Twenty-five years of consumer vulnerability research: Critical insights and future directions

Consumer vulnerability is gaining increasing attention from researchers and practitioners as a social phenomenon in modern consumption-driven societies. In an attempt to conduct a comprehensive review using credible published research materials on the topic, this study applies a big data analytics approach to analyze scholarly research with a pool of 859 articles covering the last 25 years of post-modern marketing practices that have been a precursor to market-driven vulnerability. This paper identifies the most influential articles, as well as the top contributing journals and authors, along with their affiliations. In addition, this study reveals four major themes of research in consumer vulnerability, namely marketing, fraud and consumers, consumer vulnerability and well-being, ethics and vulnerable consumers, and consumption, disability and gender. These integrative perspectives will serve as a critical starting point to encourage focused theme-based exploration in the field.     

Can microcredit reduce vulnerability to poverty? Evidence from rural Vietnam

Extant literature has extensively explored microcredit's impacts, confirming its essential role in poverty alleviation. However, most studies focus on poverty measures that exclusively emphasize current poverty status without adequately addressing the potential of falling into or remaining in poverty. Furthermore, the role of credit services in helping the poor in rural areas appears to be underexamined in the literature. To address this knowledge gap, this study investigates whether rural microcredit can reduce household vulnerability to poverty. A theoretical framework is developed to capture the mechanism by which microcredit borrowing has a vital role in household businesses and impacts the probability of being poor in the future. The Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey data set from 2008 to 2016 is used to explore this issue. The findings indicate that rural Vietnam's access to microcredit significantly reduces vulnerability to poverty. Moreover, better-off households are seemingly the most effective at using microcredit, whereas the opposite is found among worse-off households. These results are found to be robust using the propensity score matching method.     

Climate precarity in rural livelihoods: Agrarian transformations and smallholder vulnerability in Vietnam

In recent decades, agrarian transformations in Southeast Asia have resulted in significant environmental and social change, yet insufficient attention has focused on the particular pathways by which these changes have increased vulnerability to climate change. In particular, climate precarity, a situation in which class, social, labour and/or gender inequities amplify negative impacts from climate change, has been on the rise for many smallholders. Using case studies in Vietnam of changes to swidden agriculture in upland areas and the loss of deepwater rice systems in the Mekong Delta lowlands, the paper examines social differentiation and ecological outcomes of these processes and how they have increased climate precarity, particularly for poor households and women. Based on longitudinal fieldwork in affected regions, we identify key changes contributing to climate precarity as farming systems intensify. In particular, loss of flexibility in farmer decision-making, loss of voluntary engagement with markets, and declining access to social capital and entitlements have increased risks for households and reduced adaptation options. Suggestions are made to more directly address these elements in future agricultural and climate policies, rather than current approaches to climate adaptation that often promote even more intensification of agriculture, which runs the risk of exacerbating precarity.     

Covid-19 in America: Global supply chain reconsidered

This research asks: To what extent has America's reliance on the global supply network aggravated the country's public health and economic crisis; and how did the American government respond to supply chain weaknesses during the early years of the Covid-19 pandemic? This study first assesses important conceptual considerations that explain the expansion of global value chains and the growth of trade interdependencies among nations. Next, an analytical case study observes (1) America's supply chain vulnerability through three major waves of infection, (2) the difficulty to mend weaknesses in the supply linkages once the novel coronavirus spread globally and (3) American government's failures to both anticipate and respond to supply shortages, especially in the health sector. Trump administration's policies failed to ensure a reliable supply of simple personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare professionals and hospitals throughout the first three waves of infection. Moreover, state and federal governments' substantial reliance on large manufacturers who have established procurement relationship with government led to continuous nationwide supply shortages throughout 2020. The federal government's inability to engage small and medium manufacturers in the production of critical supplies of PPE and diagnostic tests deepened and prolonged the devastating impacts of the pandemic. Our case study demonstrates that the American government needs to rethink the country's substantial reliance on the global supply chain, and the specific requirements to boost domestic manufacturing capacity. The revitalisation of America's manufacturing ability and the local supply networks will boost the productive power of the nation, strengthen resiliency, reduce vulnerability in disruptive times and prepare the nation for future crises.     

Insurance demand in the presence of loss-dependent background risk

We analyze insurance demand when insurable losses come with an uninsurable zero-mean background risk that increases in the loss size. If the individual is risk vulnerable, loss-dependent background risk triggers a precautionary insurance motive and increases optimal insurance demand. Prudence alone is sufficient for insurance demand to increase in two cases: the case of fair insurance and the case where the smallest possible loss exceeds a certain threshold value (referred to as the large loss case). We derive conditions under which insurance demand increases or decreases in initial wealth. In the large loss case, prudence determines whether changes in the background risk lead to more insurance demand. We generalize this result to arbitrary loss distributions and find conditions based on decreasing third-degree Ross risk aversion, Arrow–Pratt risk aversion, and Arrow–Pratt temperance.     

制造企业供应链脆弱性分析

制造业供应链话题一直是学术界的研究热点。新时代背景下,中国从制造大国到制造强国蜕变的前进征程中,制造企业供应链作为一个系统,发挥着重要的实践作用和战略作用。供应链脆弱性直接影响制造企业的物流稳定性、业务流畅性、资金持久性。论文对相关文献进行梳理,进一步探索供应链脆弱性的内涵和影响因素,并提出相关应对建议。