Military Spending and Economic Growth in South Asia: A Panel Data Analysis

Despite the large number and variety of studies addressing the relationship between military spending and economic growth, a consensus regarding the exact nature of any relationship between the two has proven elusive. This study uses a panel co-integration approach to examine the relationship between military spending and economic growth in the five South Asian countries of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh over the period of 1988–2007. It finds that a 1% increase in military spending increases real GDP by only 0.04%, suggesting that the substantial amount of public expenditure that is currently directed towards military purposes in these countries has a negligible impact upon economic growth.     

Inventory management with advance capacity information

An important aspect of supply chain management is dealing with demand and supply uncertainty. The uncertainty of future supply can be reduced if a company is able to obtain advance capacity information (ACI) about future supply/production capacity availability from its supplier. We address a periodic‐review inventory system under stochastic demand and stochastic limited supply, for which ACI is available. We show that the optimal ordering policy is a state‐dependent base‐stock policy characterized by a base‐stock level that is a function of ACI. We establish a link with inventory models that use advance demand information (ADI) by developing a capacitated inventory system with ADI, and we show that equivalence can only be set under a very specific and restrictive assumption, implying that ADI insights will not necessarily hold in the ACI environment. Our numerical results reveal several managerial insights. In particular, we show that ACI is most beneficial when there is sufficient flexibility to react to anticipated demand and supply capacity mismatches. Further, most of the benefits can be achieved with only limited future visibility. We also show that the system parameters affecting the value of ACI interact in a complex way and therefore need to be considered in an integrated manner. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2011     

Some properties and computational results for a general repair process

We consider a general repair process where the virtual age V_i after the ith repair is given by V_i = ϕ(V_i−1 + X_i), ϕ(·) is a specified repair functional, and X_i is the time between the (i − 1)th and ith repair. Some monotonicity and dominance properties are derived, and an equilibrium process is considered. A computational method for evaluating the expected number/density of repairs is described together with an approximation method for obtaining some parameters of the equilibrium process. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 45: 391–405, 1998     

A method for reducing coefficients in integer linear inequalities

Approaches are considered for the reduction of coefficients in linear integer inequalities. It is shown that coefficients may be reduced easily in many practical examples. The (0-1) problem is also reconsidered and certain areas of exploration developed.     

Book reviews

Use of Force: The Practise of States by A. Mark Weisburd, Penn: Penn State Press, University Park, 1997, ISBN 0-271-01679-5 (hbk), $65.00/£58.00, ISBN 0-271-01680-9 (pbk), $25.00/£22.50

Late Breaking Foreign Policy: the News Media's Influence on Peace Operations by Warren P. Strobel, Washington DC: United States Insititute of Peace Press, 1997, ISBN 1-878379-68-2 (hbk), £23.25, ISBN 1-878379-67-4 (pbk)

The Reluctant Sheriff: The United States After the Cold War by Richard N. Haass, New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1997, 148pp, index, ISBN 0-87609-201-6 (hbk), $24.95

The UN, Peace and Force edited by Michael Pugh, London: Frank Cass, 1997, ISBN 0-7146-4795-4 (hbk), £29.50, ISBN 0-7146-4320-3 (pbk), £15.00

Confidence-Building in South East Asia by Malcolm Chalmers, Oxford: Westview Press, 1996, ISBN 1-85143-116-0 (pbk), £19.95

Britain's Strategic Nuclear Deterrent: From Before the V-Bomber to Beyond Trident by Robert H. Paterson, London: Frank Cass, 1997, ISBN 0-7146470-3 (hbk), £35.00, ISBN 0-7146-4297-5 (pbk) £18.00

OSS in China: Prelude to Cold War by Maochun Yu, London: Yale University Press, 1997, ISBN 0 300 06698-8 (hbk), £25.00

Preventing Violent Conflicts: A Strategy for Preventive Diplomacy by Michael S. Lund, Washington DC: US Institute of Peace Press, 1996, ISBN 1-878379-52-6 (pbk), £11.75     

Sequential tests for hypotheses concerning the product of poisson parameters with applications to problems in reliability and biometry

Sequential tests for the product of Poisson parameters based on the generalized incomplete modified Bessel (g.i.m.B.) distributions are given. Applications to reliability and biometry are indicated.     

Multiple-facility loading under capacity-based economies of scope

Multiple-facility loading (MFL) involves the allocation of products among a set of finite-capacity facilities. Applications of MFL arise naturally in a variety of production scheduling environments. MFL models typically assume that capacity is consumed as a linear function of products assigned to a facility. Product similarities and differences, however, result in capacity-based economies or diseconomies of scope, and thus the effective capacity of the facility is often a (nonlinear) function of the set of tasks assigned to the facility. This article addresses the multiple-facility loading problem under capacity-based economies (and diseconomies) of scope (MFLS). We formulate MFLS as a nonlinear 0–1 mixed-integer programming problem, and we discuss some useful properties. MFLS generalizes many well-known combinatorial optimization problems, such as the capacitated facility location problem and the generalized assignment problem. We also define a tabu-search heuristic and a branch-and-bound algorithm for MFLS. The tabu-search heuristic alternates between two search phases, a regional search and a diversification search, and offers a novel approach to solution diversification. We also report computational experience with the procedures. In addition to demonstrating MFLS problem tractability, the computational results indicate that the heuristic is an effective tool for obtaining high-quality solutions to MFLS. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 44: 229–256, 1997     

Efficient multinomial selection in simulation

Consider a simulation experiment consisting of v independent vector replications across k systems, where in any given replication one system is selected as the best performer (i.e., it wins). Each system has an unknown constant probability of winning in any replication and the numbers of wins for the individual systems follow a multinomial distribution. The classical multinomial selection procedure of Bechhofer, Elmaghraby, and Morse (Procedure BEM) prescribes a minimum number of replications, denoted as v*, so that the probability of correctly selecting the true best system (PCS) meets or exceeds a prespecified probability. Assuming that larger is better, Procedure BEM selects as best the system having the largest value of the performance measure in more replications than any other system. We use these same v* replications across k systems to form (v*)^k pseudoreplications that contain one observation from each system, and develop Procedure AVC (All Vector Comparisons) to achieve a higher PCS than with Procedure BEM. For specific small-sample cases and via a large-sample approximation we show that the PCS with Procedure AVC exceeds the PCS with Procedure BEM. We also show that with Procedure AVC we achieve a given PCS with a smaller v than the v* required with Procedure BEM. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 45: 459–482, 1998     

Heuristics for multicomponent joint replacement: Applications to aircraft engine maintenance

This paper considers the maintenance of aircraft engine components where economies exist for joint replacement because (a) the aircraft must be pulled from service for maintenance and (b) repair of some components requires removal and disassembly of the engine. It is well known that the joint replacement problem is difficult to solve exactly, because the optimal solution does not have a simple structured form. Therefore, we formulate three easy-to-implement heuristics and test their performance against a lower bound for various numerical examples. One of our heuristics, the base interval approach, in which replacement cycles for all components are restricted to be multiples of a specified interval, is shown to be robustly accurate. Moreover, this heuristic is consistent with maintenance policies used by commercial airlines in which periodic maintenance checks are made at regular intervals. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 45: 435–458, 1998