Consumer Responses to Homosexual Imagery in Advertising: A Meta-Analysis

Rising support for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, paired with the considerable buying power of this group, has triggered increasing interest from marketers in the gay and lesbian market. Many companies have developed advertising with homosexual imagery to better target this group as well as the mainstream market. The findings on the persuasive effects of homosexual imagery are mixed and do not provide insights on whether and when homosexual imagery in advertising supports persuasion. To resolve the inconsistencies in findings of prior research, this article presents a meta-analysis on the effects of homosexual imagery. The integrated effect size suggests that the net persuasive effect between homosexual and heterosexual imagery does not differ. We find, however, that homosexual consumers show negative responses to heterosexual imagery. Furthermore, the moderator analysis suggests that incongruence between imagery, consumer characteristics, cultural values, explicitness of imagery, endorser gender, and product type results in unfavorable responses to homosexual advertising imagery. These findings provide guidelines for future research and implications for advertisers who intend to address consumers of various sexual orientations.     

Fair Trade and Organic Agriculture in Developing Countries: A Review

Fair trade regimes and organic agricultural systems are 2 innovations that increasingly play an important role for agriculture in developing countries. Whereas fair trade regimes have their origin in the developing countries, organic agriculture was started in the rich countries and has only recently become popular in the Third World. Both innovations can be mutually reinforcing as fair trade often combined with organic production standards opens up new market prospects. In this article we explore the opportunities and constraints of marketing organic products from developing countries under fair trade regimes. Based on available literature, we review evidence of the magnitude of organic production and fair trade systems in developing countries. We also propose a framework for studying the impact of fair traded organically produced commodities using the case of black pepper in India. The framework will generate testable hypotheses regarding the 2 innovations.     

China's Exchange Rate and International Adjustment in Wages, Prices and Interest Rates: Japan Deja Vu?

China's fixed its exchange rate at 8.28 yuan to the dollar from1994 to July 2005, and has only allowed for a small appreciationsince then. China's productivity growth has been very high relativeto most other countries: its trade surplus has been rising andit continues to accumulate large dollar exchange reserves. Manyobservers, including high officials in the US government, takethis as per se evidence that the renminbi is undervalued. Tobalance China's international competitiveness and reduce itstrade surplus, they want the renminbi to appreciate much more.This common presumption of renminbi undervaluation is wrong,and its appreciation need not reduce China's trade surplus butwould cause serious deflation in China. To show this, we considerinternational adjustment between China and the US from bothan asset market and a labor market perspective, and comparethis to Japan's unsuccessful appreciation of the yen from 1971to 1995. During a time of economic catch-up and rapid financialtransformation, fixing the exchange rate is the preferred wayof anchoring the domestic price level. (JEL codes: F15, F31,F33)     

Twenty years of agricultural policy review and forecast

In a lecture on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of his Institute for Rural Structural Research in Frankfurt Professor Dr Hermann Priebe, the agronomist and economist, subjected the agricultural policy of the EC to a critical review¹. For the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, which is socially and financially unsustainable in its present form, he proposed changes which make economic sense and are not politically unattainable.     

A Vicious Cycle of Manias,Crises and Asymmetric Policy Responses – An Overinvestment View

Over the past three decades, we find that asymmetric policy responses heavily contributed to manias and bursting bubbles that eventually trapped the major industrial economies into near zero short‐term interest rates with rapidly rising public indebtedness. The article uses the endogenous business cycle theories of Wicksell, Mises, Schumpeter, Hayek and Minsky to show how ostensible counter‐cyclical monetary policies are asymmetric, as central banks are less willing to raise interest rates in booms than cut them when bubbles collapse. After interest rates have fallen towards zero, fiscal policy is called on which sooner or later becomes bounded by extraordinary debt to GDP ratios. Central banks hesitate to raise interest rates even in the face of a partial economic recovery because the cost of public debt service would become prohibitive. The economies then languish at very low interest rates that encourage low productivity real investments and a continual threat of bubbles in asset and raw material markets. This makes them unable to deal with further macroeconomic shocks.     

The coming era of the financial executive: A broadened,less specialized role

Because corporate financing is becoming more complex, the role of financial executives is increasing in both importance and complexity. In addition to his traditional function of procuring funds from external sources, the new tasks of the financial executive will include generating funds from internal sources. His job will have to be broadened to include actively managing all of the corporations's major balance sheet items, and the author presents seven key questions a financial executive must consider in facing these new tasks. Thus, his role will be less specialized; it will require a knowledge of and experience with general management. The financial executive will increasingly become directly involved in the strategic issues handled by top management.     

Hedge-Fonds: Risiken für die internationalen Finanzmärkte?

Die Ungleichgewichte auf den internationalen Finanzm?rkten werden von den Finanzministern und Notenbankchefs der Industriel?nder mit zunehmendem Unbehagen betrachtet. In Hinblick auf Hedge-Fonds soll bis zum G-8-Gipfel im Juni dieses Jahres ein Verhaltenskodex erarbeitet werden. Inwieweit k?nnen Hedge-Fonds zur Instabilit?t der Finanzm?rkte beitragen? Welche Strategien zur Krisenvermeidung sollten verfolgt werden? Welche Institutionen sollten aktiv werden? Die Autoren unseres Zeitgespr?chs: Prof. Dr. Ralf-M. Marquardt, 45, lehrt Volkswirtschaftslehre und quantitative Methoden an der FH-Gelsenkirchen, Abteilung Recklinghausen. Prof. Dr. Carsten Hefeker, 43, lehrt Volkswirtschaftslehre, insbesondere Europ?ische Wirtschaftspolitik an der Universit?t Siegen. Prof. Dr. Gunther Schnabl, 40, ist Direktor des Instituts für Wirtschaftspolitik an der Universit?t Leipzig; Andreas Hoffmann, 26, Dipl.-Volkswirt, ist dort wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter.