Land Aggregation Using Contingent and Guaranteed Payments

This article explores the use of alternative payment mechanisms to overcome the holdout problem when multiple parcels of land must be acquired to complete a real‐estate development project. Purchase offers contingent upon successful land aggregation are compared to combination offers containing both guaranteed and contingent payments to determine which approach better mitigates holdout. The distribution of gains between developers and landowners is also examined. The results of a series of economic experiments suggest that contingent offers expedite land aggregation but developer payoffs are higher when combination offers are used. The results offer insight to real‐estate developers participating in land aggregation and inform government entities considering the necessity of public‐sector intervention in real‐estate markets to encourage desired development projects.     

Optimal monetary policy in a New Keynesian model with habits in consumption

In this paper we consider the implications of habits for optimal monetary policy, when those habits either exist at the level of the aggregate basket of consumption goods (‘superficial’ habits) or at the level of individual goods (‘deep’ habits: see Ravn et al., 2006). External habits generate an additional distortion in the economy and create new trade-offs for optimal policy, as the policy maker does not respond as aggressively to technology shocks in order to avoid exacerbating the habits externality. This can dramatically affect both the parameterization of optimal simple rules, as well as their determinacy properties. These effects are particularly strong when habits are of the deep kind.     

Marx and Engels’ Vision of a Better Society

Notwithstanding their much noted aversion to detailing the nature of a post-capitalist society, Marx and Engels indeed have a broad vision of such a better society that both runs through and informs their entire lives' work. It is rooted in their concepts of the inherently social nature of humans and potential authentic human development in accord with human nature, and the negation by humans as the active agents of history of the barriers posed to that development. This paper discuses their dialectic approach to defining a better society, their concept of human nature that it rests on, and finally specifies a number general aspects they give for a better future socialist society.     

Japanese Consumption,External Disequilibrium and their Statistical Measurement

Georgescu-Roegen's work is usually divided into two categories, his earlier work on consumer and production theory and his later concern with entropy and bioeconomics beginning with his 1966 introductory essay to his collected theoretical papers published in the volume Analytical Economics. Most economists usually praise his earlier work on pure theory and ignore his later work which is highly critical of neoclassical economics. Those economists sympathetic to his later work usually take the position that he “saw the light” and gave up neoclassical theory some time in the 1960s to turn his attention to the issues of resource scarcity and social institutions. It is argued here that there is an unbroken path running from Georgescu's work in pure theory in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, through his writings on peasant economies in the 1960s, leading to his preoccupation with entropy and bioeconomics in the last 25 years of his life. That common thread is his preoccupation with “valuation.” The choices our species makes about resource use and the distribution of economic output depends upon our valuation framework. Georgescu-Roegen's work begins in the 1930s with a critical examination of the difficulties with the hedonistic valuation framework of neoclassical economics, moves in the 1960s to the conflict between social and hedonistic valuation, and culminates in the 1970s and 1980s with his examination of the conflict between individual, social, and environmental values. This paper traces the evolution of Georgescu-Roegen's thought about valuation and the environmental and social policy recommendations which arise out of his bioeconomic framework.     

Testing economic theories of voter behaviour using micro-data

Three hypotheses often encountered in economic analyses of voter behaviour are tested using an extensive data set derived from six consecutive national election studies in the Netherlands in the period 1971–1986. These hypotheses are: (i) the party choice and turnout decisions are taken sequentially and independently by voters; (ii) social gorups play a central role in the decisionmaking processes in the political sphere; (iii) the effect of individual-level variables on party choice is stable over time. The results provide support for the first hypothesis and partial support for the second, where the specific categorization of individuals to be chosen is a matter that needs further investigation. The third hypothesis is rejected by the data: the relationship between the variables chosen and party choice proved to be unstable.     

Typologies of Banner Advertisements’ Attributes: A Content Analysis

The web has received significant amount of attention from advertising and consumer researchers investigating the impact of banner advertisement on consumers’ psychological and behavioral responses. However, no typology of banner advertisement has been identified yet, and the selection of banner advertisements as advertising stimuli has been carried out on the premise of personal judgment rather than scientific methodology. The identification of typology is important because different banner advertisement, such as static and pop-up, elicit different consumers’ responses. In addition the identification of a typology constitutes an advance to mid-range theory in a research domain. Hence, the purpose of this research is to identify the typologies of banner advertisements’ attributes such as type, number, shape, location, and size using content analysis. Specifically, nine banner advertisement types are identified as well as the typology of number, shape, location, and size of banner advertisements. Contributions of the research are discussed.     

Muy local: Differentiating Hispanic and Caucasian shoppers of locally produced foods in US grocery

The current study reviews consumer purchasing of locally produced foods in retail grocery stores across Hispanic and Caucasian groups in the United States. Six hypotheses were tested via the creation and evaluation of a measurement model within the structural equation modeling process. Results suggested that group differences exist between Hispanic and Caucasian consumers across the constructs of attitudes, perceived product availability, subjective norms, intention to purchase and extent of purchase. Implications for marketing strategies across groups and product categories are provided, along with future research directions.     

Marketing Performance and Business Risk in Acutecare Health Trusts - A New Comparative Approach

The introduction of an internal market to the NHS in April 1991 has created a vastly different structure for the delivery of healthcare throughout the UK. This paper investigates the relationship between the changing income structure of acute care Trusts and their use of marketing as a tool to manage an increasingly complex operating environment. Primary data from a postal questionnaire to Trust Chief Executives (or their representatives) has been used to classify the 51 responding Trusts according to their performance within an acute care market that accounts for some £3.57 billion of the annual NHS spend.This is the first time that this type of marketing risk analysis as been attempted within the UK Health Service.

An innovativepositional matrix has been developed, categorising all the acute healthcare Trusts into four categories according to theirMarketing Index (MI) and Perceived Future Income Instability (INS) scores. The study suggests that about 24 per cent of all the Trusts are excessively exposed to future business risk as evident by their rather high income instability scores and low useof marketing tools and therefore more attention to marketing has to be given by these Trusts. Closer analysis of the results ofthe data indicates that those Trusts with a high marketing index (i.e. those more likely to be able to handle income instability),place market analysis, marketing strategy, demand forecasting and personal contact with purchasers, as top priorities. ThoseTrusts with low marketing indexes give priority to pricing analysis and personal contact with purchasers only.