Becoming a preferred customer one step at a time

A preferred customer is a buying organization who receives better treatment than other customers from a supplier, in terms of product quality and availability, support in the sourcing process, delivery or/and prices. The decision to become a preferred customer implies a continuous commitment by the purchaser to a complex, expensive and often uncertain process. It is important to use a strategic approach, as well as appropriate tactics. Based on well-known models on the development of buyer-supplier relationship, on customer portfolio analysis and on the emergent literature in customer attractiveness and preferred customer status, we suggest four steps to become – and remain – a preferred customer: initial attraction, performance, engagement and sustainability. The process takes the perspective of a buyer willing to obtain the preferential status and focuses on the strategies and tactics that could influence the supplier's decision of granting this status. The proposed process considers that the supplier is continuously comparing the value offered by the customer to its expectations, and to the value offered by other customer relationships.     

Combining backcasting and adaptive management for climate adaptation in coastal regions: A methodology and a South African case study

Developing adaptation strategies for deltaic and coastal regions is a major challenge, due to future uncertainties of climate change and complexity of the social–ecological systems to be managed. This paper investigates how desirable futures or normative scenarios approaches, in particular backcasting, can be used to develop more robust climate strategies in coastal regions. The paper develops a methodology in which participatory backcasting and adaptive management are combined, and its applicability is demonstrated for the Breede–Overberg coastal region in South Africa where a catchment management strategy has been developed. It is concluded that the methodology offers an adequate framework for developing and implementing long-term climate adaptation strategies and policies, including a transition management scheme for intermediate assessments.     

Common information asymmetry factors in syndicated loan structures

This paper provides a comprehensive study of the syndicate structure and its relationship to information asymmetry and loan spread by using principal component analysis on a large set of 40 structure-related variables. A total of six structure components are identified and related to syndicate quality, syndicate members’ heterogeneity or share concentration, lead arranger’s characteristics, lead lender’s or syndicate’s location, lender–borrower relationships, and lead institution type. In multivariate settings, all six components are significant determinants of loan spread, either directly or indirectly through their impact on other components. Lead share retention, previous lender–borrower relationships and syndicate quality are shown to be bilaterally related to loan spread. Structure components differ regionally, which can provide an explanation for the European pricing discount observed in the literature. An Asian discount is observed and cannot be explained by structure differences.     

COVID-19 Is Transforming Economic Policy in the United States

Intereconomics - Cutbacks in government spending slowed the recovery and led to lasting damage to workers and economic growth.     

Extrinsic and intrinsic food product attributes in consumer and sensory research: literature review and quantification of the findings

Management Review Quarterly - As recent years have seen a growing interest in integrating consumer and sensory science, this paper aims at presenting a systematic literature review of empirical...     

Shapley and Scarf housing markets with consumption externalities

We introduce externalities into the classical model by Shapley and Scarf; that is, agents care about others and their preferences are defined over allocations rather than over single indivisible goods. After collecting some results about the nonexistence of several cooperative solutions, we focus on stable allocations and propose domains of preferences that can guarantee that they both exist and form a stable set à la von Neumann and Morgenstern.     

A Real Chance for the Transatlantic Partnership on Climate Policy

Intereconomics - The new transatlantic partnership can be the cornerstone of this change: real climate protection without false truths and hidden smoke bombs, but a shift to a full supply of...     

The Impact of Past Syndicate Alliances on the Consolidation of Financial Institutions

The impact of past syndicate alliances on the consolidation of financial institutions is examined. The odds of two lenders combining increases with the intensity and exclusivity of their prior syndicated loan alliances. The impact is higher for international mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and for prior syndicate co-relationships where the acquirer and target were participant and lead, respectively. The odds of a particular lender being a target decreases as its return on equity (ROE) and earnings/price (E/P) ratios increase and as its size and growth opportunities decrease. The intensity and exclusivity of the syndicated loan alliances leading up to M&A announcements are significantly higher for non-US versus US M&As. The significantly lower short- and long-term performances for both acquirers and targets with prior syndicate co-involvements disappear in the presence of control variables that account for the less frequent use of cash payments, the greater incidence of divestitures, and the higher percentage of shares acquired through their M&As. Acquirers with versus those without past syndicate target co-involvements exhibit greater outperformance for control-firm benchmarked ROEs and lower underperformance for control-firm and prior-to-M&A benchmarked ROEs.     

Economic Growth Evens Out Happiness: Evidence from Six Surveys

In spite of the great U‐turn that saw income inequality rise in Western countries in the 1980s, happiness inequality has fallen in countries that have experienced income growth (but not in those that did not). Modern growth has reduced the share of both the “very unhappy” and the “perfectly happy.” Lower happiness inequality is found both between and within countries, and between and within individuals. Our cross‐country regression results suggest that the extension of various public goods helps to explain this greater happiness homogeneity. This new stylized fact arguably comes as a bonus to the Easterlin paradox, offering a somewhat brighter perspective for developing countries.     

Offset carbon emissions or pay a price premium for avoiding them? A cross-country analysis of motives for climate protection activities

This article contributes to the economic literature on pure and impure public goods by considering two alternatives for contributing to the public good climate protection: offsetting carbon emissions from conventional consumption or paying higher prices for climate-friendly products. We empirically examine a wide range of motives and their impact on individuals’ choice in favour of these two alternatives relying on data from representative international surveys. Our results indicate that environmental awareness, warm glow motives and the desire to set a good example have the most robust effects on both climate protection activities in Germany and the United States. However, some motives differ considerably between both alternatives and the two countries. A green identity enhances the willingness to pay a price premium for climate-friendly goods or services in Germany, while social norms seem to be of much higher relevance in the United States. Our results further suggest that the choice of climate protection activities, especially of carbon offsetting, entails a high degree of uncertainty.