Exploitation and inefficiency in Cameroon food marketing systems—myth or reality?: Some evidence from the west province

Urbanization and the food crisis have contributed to increased allegations of consumer exploitation and inefficiency in African food marketing systems. This article investigates the question of consumer exploitation and inefficiency in the food crop marketing system of the West Province of Cameroon. Exploitation is evaluated in terms of net marketing margin, and efficiency in terms of the provision of foodstuffs at competitive prices, consistent with the cost of moving commodities from producers to consumers, under prevailing conditions.Multiple regression models are employed to evaluate the determinants of gross marketing margins for vendors of four food commodities—plantain, maize, tomato, and potato. Findings suggest that the food marketing system is highly competitive with no formal entry barriers, and that allegations of consumer exploitation are largely unfounded. Given the multiplicity of economic constraints facing food vendors, they appear to carry out their marketing functions with a surprising degree of efficiency.     

Using guanxi-style buyer-seller relationships in China: Reducing uncertainty and improving performance outcomes

Recent marketing literature has recommended that companies employ either long-term relationship marketing or short-term transactional approaches to buyer-seller relationships depending on the value of the customer to the company. This article found that in China, guanxi-style buyer-seller relationships similar to relationship marketing were strongly related to reduced levels of perceived uncertainty about the business environment and a variety of improved performance outcomes. The use of transactional relationships was related to higher uncertainty and lower performance. The use of gifts and favors seemed more characteristic of transactional relationships and were not related to positive outcomes. Both quantitative evidence from American sellers and qualitative evidence from Chinese buyers supported these conclusions. It is argued that guanxi-style buyer-seller.     

Some macroeconomic effects of income tax indexation

The effects of supply and demand disturbances on the level of real income and prices in the presence of income tax indexation are examined. The results are contrary in nature to the effects of such disturbances in the presence of wage indexation and suggest that combined indexation may have ambiguous stabilization properties.     

An open-city model with nonmalleable housing

Previous city and housing models are extended to allow for the nonmalleability of housing and two classes of residents. The model, which is framed in the context of a monocentric circular city, assumes an individual housing unit to be defined in terms of attributes (quality and residential density). The quality of a given housing unit can be varied without adjustment costs, but changes in residential density on a particular site require prior demolition of the existing structure on the site. Producers of housing and consumers are assumed to be myopic. By assuming that the city is in short-run equilibrium at each point of time, it is shown that the pattern of land use observed at any stage depends on the past history of the city and the current rates of population growth. The possibilities for filtering of houses from one income group to another are also discussed briefly.