Consumption,Resistance and Everyday Life: Ruptures and Continuities

This paper makes the case for regarding political consumption and more generally individual collective action as an instance of “everyday resistance.” In doing so it seeks to make connection with the political case against representative politics, one that stretches back to the origins of “official” politics at the start of the 19th century. Three moments in the history of the idea of everyday resistance are presented: Max Stirner’s egoistic individualism, Leo Tolstoy’s critique of violence, and Agnes Heller’s evocation of the everyday as a site of civic courage. The examples show the longevity and persistence in political thought of the idea of the individual as the locus of social power, one that puts it at odds with the normative assumptions of theories of representation. They also show the dangers of assuming that individual collective action can unproblematically be considered a form of participation in democratic processes as opposed to a resistance against incorporation into mainstream or “official” politics. Rights which are often at the core of efforts of activists become remodelled as a weapon of contingent “everyday” struggles as opposed to a universal or transcendentally posited phenomenon.

高速铁路对居民消费的空间溢出效应研究

高速铁路开通对居民消费发展具有重要影响。本文基于2003-2017年的省级面板数据,利用空间杜宾模型检验了高速铁路对居民消费的空间溢出效应。结果表明:(1)我国居民消费存在明显的空间集聚特征;(2)周边地区的高铁运营对本地区的居民消费水平有促进作用,但二者并非简单的线性关系,高速铁路对我国居民消费水平的影响呈倒U型;(3)周边地区高铁通过影响当地经济发展水平和旅客周转量来促进当地居民消费水平提升。为此,我国需要充分利用居民消费的空间依赖性来改善各地区居民的消费,完善和优化现有的高铁网络,以高铁发展带动消费水平提升,为经济可持续发展提供适宜的消费环境。     

关于农村消费的现状及政策建议

文章对我国农村消费变化现状和趋势进行了深层次研究和分析，做出了新的概括和判断。从诸多方面研究了农村的消费能力、消费条件、消费环境、消费信心和消费习俗，深入分析了农村居民的消费水平、消费结构和消费行为，指出了制约农村扩大消费的七个因素。在此基础上，提出了扩大农村消费的总体思路和政策建议。     

文化差异对消费者奢侈品购买行为的影响——以中国和英国市场为例

越来越多的企业开始参与国际化进程。而在这其中,企业为了更成功地实施全球营销策略,文化是其中一个不容忽视的关键因素。顾客的购买动机和消费行为都会因为文化环境的不同而各异。本文意在研究跨文化差异对中英消费者奢侈品消费行为的影响——中国以集体主义文化为代表,英国以个人主义文化为代表。英国近年来奢侈品消费市场正迅猛增加而中国更是成为世界最大奢侈品消费国。在前人研究的基础上,本文将着重研究文化差异对奢侈品消费行为的影响。通过比较分析,希望本文的研究能够为营销者们在一个文化多元的全球市场中提供一些建议和参考。     

房价结构调整与经济结构转型

目前,我国住宅房地产价格明显偏离正常值。对房价结构的分析表明,房价结构中33.86%的资金流向了政府。经过房价结构这一隐秘机制的运行,本来属于居民消费领域的购房资金被转变为政府投资资本,导致经济结构中投资与消费之间的比例失衡。这与我国加快经济结构调整,增加消费在促进经济增长中的比重相悖。为应对上述情况,加快优化房价结构是促进经济结构转型的有力举措。     

Health insurance and consumption: Evidence from China’s New Cooperative Medical Scheme

We exploit a quasi-natural experiment arising from the introduction of a health insurance program in rural China to examine how the insurance coverage affects household consumption. Results show that, on average, the health insurance coverage increases nonmedical-related consumption by more than 5%. This insurance effect is observed even in households with no out-of-pocket medical spending. In addition, the insurance effect is stronger in households with worse self-reported health status. These results are consistent with the precautionary savings argument. The insurance effect also varies by household experience with the program. In particular, the effect is significant only in villages where some households have actually obtained reimbursement from the insurance program. The program within these villages stimulates less consumption among new participants than among households that have participated in the program for more than a year.     

Teaching International Business Across Multiple Modes of Delivery: How to Maintain Equivalence in Learning Outcomes

The drivers of globalization are changing how, where, and when international business (IB) is being taught, and increasing student diversity. Concomitantly, education is becoming an important contributor to GDP in developed economies. Today, the same course may be taught at home to domestic and in-bound international students, in host countries, online, and through blended learning techniques. The increasing variety of modes of delivery raises an important question, however—how to deliver the same material in different contexts and achieve the same learning outcomes. This article examines the changing face of IB education and presents a case study on how this question has been answered at one Australian university.     

Online loyalty and its interaction with switching barriers

The results of empirical research on online retail switching tendencies is quite mixed and only a few have specifically examined the presence, frequency or impact of switching barriers and switching inducements in the context of online services. Empirical evidence shows that there is “stickiness to certain sites” experienced by online customers and that they do less comparative shopping than might be expected. This paper conceptualises online switching behaviour as the interaction of barriers and inducements (both real and perceived) using Oliver׳s four-stage loyalty model. It also highlights the need to re-examine the concept of online loyalty and its interaction with switching barriers and inducements in the online context.     

How Online Product Reviews Affect Retail Sales: A Meta-analysis

A growing body of research has emerged on online product reviews and their ability to elicit performance outcomes desired by retailers; yet, a common understanding of the performance implications of online product reviews has eluded us. Scholars continue to navigate an array of studies assessing different design elements of online product reviews, and various research settings and data sources. We undertake a meta-analysis of 26 empirical studies yielding 443 sales elasticities to examine how these variables relate to retail sales. Building on well-established meta-analytical methods, we address the following questions: How does review valence influence the elasticity of retailer sales? What about review volume? For which product types and usage situations do online product reviews have a greater impact on retailer sales elasticity? Which types of online reviewers and websites exert the greatest influence on retailer sales elasticity? Our study answers these important questions and provides a much needed quantitative synthesis of this burgeoning stream of research.     

Naturally designed for masculinity vs. femininity? Prenatal testosterone predicts male consumers' choices of gender-imaged products

In this paper, we find that a proxy of prenatal testosterone exposure (i.e., digit ratio) is a significant predictor of preferences for products that differ in perceived masculinity vs. femininity. A more masculine (feminine) digit ratio predicts choice of products that have an increasingly masculine (feminine) image. This relationship is statistically significant for male consumers, but not for females.