Monthly Archives: September 2011

The impact of infrastructure on Colombian exports

Posted on September 19, 2011 by aviyer2010

An article in the Economist (Sept 17,2011) describes the poor infrastructure in Colombia as resulting in export costs of a container that are 20 % higher than a similar task in Argentina. Thus, the poor infrastructure is estimated to be … Continue reading →

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Measuring Hospital compliance with routines

Posted on September 17, 2011 by aviyer2010

A New York Times article (Sept 14, 2011) summarizes a report (http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/249296-joint-commission-report-on-quality-and-safety.html) that measures compliance to established protocols to treat diseases like heart attack and pneumonia.  The interesting outcome is that several reputed large hospitals did not make the list … Continue reading →

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Cold water laundry, consumer preferences and environmental impact

Posted on September 17, 2011 by aviyer2010

An article in the New York Times (Sept 16, 2011) describes continued resistance by consumers to doing their laundry in cold water – just 7 % of US white laundry loads.  About 75 % of the energy used,and greenhouse gases … Continue reading →

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Will China’s inflation impact the USA ?

Posted on September 17, 2011 by aviyer2010

A report by Hale and Hobijn (http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2011/el2011-25.html) suggests that imports from China account for 2.7 % of US consumer expenditure. Of that 2.7%, over 55 % consists of services in the US, thus imports of China constitute 1.2 % of … Continue reading →

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Ecommerce, couriers and cash on delivery in India

Posted on September 15, 2011 by aviyer2010

An article in the New York Times (Sept 14, 2011) describes FlipKart – an ecommerce company in India that employs couriers for home delivery of orders with cash paid on delivery. Given the preference for cash transactions and payment ion … Continue reading →

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Mishandled Missioni line at Target.com and Impact

Posted on September 15, 2011 by aviyer2010

An article in the New York Times (Sept 14, 2011) describes the Target specific Missoni line offered at Target for a fraction of the price that it  regular line is sold at Bergdorf Goodman ($ 40 vs $ 12,000).   The … Continue reading →

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Reducing automobile weight and mpg increase

Posted on September 15, 2011 by aviyer2010

A New York Times article (Sept 14, 2011) describes efforts by auto manufacturers to decrease the weight of their cars -Land Rover plans to cut 1100 lbs in 10 years, Audi by 175 lbs in 1 year, Toyota by 35 … Continue reading →

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Two Tier pay in the US auto industry

Posted on September 14, 2011 by aviyer2010

A New York Times article (Sept 13, 2011) describes the practice of hiring new workers at $ 14 per hour while paying older workers twice that amount. These new employees permit manufacturing at price points comparable with global competition and … Continue reading →

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Enforcing other country’s laws in the US

Posted on September 13, 2011 by aviyer2010

Another report on Gibson guitars in the Economist (Sept 3, 2011) describes the rosewood related production shutdown at Gibson guitars that we discussed earlier. But it claims that US manufacturers have to abide by every plant and wildlife regulation set … Continue reading →

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Innovative use of wool as an oil spill solution

Posted on September 13, 2011 by aviyer2010

An article in the Economist (Sept 3, 2011) describes a businessman in a wool fabric producing region of Italy who have experimented with the use of wool to soak up oil from oil spills. Their tests show that coarse wool … Continue reading →

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