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This paper shows that consumer preference heterogeneity affects whether multinational firms serve local markets via imports or local production. Firms are least likely to choose local production over imports for product varieties that have relatively inelastic demand because transport costs have a smaller impact on the firm’s local profits for these products. The results suggest that there is complementarity between centralized production, with local market access via imports, and strategies that maintain low price elasticities at the brand level, such as advertising and within-brand product proliferation. A partial equilibrium study of the laundry detergent industry in Western Europe illustrates how firms and consumers interact at different levels of transport costs and reveals the product varieties that are most and least likely to be manufactured locally when transport costs are high.

Additive manufacturing (AM) has the potential to transform the organisation of all the activities carried out by firms. The growing diffusion of these technologies is increasingly challenging multinational enterprises to reinvent their businesses. Accordingly, many scholars argue that AM may reduce countries’ participation in global value chains (GVCs) or, at least, affect GVCs’ geography, length and further developments. However, so far, the lack of available data on the real worldwide diffusion of these technologies has precluded the possibility to study this phenomenon from an empirical standpoint.

This study investigates AM technologies, with a particular focus on their possible impact on GVCs, in the framework of the current debate in international business. In order to examine this relationship and overcome the lack of adoption data, the authors identify a potential proxy of AM diffusion – that is, patenting activity. Coherently, the authors employ this proxy and a country-level measure of GVC participation (i.e., the Share of Re-Exported Inputs on Total Imported Inputs) to empirically investigate the role of AM in influencing countries’ participation to GVCs. This country-level analysis is focussed on three specific industries and the aggregate economy in 58 countries for the period 2000–2014.

The results show that AM decreases a country’s participation in GVCs, both at the country level and, in particular, in the sectors which are more likely to be affected by AM technologies. This evidence suggests that this phenomenon might be induced by a decreasing reliance on intermediates processed abroad, hence an increasing importance of domestic goods, manufactured via AM.

The chapter considers the significance of the oil and gas industry for the Russian economy. The authors analyze the current state of the oil and gas industry, their specific weight in the structure of Russian GDP, and tax revenues from this industry to the Russian budget that was estimated. We give scenario analysis that considers the problems that the Russian economy may face because of the sanctions, the price fluctuations at the commodity market, and the crisis phenomena in the world economy. The chapter points out that localization of technology production and development of technologies for offshore oil and gas production in the Arctic zone may become an incentive to further ensure import substitution for Russia. At present, the experience of Arctic defense enterprises in the production of equipment for oil and gas production and processing is becoming increasingly popular. The chapter elaborates the most significant examples of the creation of new industries in the Arctic zone, the prospects of seismic exploration on the Arctic shelf, and that localization of production capacities and service bases will allow obtaining a multiplicative incentive for a qualitatively new industrial and infrastructure development of the northern territories. Also, we provide an assessment of the development of liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry, which makes economically attractive use of natural gas on a regional level as LNG opens the way to fuel high-power needs and to long-distance transport.

This paper discusses the American debate over price controls and economic stabilization after World War II, when the transition from a war economy to a peace economy was characterized by bottlenecks in the productive system and shortages of food and other basic consumer goods, directly affecting the living standard of the population, the public opinion, and political discourse. Specifically, we will focus on the economist Franco Modigliani and his proposal for a “Plan to meet the problem of rising meat and other food prices without bureaucratic controls.” The plan prepared by Modigliani in October 1947 was based on a system of taxes and subsidies to foster a proper distribution of disposable income and warrant a minimum meat consumption for each individual without encroaching market mechanisms and consumers’ freedom. We will discuss the contents of the plan and its further refinements, and the reactions it prompted from fellow economists, the public opinion, and the political world. Although the Plan was not eventually implemented, it was an important initiative for several reasons: first, it showed the increasing importance of fiscal policy among postwar government tools of intervention in the economic sphere; second, it showed a third way between direct government intervention and full-fledged laissez faire, in tune with the postwar political climate; third, it proposed a Keynesian macroeconomic approach to price and income stabilization, strongly based on econometric and microeconomic foundations. The Meat Plan was thus a fundamental step in Modigliani’s effort to build the “neoclassical synthesis” between Keynesian and Neoclassical economics, which would deeply influence his own career and the evolution of academic studies and government practices in the United States.

The sustainable performance of hotels which constitute a major part of the tourism industry, gains increasing importance day by day. Sustainability has become mandatory not only for the tourism industry but also for all industries producing goods and services. Reducing the negative impact of development on the environment and environmental innovation which aims to benefit from natural resources and energy effectively and consciously helps hotels to be sustainable. The tourism industry has a complex structure and exists as being intertwined with other branches of science. Tourism, which is a multidisciplinary industry, is nourished by other branches of science as well as supplies other fields of science by providing working space. Some new solutions that are put forward by materials science and engineering take place in the tourism industry as new innovations. Owing to this interaction, the workload of the personnel working in hotels is reduced and the enterprises save material and energy. At the same time, the customers who benefit from the services of the hotels consume the services in more comfortable and safer environments.

Ceramic materials are generally used in toilet and bathroom parts of hotels. However, ceramics are observed to be used in lobbies, cafes, restaurants, pools, facades, and similar areas in addition to toilets and baths in hotels. The aim of this study is to identify new ceramic solutions that affect and contribute to the sustainability of the hotels which is a major sector under the roof of the tourism industry and to contribute the literature. In order to actualize this aim, the document analysis method which is one of qualitative research methods was used and the literature search was carried out to identify new ceramic solutions. The result of study includes moisture control tiles with the ability to keep the humidity at normal standards in terms of human health and that can be used in hotels, facade systems that clean themselves and the polluted air, thermal coating systems for heat insulation, antibacterial materials that provide hygiene, and dirt repelling products. Also, it is seen that there are new ceramic solutions such as costless night lighting and security strips as well as materials with a phosphorescence property for aesthetical purposes and also, tiles with heat control which offer different possibilities aesthetically. It is observed that the different benefits obtained from each of identified new ceramic solutions ease off the workload of personnel working in the hotels, enable material and energy saving in hotels and at the same time, provide an accommodation in a more comfortable and safer environment for customers. In addition to this, the use of high-technology ceramics and nanomaterials in the field of tourism creates places where technology and aesthetics combine.

Data has become one of the most significant instruments in e-commerce innovation. Benefits to the entire society can be summarized as following: from the government’s perspective - to assess the impact of e-commerce to the economy; for merchants - to understand consumers’ needs; and for consumers - to be offered with the right product he/she is looking for. The digital revolution in the past five years has shown the need to offer more differentiated services than the physical stores, when consumers are not able to try and touch products. It is for this reason that e-commerce has continuously developed and transformed Research Online, Purchase Offline into a true experience. Considering the future of e-commerce is to enhance economic development and growth, this research will discuss the disruption of Research and Development through big data. The core objective of this research is to propose a predictive model to deeply understand consumer behavior by analyzing new regulations and transaction records.

Internet + and Electronic Business in China is a comprehensive resource that provides insight and analysis into E-commerce in China and how it has revolutionized and continues to revolutionize business and society. Split into four distinct sections, the book first lays out the theoretical foundations and fundamental concepts of E-Business before moving on to look at internet+ innovation models and their applications in different industries such as agriculture, finance and commerce. The book then provides a comprehensive analysis of E-business platforms and their applications in China before finishing with four comprehensive case studies of major E-business projects, providing readers with successful examples of implementing E-Business entrepreneurship projects.

Internet + and Electronic Business in China is a comprehensive resource that provides insights and analysis into how E-commerce has revolutionized and continues to revolutionize business and society in China.

This chapter examines similarities in government policies that have accelerated and privatized the extraction of offshore oil, coal, and oil sands on public lands in the United States and Canada, as well as the arguments used to justify those policies. Sociologist William Freudenburg argued that the diversion of public resources into private hands was made possible by a second diversion, the diversion of attention. Freudenburg, with Gramling, later applied this concept to U.S. offshore oil leases, noting that when it came to offshore oil, the myth of “energy independence” was often used to justify policies that were actually antithetical to the concept, promoting further dependence on fossil fuels. We extend the double diversion concept from offshore oil to U.S. coal and Alberta oil sands, noting the similarities in both the policy changes and the diversionary frameworks. The frameworks also divert attention from the increasing risks associated with energy extraction.