The Saga of the Directive on Misleading Advertising

After reviewing the legislative history and the current situation regarding the adjustment of member states' laws to implement the European Community's Directive on Misleading Advertising, it is clear that those who plan or hope to influence future regulatory activities can learn significant lessons from the past. Regulation of advertising should be in accordance with economic and social facts and opinions that are relevant to European conditions, indeed to conditions in each member state. All major interested and knowledgeable parties—business, consumer groups and government—should be consulted and involved directly in the process. The advertising business should make efforts to educate others accurately about the nature of advertising, the process of preparing effective and appropriate advertising and advertising's effects on consumers, the economy and society. The advertising business should also develop self- regulatory systems more fully.     

Statistical Discrimination in the Labour Market: An Efficient Vice?

On the presumption that more information improves economic decision-making, it is often claimed that statistical discrimination reduces inefficiencies. Outlawing discrimination then means foregone efficiency gains. This paper examines whether there is indeed an uncomfortable trade-off between equality and efficiency, by reconsidering some of the most significant statistical-discrimination models. The conclusion is that there is no firm basis for supposing that statistical discrimination is efficient. As well as disputing the efficiency claim, the paper casts further doubts on the common interpretation of the decomposition of empirical wage differentials.     

Economic impact analysis of industrial projects: An approach

A method of calculating economic impact of industrial project proposals is described. The method identifies the benefits and costs of a project to the enterprise and to government, as well as its impact on the economy as a whole, with or without government assistance or intervention in any form. Entrepreneurial and social potentials or driving forces are identified, together with potentials common to both. The analytical method, called economic fertility analysis, employs a large input-output model of the economy to generate a series of impact elements, including increased economic activity, new government revenues, trade balance effects, new capital generation, personal savings, consumer expenditures, and employment. These elements are used to calculate simple income and employment multipliers, forward and backward linkages, and cash flows through the economy resulting from the project. A method of comparing different types of investments or interventions in the economy thus becomes available.     

Working Together: Critical Perspectives on Six Cross-Sector Partnerships in Southern Africa

Early strategy scholars have pointed to the importance of reflecting on moral issues within the scope of strategic management. Although strategy content and context have been discussed in relation to ethical reflection, the third aspect, strategy process, has found only little or no attention with regard to ethics. We argue that by emphasizing the process perspective one can understand the related character of strategic management and ethical reflection. We discuss this relatedness along formal, functional, and procedural similarities. Whereas formal aspects refer to the conditions under which both processes occur, functional aspects look at the role that strategy process and ethical reflection fulfill. Procedural aspects account for similarities in the nature of both processes insofar as the activities that are conducted within each process phase share common characteristics. We claim that ethical reflection can be thought of as an integrative part of strategic management – either explicitly or implicitly. Michael Behnam received his PhD from the University of Frankfurt, Germany. He is an Associate Professor of Management at the Sawyer Business School, Suffolk University, Boston, USA. Prior to this he was the Head of the Department of International Management at the European Business School, Germany. His research has been published in Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of International Business and Economy as well as in German top-tier outlets. He authored or co-authored numerous book chapters as well as three books, most recently the 7th edition of a textbook on Strategic Management. His research areas are Strategic Management, International Management and Business Ethics. Andreas Rasche received his PhD from European Business School, Germany and is currently Assistant Professor for Business Ethics at Helmut-Schmidt-University, University of the Federal Armed Forces in Hamburg, Germany. He has published articles in the Journal of Business Ethics, Business Ethics Quarterly and authored numerous book chapters on international accountability standards. He has gained working experience at the United Nations in Washington D.C. and New York and works closely with the United Nations Global Compact Office. His research interests and publications focus on the process of standardization in the field of CSR and the adoption of standards by corporations. More information is available under: http://www.arasche.com     

Egalitarian norms,economic development,and ethnic polarization

Economic development generally implies that traditional egalitarian norms and beliefs are replaced by modern individualistic values. Particularly when opportunities for advancement are unequally presented to people, this transformation may be accompanied by polarization and violent conflict. We illustrate this point by describing the processes of land privatization in Sub-Saharan Africa and then present two models that capture some salient aspects of this transformation in rural communities, including the possibility of polarization. We find that the support of egalitarian norms is notably strong when new opportunities are available for only a few people or when the community is socially unstable. Moreover, in unstable communities, polarization is strongest when the group with the most lucrative opportunities comprises half the population.     

Vertical Integration and Exclusive Behavior of Insurers and Hospitals

We examine vertical integration and exclusive behavior in health care markets in which insurers and hospitals bilaterally bargain over contracts. We employ a bargaining model of two hospitals and two health insurers competing on premiums. We show that asymmetric equilibria exist in which one insurer contracts one hospital whereas the other insurer contracts both hospitals, even if all players are equally efficient in their production. Asymmetric equilibria arise if hospitals are sufficiently differentiated. In these cases, total industry profits increase and consumer welfare decreases in comparison to the case in which both insurers have contracts with both hospitals. Vertical integration makes these equilibria possible for a wider range of parameters.