Lease finance in industrial markets

Financial leasing is being used increasingly to acquire items of industrial equipment where use is more crucial than ownership. Its advantages over traditional forms of finance are straightforward and to a large degree appear to be based on the utilization of a cost advantage deriving from the fiscal system. In view of this, it might be expected that price would be a dominant marketing variable since the ‘product’ is relatively homogeneous, even though the industry structure is oligopolistic. This has been the case to a certain extent but policies of product differentiation and market segmentation have enabled firms to avoid some of the rigours of price competition.     

The erosion of the unusual susceptibility defense: The case of the disadvantaged consumer

Marketing practitioners and academics have exhibited an increased concern for the problems of disadvantaged consumers in recent years. During the same time period, the product liability field has become increasingly volatile. In this article the overlap between these two seemingly independent trends is presented via hypothetical case examples. A decision process to guide marketers who potentially deal with disadvantaged market segments is outlined and discussed. The implications of these developments are also described in detail.     

Industrial and occupational change and trade unions

Report of an international trade union seminar for delegates from the UK, USA and USSR held at Nottingham University and Northern College, Barnsley, 4–15 April 1987     

Students in marketing research: Surrogates vs. role-players

The usefulness of the student surrogate has been debated extensively in the marketing literature. The results discussed here suggest that business students are ineffective role-players with regard to anticipating consumers' and businesspersons' reactions; however, students' own evaluations were very much like those of businesspersons.     

Keeping Up With the Joneses: Analyzing the Effect of Income Inequality on Consumer Borrowing

Household debt relative to disposable income increased from 60% in 1980 to 104% at the end of 2003. ‘Buying on credit’ has become so popular that an increasing number of firms generate more profit from financing than from selling their products. In this paper, we show that rising income inequality has substantially contributed to increased consumer borrowing. Income inequality affects all components of total household debt, but the impact is strongest on non-revolving debt (installment loans), which is used to finance the purchase of consumer durables. We argue and provide evidence that the income inequality effect on consumer borrowing is a result of conspicuous consumption. Rising income inequality has forced households with smaller income gains to use debt to keep up their consumption level relative to households with larger income gains.JEL Classification: D12, G29, J31, M30     

Seller competition by mechanism design

This paper analyzes a market game in which sellers offer trading mechanisms to buyers and buyers decide which seller to go to depending on the trading mechanisms offered. In a (subgame perfect) equilibrium of this market, sellers hold auctions with an efficient reserve price but charge an entry fee. The entry fee depends on the number of buyers and sellers, the distribution of buyer valuations, and the buyer cost of entering the market. As the size of the market increases, the entry fee decreases and converges to zero in the limit. We study how the surplus of buyers and sellers depends on the number of agents on each side of the market in this decentralized trading environment.