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1976 was a double bicentennial year for American economists. On the one hand, it was the bicentennial year of the establishment of the United States of America as an independent, self‐governing country — an event that in recent years has become far more of a commonplace occurrence than it was in those revolutionary days two centuries ago. On the other hand it was the bicentennial of the publication of the first volume of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, the book that launched our discipline and gave it much of its pedagogic content and structure, at least until the Keynesian Revolution introduced the familiar textbook division between micro‐economics and macro‐economics. (1776, incidentally, was also the year of publication of Bentham's A Fragment on Government and Turgot's Six Edicts; not to speak of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, a monumental scholarly work that probably should have received much more serious attention in the time of American bicentennary self‐congratulation and hoopla than it did.) The coincidence of the bicentennary of economics and of the United States naturally suggests combination of the two, in a discussion of what, if anything, are the distinctive and distinguishing characteristics of the American tradition in economics.

Reports the results of a study aimed to assess the influence of cost calculation and budgeting training on the financial skills of medical professionals in European intensive care units (ICUs). Focuses on a test devised to measure cost calculation and budgeting skills of the medical directors and head nurses in 13 European countries. The test comprises two equivalent measurements. The training consists of an introduction to the main principles of cost calculation and budgeting. Emphasizes similarities with the profit sector. A set of guidelines on cost calculation and budgeting has been composed and tailored to the needs of ICU management. The results show that a rather introductory training of medical doctors and head nurses of ICUs dramatically improves their costing and budgeting skills. Therefore such a training should be a component in a comprehensive strategy to improve cost‐awareness in ICUs, eventually resulting in a more efficient use of ICU resources.

The theory of consumer choice fills the opening chapters of any micro-economics textbook. Yet, surprisingly, this position of privilege has not translated into a flourishing of economic research that is comparable to what has happened in other branches of economic reasoning.

Extensive macro- and micro-economics research has been conducted on China's tax reform, which replaced business tax with value-added tax (VAT). However, existing studies have not clarified the reform's impact on firm-level investment decisions. Hence, this study explored the effect of replacing business tax with VAT on firms' investment efficiency.

The study used 2010–2018 data from China's A-share listed companies and a difference-in-differences (DID) model to explore the effect of the reform on firm-level investment decisions.

The authors found that China's tax reform has improved investment efficiency in underinvested firms, increased liquidity and decreased the level of reliance on external financing. The tax reform had a greater effect on investment efficiency in firms with lower liquidity and higher external financing reliance. Its effect was also more significant among non-state-owned and small companies.

This study fills the aforementioned research gap by exploring the effects of China's tax reform, thus providing a theoretical reference and a basis for policymaking.

Challenges the notion that “global competition” is at the root of the changing fortunes of large American corporations, and that it is the reason for the recent trend to downsize/ rightsize/re‐engineer white‐collar staffs. Argues that the change in employment relations can be explained by understanding capital′s view of the micro‐economics of the firm, as posed by transaction cost economics and the intentional implementation of particular types of information technology consistent with that understanding. Argues also that current praxis is consistent with, and a continuation of, a long‐term capitalist project to wrest control of the labour process away from as many types of workers as possible.

The main purpose of this paper is to develop a traffic demand forecasting model specifically on international sectors from the USA. Also, in this paper, the authors formulate the service positioning matrix (SPM) that enables airlines to accurately position their services and improve their process efficiency.

In this paper, the authors explore international sectors and present a traffic demand model specifically for the same. The distribution of demand is assumed to follow a normal distribution and non‐service variables are introduced in the model. The behavior of the passenger has been captured by deriving the zonal income function. The variables have been drawn from microeconomic theory and the traditional gravity model of physics. The key innovations of the paper are fusion of the gravity model and microeconomic theory to develop the traffic demand model, and transformation of income to zonal income by deriving the aggregate zonal demand function; and development of a service positioning matrix for the airline industry.

In this paper, first, the authors have presented a conceptual model for demand forecasting through usage of zonal income. Second, in recognition of the value add the firm receives by identifying the nature of service and derived customer satisfaction levels, the authors have presented the SPM – a framework to help service providers to position themselves on any one of the four defined states. The empirical work is underway to solidify the conceptions and would provide a robust route demand forecasting model for international route contemplation for airlines operating from the USA and a service positioning matrix.

Although many airline companies and professional bodies are involved in developing forecasts of air transport demand, detailed analysis of the characteristics of demand for air transport over long‐haul or international routes are less researched. This paper attempts to provide a framework for the airlines to forecast demand specifically on international routes operated from major metros of the USA and position their services by designing the service positioning matrix. The model fuses concepts from physics and micro‐economics to enhance the forecasting capabilities. Major benefits include route contemplation, effective fleet scheduling, decisions on aircraft and fuel purchases, improving service efficiency and developing optimal fare policies.

The purpose of this paper is to enhance the relationship between research and practice. It addresses the question: How can practitioners’ use of generalisations be understood, with a view towards producing research-based generalisations that facilitate use in practice?

Language games are used to explore generalisation in practice, and the framework of pragmatic constructivism is adopted to characterise the generation of practice generalisation.

Practice is conceptualised as a complex set of clusters of organised actions run by a set of applied generalisations and driven by human intentions. Practice also encompasses reflective activities that aim to create the generalisations and reflect them into the specific circumstances to create functioning practice. Generalisations depend on underlying concepts. The formation and structure of concepts is explored and used to create the construction and use of different types of generalisation. Generalisations function as cognitive building blocks in constructing strings of interconnected functioning activities. Managers make their own functioning generalisations that, however, do not satisfy the research criteria for acceptable generalisations. The research/practice gap is shaped by the very different language games played.

If research is to be useful to practice, the generalisations produced must methodologically articulate the types of generalisation that pervade the methods with which practitioners construct functioning activities. Further research has to give more insight into such processes.

The paper contributes insight into both the generalisation debate and the research/practice gap debate.

Argues for a reorientation of economic theory around the concept of co‐operative production. Suggests that by definition, co‐operative production exists when different people take different, complementary roles in production. Argues that, while the proposed reorientation has clear roots in the ideas of Adam Smith, it also synthesizes several other key insights of the classical economists, and at the same time leads, by implication, both to the major topics of neoclassical economics and to some important topics of modern applied economics that are often treated in an ad hoc fashion, such as economies of agglomeration, dualism in development and X‐inefficiency.

This study investigates the impact of US dollar volatility and oil rents on the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, with an emphasis on understanding how these factors influence SME financing constraints in economies with fixed currency regimes.

Employing a random effects panel regression analysis, this research considers US dollar volatility and oil rents as independent variables, with SME performance, measured through the financing gap, as the dependent variable. Controls such as trade balance, inflation deltas and gross domestic product (GDP) growth are included to isolate their effects on SME financing constraints.

The study reveals a significant positive relationship between dollar volatility and the financing gap, suggesting that increased volatility can exacerbate SME financing constraints. Conversely, oil rents did not show a significant direct influence on SME performance. The trade balance and inflation deltas were found to have significant effects, highlighting the multifaceted nature of economic variables affecting SMEs.

The study acknowledges potential biases due to omitted variables and the limitations inherent in the use of secondary data.

Findings offer pertinent guidance for SMEs and policymakers in the GCC region seeking to develop strategies that mitigate the impact of currency volatility and support SME financing.

The research provides new insights into the dynamics of SME performance within fixed currency regimes, which significantly contributes to the limited literature in this area. The paper further underscores the complex connections between global economic factors and SME financial health.

This chapter adopts the midrange theories schema to expand Pels and Sheth (2017) matrix on business models to serve the low-income consumers (LIC): market adaptation, mission focus, radical innovation, and inclusive ecosystems. To this end, it identifies the underlying general business theories (systems theory and neo-classical economics) and ontological theories (positivism and interpretivist) nested in each of the matrix’s four cells.

Understanding the general theories from which concepts and guidelines are drawn allows a two-way contribution. On one hand, it comprehends which other concepts can be integrated into the LIC literature. Alternatively, it highlights what insights generated from the study of the LIC markets bring to these theories.