivational feature in the second-year curriculum. For the junior class, ME 3514, System Dynamics, all sections were exposed to the concepts of mechatronics, along with the normal course material. The students were required to acquire steady-state velocity data from a DC motor and create an analytical model of the motor to predict the steady-state velocity for a given duty cycle of a pulse-width modulated controller. After the collection of the data and the creation of the analytical model, the students compared the results of simulations to the actual data collected, and report the comparison to the instructor in a memorandum. The collection of the steady-state velocity data was accomplished using the PVD software and the VT Project Box. The essentials of mechatronics was communicated to the students in two lectures, and the students gained hands-on experience with mechatronics through the use of the project box and the software. The lecture material covered the basics of mechatronics, the Mechatronics course at Virginia Tech, and detailed information about the design project. The assessment of the vertical integration of mechatronics into this junior course was accomplished by surveying all of the students in the course. The results of the survey indicated that the inclusion of mechatronics material increased the students understanding of the course material and also increased their interest in mechatronics. / Master of Science

Thesis advisor: Fabio Schiantarelli / Thesis advisor: James Anderson / The thesis is composed of the following three distinct papers. 1.Banks and Development: Jewish Communities in the Italian Renaissance and Current Economic Performance Do banks affect long-term economic performance? I answer this question by relying on an historical development that occurred in Italian cities during the 15th century. A sudden change in the Catholic doctrine had driven the Jews toward money lending. Cities that were hosting Jewish communities developed complex banking institutions for two reasons: first, the Jews were the only people in Italy allowed to lend for a profit; second the Franciscan reaction to Jewish usury led to the creation of charity lending institutions that evolved into many of the current Italian banks. Using Jewish demography in 1450 as an instrument, I estimate large effects of current banking development on the income-per-capita of Italian cities. Additional firm-level analyses suggest that well-functioning local banks exert large effects on aggregate productivity by reallocating resources toward more efficient firms. Controlling for province effects, using additional historical data on Jewish demography and exploiting the expulsion of the Jews from the Spanish territories in Italy in 1541, I argue that my results are not driven by omitted institutional, cultural and geographical characteristics. In particular, I show that the difference in current income between cities that hosted Jewish communities and cities that did not exists only in those regions that were not Spanish territories in the 16th century. These difference-in-difference estimates suggest that the Jewish Diaspora can explain at least 10% of the current income gap between Northern and Southern Italy. 2. Contract Incompleteness, Globalization and Vertical Structure: an Empirical Analysis This paper studies the effects of international openness and contracting institutions on vertical integration. It first derives a number of predictions regarding the interactions between trade barriers, contracting costs, technology intensity, and the extent of vertical integration from a simple model with incomplete contracts. Then it investigates these predictions using a new dataset of over 14000 firms from 45 developing countries. Consistent with theory, the effect of technology intensity of domestic producers on their likelihood to vertically integrate is decreasing in the quality of domestic contracting institutions and in international openness. Contract enforcing costs are particularly high in developing countries and their effects on the vertical structure of technological intensive firms may have significant welfare costs. If improving domestic contracting institutions is not feasible an equivalent solution is to increase openness to international trade. This would discipline domestic suppliers reducing the need for vertical integration. 3. Productivity, Welfare and Reallocation: Theory and Firm-Level Evidence (joint with Susanto Basu, Fabio Schiantarelli and Luis Serven) We prove that in a closed economy without distortionary taxation, the welfare of a representative consumer is summarized to a first order by the current and expected future values of the Solow productivity residual in level and by the initial endowment of capital. The equivalence holds if the representative household maximizes utility while taking prices parametrically. This result justifies TFP as the right summary measure of welfare (even in situations where it does not properly measure technology) and makes it possible to calculate the contributions of disaggregated units (industries or firms) to aggregate welfare using readily available TFP data. We show how these results must be modified if the economy is open or if taxes are distortionary. We then compute firm and industry contributions to welfare for a set of European OECD countries (Belgium, France, Great Britain, Italy, Spain), using industry-level (EU-KLEMS) and firm-level (Amadeus) data. After adding further assumptions about technology and market structure (firms minimize costs and face common factor prices), we show that welfare change can be decomposed into three components that reflect respectively technical change, aggregate distortions and allocative efficiency. Then, using the appropriate firm-level data, we assess the importance of each of these components as sources of welfare improvement in the same set of European countries. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

Abstract The natural progression of generators and retailers, following electricity deregulation, to vertically integrate is a contentious subject involving, at one extreme, expectations that a laissez- faire market approach will deliver economic benefits to all participants, and at the other extreme, suspicions that the unusual features of the electricity sector, in providing generators with market power, may not provide electricity consumers with an improved outcome. The objectives of this thesis were to: understand fully the drivers of generators and retailers to vertically integrate and to apply this knowledge to the Queensland electricity market to determine the financial impact on generators, retailers and consumers from vertical integration (VI). A literature review was undertaken of VI in a generic sense, noting the distinction between market contracting and ‘internalisation’, with particular reference to the writings of Oliver Williamson. The Federal Court case involving Australia’s largest electricity retailer, Australian Gas and Light Ltd, seeking approval to purchase a minority shareholding in the Victorian generator Loy Yang Power, was closely examined from the perspectives of theoretical and practical electricity sector VI integration issues. A quantitative analysis was undertaken of an assumed 60% VI of the Queensland electricity market to assess the costs and benefits to generators that vertically integrated and to consumers. The quantified generator benefits included margin elimination, savings in overheads, more rapid decision-making, and demand side management (DSM) savings in deferred capital expenditure on peaking generation and network expenditure through reduced peak demand. To support the quantitative analysis, two scenario models were developed. The first model replicates the process by which generators build up revenue certainty over time from hedge contract sales and bidding of output into the electricity grid. How generator bidding behaviour is affected by the level of hedge cover and hedge contract prices is examined, particularly in regard to how this behavior is affected by the competitive relationship between retailers and generators. The second scenario model replicates the attitude of vertically integrated generators (VIGs) towards offering DSM services by observing how the attitude of individual VIGs is affected by level of peaking generation and by the generation-to-retailing output proportion. It was determined that a combination of these features and particular market scenarios could result in some VIGs being financially worse off by providing DSM services, an important conclusion in the context of the increased community focus on energy conservation. The extent to which VIGs pass on VI and DSM benefits to consumers was calculated under scenarios of weak and strong retail competition. Of most relevance was the difference in market behaviour between retailers that had became vertically integrated, and those that had not, with the latter expected to become less competitive in both the wholesale and retail markets. This outcome was observed to provide generators with additional market power potential, a subject closely examined. The quantitative analysis of the Queensland market concluded that the maximum possible benefit that consumers could expect from VI was $138 million per annum with current DSM technology and strong retail competition, increasing to $156 million per annum if DSM technology improved, for example in regard to more cost-efficient meters. Total possible benefits to VIGs and consumers was estimated at $321 million per annum, so that consumers could expect to receive no more than 50% of total expected benefits from VI. This conclusion is not surprising because generators will only seek to be vertically integrated if they perceive clearly identified benefits from VI. The reasons why consumers are unlikely to receive benefits greater than this are: • $30 million per annum of internal savings being retained by VIGs; • VIGs achieving a minimum $60 million per annum additional revenue benefits through wholesale and retail price increases, arising from their stronger generation and retail positions; and • $75 million per annum of potential DSM benefits not being offered to consumers, because of the reluctance of VIGs to provide DSM services where the outcome could be reduced export revenue, reduced sales revenue and lower pool prices. In summary, using the Queensland market as a case study, in a strongly competitive retail market consumers could expect to receive, at the most, 50% of VI and DSM benefits. However in a weakly competitive retail market, where VIGs retain most of the benefits and are able to achieve higher wholesale prices, the outcome could instead be an overall cost to consumers. The thesis concludes with a brief discussion of policy implications and approaches to addressing key issues arising from increasing VI in deregulated electricity markets.