Utterly fresh perspectives on consumer research and advertising: Introducing the special issue from the 2013 La Londe conference

This article provides an overview of the papers from the 40th La Londe Marketing Communications and Consumer Behavior Conference that were selected for this special issue of the Journal of Business Research. The La Londe conference is a biennial event that attracts top researchers from across the world. A small and selective conference, its intimacy combined with high-quality presentations serves as an incubator for new ideas and fresh perspectives on consumer research, and does so through an international lens that is reflected in the diversity of countries represented on the conference program, the co-chairs of the conference, and the La Londe Conference Scientific Committee.     

Retrospection on the impact of Wallendorf and Brucks' “Introspection in consumer research: Implementation and implications”

This paper offers a retrospection of the impact of Wallendorf & Brucks' (W&Bs') (1993) contribution. The present article considers W&Bs' contributions to theory and research and uses citation analyses to consider W&Bs' impact in the literature. The number of citation references indicates that the article has substantial impact on introspection scholarship. An analysis of the contents of references confirms W&Bs' unique importance to introspection theory and research. W&Bs' influence on introspection studies is diverse and substantive, spanning a wide range of topics that W&B explicate. These contributions move W&B from noteworthy scholarship to seminal status in its contributions to introspection research.     

(Mis)trust in marketing: a reflection on consumers' attitudes and perceptions

Consumers are at the focal point of marketers' attention. However, while extensive research is devoted to understanding consumers' motivations, attitudes and behaviour, surprisingly little attention is given to the consumers' views of marketing itself. This paper explores consumers' attitudes towards marketing and their perceptions of it, reflecting critically upon their views. Since much criticism of marketing focuses on its role in promoting consumption, we also consider perceptions of current levels of consumption and the extent to which marketing is held responsible for them. Based on 29 in-depth interviews we find evidence suggesting the prevalence of negative attitudes towards marketing, especially associated with deceptive or dishonest campaigns, although marketing's informative role is acknowledged. Importantly, findings reveal a limited understanding of the discipline, suggesting a gap between the concept of marketing and consumers' perceptions of it. This paper sends marketers important messages from consumers and offers grounds for further debate.     

集聚效应与农业外商直接投资的区位选择——基于1999-2009年中国省际面板数据分析

传统观点认为,农业因其产业链和分工较为简单等原因,相对来说并不易于形成空间集聚,因而,农业FDI的区位选择不存在集聚效应的影响。然而,本文通过统计分析和计量分析发现,农业FDI在中国的区位分布具有明显的空间集聚的特征,这种空间集聚产生的外部性利益,吸引了新进的农业FDI继续定位于这些地区。而且,随着时间的推移,由于因果循环的作用,农业FDI存量越大的地区,吸引的农业外资就会越多;而缺乏足够农业FDI存量的地区,就更加难以吸引农业外资的流入。集聚效应使得农业FDI地区分布的差距逐步扩大。     

Solving and Testing for Regressor-Error (in)Dependence When no Instrumental Variables are Available: With New Evidence for the Effect of Education on Income

This paper has two main contributions. Firstly, we introduce a new approach, the latent instrumental variables (LIV) method, to estimate regression coefficients consistently in a simple linear regression model where regressor-error correlations (endogeneity) are likely to be present. The LIV method utilizes a discrete latent variable model that accounts for dependencies between regressors and the error term. As a result, additional ‘valid’ observed instrumental variables are not required. Furthermore, we propose a specification test based on Hausman (1978) to test for these regressor-error correlations. A simulation study demonstrates that the LIV method yields consistent estimates and the proposed test-statistic has reasonable power over a wide range of regressor-error correlations and several distributions of the instruments. Secondly, the LIV method is used to re-visit the relationship between education and income based on previously published data. Data from three studies are re-analyzed. We examine the effect of education on income, where the variable ‘education’ is potentially endogenous due to omitted ‘ability’ or other causes. In all three applications, we find an upward bias in the OLS estimates of approximately 7%. Our conclusions agree closely with recent results obtained in studies with twins that find an upward bias in OLS of about 10% (Card, 1999). We also show that for each of the three datasets the classical IV estimates for the return to education point to biases in OLS that are not consistent in terms of size and magnitude. Our conclusion is that LIV estimates are preferable to the classical IV estimates in understanding the effects of education on income. JEL Classification: C12, C13, C21, J3, M3