Wolfgang Keller

Beata K. Smarzynska Javorcik

"This paper uses a case study approach to explore the effects of NAFTA and GATT membership on innovation and trade in the Mexican soaps, detergents, and surfactants (SDS) industry. Several basic findings emerge. First, the most fundamental effect of the NAFTA and the GATT on the SDS industry was to help induce Wal-Mart to enter Mexico. Once there, Walmex fundamentally changed the retail sector, forcing SDS firms to cut their profit margins and innovate. Those unable to respond to this new environment tended to lose market share and, in some cases, disappear altogether. Second, partly in response to Walmex, many Mexican producers logged impressive efficiency gains during the previous decade. These gains came both from labor-shedding and from innovation, which in turn was fueled by innovative input suppliers and by multinationals bringing new products and processes from their headquarters to Mexico. Finally, although Mexican detergent exports captured an increasing share of the U.S. detergent market over the past decade, Mexican sales in the U.S. were inhibited by a combination of excessive shipping delays at the border and artificially high input prices (due to Mexican protection of domestic caustic soda suppliers). They were also held back by the major re-tooling costs that Mexican producers would have had to incur to establish brand recognition among non-Latin consumers and to comply with zero phosphate laws in many regions of the U.S. "--World Bank web site.

A Case Study of Mexican Soaps, Detergents, and Surfactant Producers

Openness and Industrial Response in a Wal-Mmart World

For many years, digital signal processing has been governed by the theory of Fourier transform and its numerical implementation. The main disadvantage of Fourier theory is the underlying assumption that the signals have time-wise or space-wise invariant statistical properties. In many applications the deviation from a stationary behavior is precisely the information to be extracted from the signals. Wavelets were developed to serve the purpose of analysing such instationary signals. The book gives an introduction to wavelet theory both in the continuous and the discrete case. After developing the theoretical fundament, typical examples of wavelet analysis in the Geosciences are presented. The book has developed from a graduate course held at The University of Calgary and is directed to graduate students who are interested in digital signal processing. The reader is assumed to have a mathematical background on the graduate level.

Wolfgang Keller

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