Industry/University interaction for simulation-based process improvement

This paper describes an effort by industry and university partners to centralize manufacturing decision making through the development of generic simulation tools. This ongoing, cooperative process improvement initiative between the Industrial and Systems Engineering faculty at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) and Chrysler’s Huntsville Electronics Division (HED) permits the involved faculty to broaden their experience and technical expertise in electronics fabrication, while the industry partner benefits from the transfer of technical knowledge and advanced analysis methodologies from the university. The focus of the project is the definition of generic electronic manufacturing models that can be easily defined and implemented through common user-oriented interfaces, allowing users who are not familiar with simulation and simulation languages to address the needs of their particular functional areas.     

Al Capone and the Internal Revenue Service: State-sanctioned criminology of organized crime

The story of Al Capone's rise and fall as a Chicago gangster has always depended upon selective dissemination of federal agency records, particularly records of the Internal Revenue Service. Capone history, therefore, is state-sanctioned history. The IRS view of the Capone organization, and of the tax evasion conviction, cannot be easily challenged without access to the corpus of the IRS records. Unfortunately, these records remain sealed from public access, despite the fact that selective releases were made prior to 1977 to journalists, popular authors, film producers and historians. Continued secrecy over the Capone records perpetuates a state-sanctioned criminology of organized crime. Calder v. Internal Revenue Service ¹ attempted without success to unlock the corpus of IRS-Capone records to investigate the state-sanctioned view.     

Determinants of inflationary performance: Corporatist structures vs. central bank autonomy

Thanks go to John Aldrich, Robert Bates, William Bernhard, Richard Burdekin, Henry Chappel, Dudley Wallace and Thomas Willett for suggestions and to Ted Smith for computational assistance.     

Market Failure and Non-Standard Contracting: How the Ghost of Perfect Competition Still Haunts Antitrust

Modern antitrust policy has a ‘love hate’ relationshipwith non-standard contracts that can overcome market failure.On the one hand, courts have abandoned various per se rulesthat once condemned such agreements outright, concluding thatmany non-standard contracts may produce benefits that are cognizableunder the antitrust laws.¹ The prospect of such benefits, itis said, compels courts to analyze these agreements under theRule of Reason, under which the tribunal determines whethera given restraint enhances or destroys competition.² At thesame time, courts, scholars, and the enforcement agencies haveembraced methods of rule of reason analysis that are undulyhostile to such agreements.³ In particular, courts and othersare too quick to view such agreements and the market outcomesthey produce as manifestations of market power. This articleseeks to explain why these agreements are still the object ofundue hostility.     

A CRITIQUE OF PROFESSOR CHURCH'S REPORT ON THE IMPACT OF VERTICAL AND CONGLOMERATE MERGERS ON COMPETITION

We discuss Professor Jeffrey Church's report to the EuropeanCommission in 2004 on the effects of vertical restraints andmergers. Although thorough and accurate, the report could bemisinterpreted by practitioners, as it does not emphasize thatmarket power is only a necessary condition for harm to competition,and that most vertical mergers that present the possibilityof competitive harm also present economic efficiencies thatare intrinsic to the integration.