Business Ethical Values in China and the U.S.

The research presented in this paper focuses on business ethical values inChina, a country in which the process of institutional transformation has left cultural values in a state of flux. A survey was conducted in China and the U.S. by using five business scenarios. Survey results show similarities between the Chinese and American decision choices for three out of five scenarios. However, the results reveal significant differences in rationales, even forsimilar decisions. The implications of similarities and differences between the U.S. and Chinese samples are discussed.     

Price determinants in top-quality e-auctioned specialty coffees

We analyze the price determinants of specialty coffees traded at e-auctions. We hypothesize that since specialty coffees are a highly differentiated product, prices will be determined by both sensory and reputation attributes. To test our hypotheses, we estimate a hedonic price function using data from Central and South American e-auctions and calculate the implicit prices of sensory and reputation attributes. The results show that market clearing prices are a function of sensory characteristics and reputation variables including third-party quality ranking, country of origin, coffee variety, and quantity. The additional attribute information disclosed at e-auctions results in substantially higher prices relative to conventional commodity coffee market prices.     

Foreign trade,resource allocation,and structural adjustment in Yugoslavia: 1976–1980

A multisector computable general-equilibrium model for the Yugoslav economy is used to analyze some of the internal and external causes of the foreign-exchange crisis of the 1976–1980 period. Methodologically, its modeling approach, appropriately modified for institutional differences, can be used to study the behavior of socialist economies in which prices play a role in resource allocation. Empirically, the results suggest that internal policy errors and systemic factors were the predominant force behind Yugoslavia's growing foreign-exchange shortage between 1976 and 1980. J. Comp. Econ., March 1985, 9(1), pp. 46–70. University of California, Berkeley, California 94720.     

Sovereign Debt Capacity and the Distribution of Domestic Wealth: A Common Agency Model*

This paper proposes a stylized two‐period, two‐country model illustrating the role of distribution of domestic wealth in determining a country's level of access to international lending. We model sovereign debt redemption policy in a common agency framework. Within this framework, policy is the outcome of the interaction between government and local and foreign interest groups with conflicting preferences on debt repayment. Our main result is that in full lobby competition, when all interests are represented, the only equilibrium solution is repudiation and the consequent inability of government to access international capital markets. Conversely, when the ability to lobby depends on wealth, governments can access international credit up to a given maximum external debt capacity, determined by the skew in the distribution of domestic wealth.     

A dyadic study of interpersonal information search

Although interpersonal word-of-mouth communication, by definition, takes place between two people, rarely has the phenomenon of word of mouth been studied using both members of the dyad. Building on the literature, this article offers a model of active interpersonal information search that is tested by using a method in which information seeker and source perceptions were obtained. Source characteristics were important determinants of interpersonal influence, but seeker characteristics also played an important role. Interestingly, it proved useful to distinguish between demographic and attitudinal homophily of seeker and source as the former was inversely and the latter directly related to interpersonal influence. Mary C. Gilly is an associate professor in the Graduate School of Management and associate dean of Graduate Studies at the University of California, Irvine. Her Ph.D. is in marketing from the University of Houston. Her research interests include the unintended effects of marketing actions, such as the effects of advertising on employees. She also has interests in services marketing, such as customer service, including consumer complaint handling, and cross-cultural service encounters. Her work has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of Business Research, and other academic journals. John L. Graham is a professor in the Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Irvine. His Ph.D. is in marketing from the University of California, Berkeley. His primary research interests regard international marketing, international business negotiations, and structural equations modeling. His work has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Consumer Research, Marketing Science, theJournal of International Business Studies, Management Science, and other academic journals. Mary Finley Wolfinbarger is an associate professor at California State University, Long Beach and is doing research on the topics of internal marketing and gift giving. She teaches Marketing Principles and Marketing Research. She received her Ph.D. in marketing from the University of California, Irvine. Her work has appeared in theJournal of Marketing and other academic journals. Laura J. Yale came to Fort Lewis College in 1991. She holds degrees in Hotel, Restaurant, and Travel Administration from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine. She teaches a variety of courses in Marketing and Travel and Tourism Administration, including Marketing Research, International Marketing and Services. Her industry experience and most of her research interest are in the services sector, particularly the tourism industry. She is on sabbatical leave this academic year, writing an introductory textbook on the tourism industry. She will return to teaching in September 1998.     

Designing research to reveal the young child's emerging competence

The focus of this paper is to suggest factors which a marketing researcher should consider in designing experimental procedures that are congruent with the young child's cognitive capacities. Several components of the experimental environment are identified as important in designing an age-appropriate task: familiarity with factual information, context, verbally presented information, and the goal of the experimental task. A young child's strategies for processing an experimental task that exceeds his or her cognitive capacities are considered. Finally, the paper addresses implications for marketing researchers when tailoring experimental procedures to young children.     

中国股市奈何重挫？

【美国《华尔街日报》8月13日】中国消极的经济数据引发大陆股市大卖盘，因为焦虑重重的投资者担心通胀压力会损害收益增长。     

The impact of public investment in medical imaging technology: an interagency collaboration in evaluation

The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) allied to analyze the impact of their investments in medical imaging research. The CFI funds capital and operating programs for research infrastructure, and CIHR's mandate concentrates its funding on research activity. It happens that CIHR-funded research consumes CFI-funded infrastructure as an input in the innovation process. Apart from a few partnered programs, by design there is no coordination between CFI and CIHR funding decisions. Together, these agencies invested $916 million over a 14-year-period. In this paper, we evaluate the economic and health benefits from advancements in one funded area, namely computed tomography perfusion (CTP). CTP is an imaging technique that uses computed tomography to measure blood flow in organs and tissues. It is mostly used to assess acute ischemic stroke. The net social benefits attributable to these investments are substantially positive: the benefit-to-cost ratio is estimated to be between 6.66-to-1 and 9.99-to-1. We review how public investments from multiple funders comingle in the innovation process to deliver social value and improved health outcomes.     

Did Muhammad Ali foster industrialization in early nineteenth‐century Egypt?

Muhammad Ali, who ruled Egypt between 1805 and 1849, intervened in Egyptian markets in an attempt to foster industrialization, especially between 1812 and 1840. Like a modern marketing board, the state purchased agricultural commodities (cotton and wheat) at low prices and sold them on world markets at much higher prices, a policy equivalent to an export tax. Ali also replaced tax farming with his own land taxes. The revenues so derived were used in part to finance manufacturing investment and to build irrigation canals. In addition, Ali supplied flax and cotton at those cheap purchase prices to domestic textile manufacturing, thus subsidizing the industry. He also used non‐tariff barriers to exclude foreign competition from domestic markets. Were Ali's state‐led policies successful in fostering industry? The answer is no easier to extract from this phase of Egyptian history than from that of other poor countries at that time. This is because Egypt faced the same terms of trade boom typical of most poor commodity exporters, which was causing de‐industrialization everywhere else in the poor periphery. Ali picked a very difficult time to pursue his agenda, but we show that his policies were successful.