Reliable Inference in Categorical Regression Analysis for Non‐randomly Coarsened Observations

In most surveys, one is confronted with missing or, more generally, coarse data. Traditional methods dealing with these data require strong, untestable and often doubtful assumptions, for example, coarsening at random. But due to the resulting, potentially severe bias, there is a growing interest in approaches that only include tenable knowledge about the coarsening process, leading to imprecise but reliable results. In this spirit, we study regression analysis with a coarse categorical‐dependent variable and precisely observed categorical covariates. Our (profile) likelihood‐based approach can incorporate weak knowledge about the coarsening process and thus offers a synthesis of traditional methods and cautious strategies refraining from any coarsening assumptions. This also allows a discussion of the uncertainty about the coarsening process, besides sampling uncertainty and model uncertainty. Our procedure is illustrated with data of the panel study ‘Labour market and social security' conducted by the Institute for Employment Research, whose questionnaire design produces coarse data.     

Information,market power,and price volatility

We consider demand function competition with a finite number of agents and private information. We show that any degree of market power can arise in the unique equilibrium under an information structure that is arbitrarily close to complete information. Regardless of the number of agents and the correlation of payoff shocks, market power may be arbitrarily close to zero (the competitive outcome) or arbitrarily large (so there is no trade). By contrast, price volatility is always lower than the variance of the aggregate shock across all information structures. Alternative trading mechanisms lead to very distinct bounds as a comparison with Cournot competition establishes.     

Market and technology shifts in the 1990s: Market fragmentation and mass customization

This paper highlights demographic and psychographic population shifts, which, together with a rapid increase in the flexibility and cost‐efficiency of production processes, will force marketers into more complex market segmentation and niche marketing strategies. The accelerating trends in market fragmentation and “mass‐customization” of production will challenge traditional marketing thinking and strategies during the 1990s.     

Smoking and Politics

Anti-smoking lobbyists regularly call for government intervention to prohibit smoking in 'public places'. Tibor Machan, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Auburn, Alabama, contends that such differences of opinion should be resolved in the adaptable market, not subject to inflexible law.     

Trading spaces: Calculating embodied Ecological Footprints in international trade using a Product Land Use Matrix (PLUM)

Nations import and export biophysical resources. With many ecosystems worldwide under mounting stress, countries may be increasingly interested in knowing the extent and origin of their ecological imports and dependencies. In this paper the Ecological Footprint is used as a tool to measure the biophysical (as opposed to financial) value of international trade flows. This paper attempts to answer the following question: How large of an Ecological Footprint does a given country exert inside the borders of each of its trading partners? Records in the UN COMTRADE bilateral trade database are multiplied by a matrix of per-product Footprint yield coefficients to translate from values in dollars and tonnes to units of hectares. The results show that the largest interregional flows are from Latin to North America, and from North America to Asia-Pacific. Grouping countries by GDP, high and middle income countries appear in Footprint terms to trade predominantly with other high and middle income countries and much less with low income countries.     

A framework for the analysis of global, regional and local business networks

In this article we are dealing with the global, regional and local questions of the business. We raise the following question: is there a relation between network management (networking) and the spatial type of the network. We make a cross analysis of networking and spatial types of the network. The paper builds on the model of networking (Ford et al., 2002; Ford et al., 2003; Håkansson et al., 2009), the network paradoxes (Håkansson and Ford, 2002) and the model of 6 Cs (Ritter & Ford, 2006). We emphasize the strategic importance of the interpretation of network pictures. In order to answer the research question we create a theoretical conceptual frame called the Spatial Networking Matrix. We use the method of explorative expert interview in order to introduce some experiences of company leaders and managers concerning networking and spatiality. We conclude that after further development, the Spatial Networking Matrix can help to analyze networking and spatial types of networks at once, deepen the understanding of the real business world and through all of these, be a useful tool for business practice.     

Effort and Performance: What Distinguishes Interacting and Noninteracting Groups from Individuals?

We study how group membership affects behavior both when group members can and cannot interact with each other. Our goal is to isolate the contrasting forces that spring from group membership: a free‐riding incentive leading to reduced effort and a sense of social responsibility that increases effort. In an environment with varying task difficulty and individual decision making as the benchmark, we show that the free‐riding effect is stronger. Group members significantly reduce their effort in situations where they share the outcome but are unable to communicate. When group members share outcomes and can interact, they outperform groups without communication and individuals. We show that these groups do as well as the best constituent member would have done on his or her own.     

Are Economists Amoral?

Economists have long based their analysis of the behaviour of the economic'actor'as homo economicus, an individual maximising his or her own interest or'utility'. Tibor Machan, Professor of Philosophy at Auburn University, Alabama, argues that this approach neglects important elements that condition economic activity — not least, the role of moral considerations.     

Bidding ‘as if’ risk neutral in experimental first price auctions without information feedback

Experimental research on first price sealed bid auctions has usually involved repeated settings with information feedback on winning bids and payoffs after each auction round. Relative to the risk neutral Nash equilibrium, significantly higher bidding has been reported. The present paper reports the results of experimental first price auctions with n=7 where feedback on payoffs and winning bids is withheld. Under these conditions, average bidding is below the risk neutral Nash equilibrium prediction but converges to it with repetition.

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