Industrial life cycles and learning curves: Interaction of marketing and production

The price-oriented experience curve has been widely utilized as a model to design marketing strategies. Yet, it is cost over which many firms exercise the most control. This article explores the cost-oriented learning curve in conjunction with the product life cycle model as joint strategy constructs. Implications of variations in the learning curve parameters are examined.     

Optimizing the credit term decisions in supply chain finance

We study a credit term determination problem in the context of a supplier-buyer supply chain. The supplier's credit term decision is simultaneously made with its production and inventory decisions, and most importantly, it is impacted by the buyer's order quantity. We present a new game-theoretic framework to model this problem, which captures the interaction between the supplier's credit term decision and the buyer's order decision in a multi-period setting. An exact method based on nonlinear programming is implemented to obtain the optimal solutions. We apply our methodologies on a real world case. The computational results show that our approach significantly outperforms the heuristics with fixed credit terms, and either a short or a long credit term can be sub-optimal for the supplier in profitability. Our work offers the first data-driven model and solution approach that assists purchasing and supply managers to make optimal dynamic credit term decision in conjunction with production, ordering and inventory decisions in a game-theoretic setting.     

The monetary base or M1? results from a small macromodel

This article investigates the issue of whether M1 or the monetary base should be used as an intermediate target for monetary policy. Because the target variable should be reliably related to future economic activity, each aggregate is used in estimating a small macromodel which consists of a nominal GNP growth equation and an inflation specification. The empirical results indicate that M1 better explains GNP growth and inflation for the period 1960–1980. Forecast errors of GNP growth from 1970–1980 are reduced when M1 is used instead of the adjusted base, although there is little difference between inflation forecasts. Based on the evidence presented in this study, M1 is preferred as the intermediate target variable.     

Guidelines for Corporate Trademark Licensing

Licensing a trademark in many firms, if it occurs at all, is an incidental ad hoc arrangement. An unorganized approach can mean trouble. It can also mean the firm is losing an opportunity to exploit fully a valuable asset. Tom Meyer, Cathie Tinney, and Terry Tinney argue that trademark licensing is deserving of careful attention and planning.     

Small island urban tourism: a residents' perspective

The impacts of tourism have been given much consideration by scholars attempting to investigate the attitudes of the host population toward tourism. Such studies have been carried out in rural, coastal as well as in urban areas. However, most studies on urban tourism impacts have been conducted in the context of the developed world, whereas very little research has been carried out in the urban environment of Small Island Developing States. Using a sample size of 230 residents, this study contributes to the limited literature on urban tourism in islands by examining the residents' attitudes toward tourism in Port Louis, the capital city of the island of Mauritius. Findings suggest that while the positive impacts of tourism are well recognized by the residents, the latter are also concerned with some negative influence of tourism in Port Louis. Residents were found not to be homogeneous in their perceptions toward tourism. Employment in tourism was found to be an antecedent of attitudes. Gender and age were also found to be discriminators toward some tourism impact. Findings also revealed that residents were supportive of cultural tourism development. Implications for the management of the small island urban tourism are also discussed.     

M(Art)Worlds: Consumer Perceptions of How Luxury Brand Stores Become Art Institutions

Through an ethnographic study of how consumers perceive and experience Louis Vuitton flagship stores, we show that luxury stores are becoming hybrid institutions, embodying elements of both art galleries and museums, within a context of exclusivity emblematic of luxury. We create the term “M(Art)World” to capture the essence of this aesthetically oriented strategy. Participants take note of the company's sleekly elegant architecture, interior design, and adroit use of lighting that are modelled after those of museums housing world-class exhibits. The store's merchandize is artisanal, often produced in collaboration with artists. Objects for sale are displayed alongside actual art, rendering both products equivalent. Employees function as curators, offering guidance and knowledge, as well as goods for sale. We analyze how luxury consumers experience and evaluate the ways in which luxury stores operate as contemporary art institutions, and extrapolate those insights into managerial implications for other retail venues.     

The King’s currency: Gustav II Adolf and the copper standard (1619–1632)

King Gustav Adolf ruled Sweden from 1611, until his death on the battlefield in 1632. The king was at war in Russia, Poland, and Germany, throughout this period. Sweden was a poor and backward country; the crown struggled to pay and feed its armies. The Swedish crown did, however, operate the largest copper mine in Europe, and enjoyed a near monopoly on exports to the continent. In 1624 the crown began a bimetallic standard by minting copper coins alongside the existing silver standard. Eminent scholars from the last century, including Eli F. Heckscher, wrote that the crown’s intention was to manipulate the copper prices in Europe by restricting supply. The crown planned to consume substantial quantities of copper in the royal mints instead of exporting copper as ingot. I will seek to demonstrate that the king had another, parallel, purpose for establishing the copper standard. In addition to influencing the price of copper abroad, he also sought a rapid and simple means of turning copper into a fungible currency, which he could use to sustain his armies. Alongside manipulation, therefore, the king’s motive was to improve his liquidity and cash flow to fuel his military and political ambitions.     

Economics,Democracy, and the Distribution of Capital Ownership

This article holds that widespread, practical access to capital acquisition is essential for sustainable widespread economic prosperity and democracy. The founders of the U.S.A. agreed that sustainable democracy required widespread ownership of land to provide a viable earning capacity sufficient to support robust participation in democratic government. The importance of widespread land ownership to individual prosperity and sustainable democracy was supported not only by the prevailing philosophical views of property, it was also apparent to the common man and woman. Compared to Europe, America offered widespread access to land ownership, higher wages, better work conditions, cheaper staples and greater individual freedom, equal opportunity, prosperity, and political participation. This conviction that widespread access to ownership is a necessary condition for widespread prosperity and sustainable democracy continued throughout most of the nineteenth century, but today public discourse reveals virtually no trace of this once universally held opinion. This article suggests that the disappearance of this conviction can be traced to an erroneous view shaped by neoclassical economics and Keynesian economics. According to this view, (1) the disappearance of the American frontier and industrialization made the goal of widespread capital ownership either impractical or of little or no economic significance and (2) by way of technological advance, sufficient earning capacity and consumer demand to promote growth and sustain democracy can be achieved, without widespread ownership, primarily through jobs and welfare. Although differing in many respects, both mainstream schools, along with Adam Smith’s classical economics, share one common but unstated economic assumption: the broader distribution of capital acquisition (in itself) has no fundamental relationship to the fuller employment of people and capital, the broader distribution of greater individual earning capacity, and growth. Contemporary thinking, shaped by these economic schools, also tacitly assumes that widespread capital ownership is not essential for the sustainable individual earning capacity needed to support robust democracy. This erroneous “ownership-neutrality assumption” (1) contradicts both the views of America’s founders and the colonial experience, and (2) provides theoretical justification for structuring capital markets and capital acquisition transactions to unfairly and dysfunctionally favor existing owners at the expense of broader ownership distribution, more widely shared prosperity, greater efficiency, ecologically friendly growth, and a vital democracy. America’s conscientious founders would be shocked by the diminished importance of the distribution of ownership in the mainstream analysis of prices, efficiency, production, growth, and democracy. Rather than enhancing democracy, they would view the “ownership-neutrality assumption” of mainstream economics as contributing to its deterioration and corruption. They would openly search for economic analysis built on an alternate assumption more consistent with their understanding of the requisite conditions for sustainable democracy. This article advances an economic analysis that suspends the ownership-neutrality assumption, replaces it with a “broader-ownership-growth assumption,” and suggests a voluntary market strategy for substantially broadening capital ownership, enhancing individual earning capacity, and providing the widespread economic prosperity needed for robust democracy.