Being Good Parents or Being Good Citizens: Dilemmas and Contradictions of Urban Families in Middle‐Class Enclaves and Mixed Neighbourhoods in Germany

In recent years, cities have become ever more attractive to middle‐class families. On the one hand, middle‐class families tend to withdraw into (often newly built) socially homogeneous middle‐class neighbourhoods. On the other hand, they are also known to move into inner‐city and socially mixed areas, thus triggering processes of gentrification. Academic literature has often denounced these housing choices as being either ‘separatist’ or ‘revanchist’, more broadly categorized as strategies of ‘middle‐class disaffiliation’. Although there is a grain of truth in these interpretations, the reality is certainly more complicated. In our research on middle‐class parents’ housing and neighbourhood choices as well as their patterns of neighbourhood use, carried out in each of the two types of residential area mentioned above, we have only very rarely found an explicit desire to draw boundaries that exclude those ‘beneath’ them. We rather argue that the housing choices and neighbourhood‐related activities of middle‐class family households are heavily influenced by the specific dilemmas the interviewees face as (working) urban parents. While a significant number of respondents worry about the social sustainability, justice and cohesion of urban society, they are also concerned about the future prospects of their children. Many find it difficult to reconcile these conflicting normative demands under the prevailing circumstances.     

Domestic political connections and international expansion: It's not only ‘who you know’ that matters

Former politicians on the board of directors bring to the firm domestic political connections and political knowledge. Previous research has mainly highlighted the role of contacts, without fully recognizing the role of political knowledge accumulated at home. By focusing on the effect of domestic political connections on foreign direct investment, we show that domestic political knowledge also shapes foreign expansion. We argue that contacts provided by former politicians may not be useful for foreign expansion whilst their political knowledge can be of help in countries with discretionary governments and with similar institutional environments to the one of the home country.     

资本外逃的经济效应与应对政策选择研究

资本外逃是一个复杂的经济问题,是由多种原因造成的,并会给一国经济发展带来不可估量的风险和损失。基于此,论文梳理了资本外逃的研究现状,提出了资本外逃所产生的经济效应,在此基础上,提出了资本外逃的政策选择,为一国在治理资本外逃时提供了政策选择和借鉴。     

A destination imagery processing model: Structural differences between dream and favourite destinations

The present paper aims at understanding how destination imagery is processed in tourists’ working memory. The research focuses on two highly desirable, but contrasting, destination brand categories: Favourite Destination, which involves retrospective memory of positive experiences in situ; and Dream Destination, based on tourists’ prospective memory. Through an online multilingual survey, 23,446 responses consisting of perceptions, evoked by way of free-recall, associated to Dream and Favourite Destinations, were collected. Findings point to clear structural differences between the imagery of Dream and Favourite Destinations. Additionally, a theoretical destination imagery model that offers a basis for future studies is proposed, and some managerial implications of significant relevance to destination marketing are discussed.     

Predicting the equity market with option-implied variables

We comprehensively analyze the predictive power of several option-implied variables for monthly S&P 500 excess returns and realized variance. The correlation risk premium (CRP) and the variance risk premium (VRP) emerge as strong predictors of both excess returns and realized variance. This is true both in- and out-of-sample. Our results also reveal that statistical evidence of predictability does not necessarily lead to economic gains. However, a timing strategy based on the CRP leads to utility gains of more than 5.03% per annum. Forecast combinations provide stable forecasts for both excess returns and realized variance, and add economic value.     

The Impact of Sustainability Aspects in the Meat Sector: A Cluster Analysis Based on Consumer Attitudes and Store Format Choice

Several consumer studies have shown considerable market potential for sustainable meat products, however, their markets shares are still marginal. In Germany, the sustainable aspects “organic,” “local origin,” and “animal welfare” are of special interest. To obtain a precise overview of potential target groups for these meat categories and their choice of store format, 620 German consumers were surveyed on their attitudes toward sustainable meat production and their shopping behavior. First, target groups based on consumers’ attitudes were identified by cluster analysis, taking into account possible overlaps. Consumers were also clustered by their store format choice and their preferred type of meat packaging. A cross tabulation of the results then provided insights into which store format and type of meat packaging is preferred by the target groups for sustainable meat products. Due to overlaps found in the target groups, the existence of important subgroups was shown. Amongst the target groups, only a slight preference for unpackaged meat products was found. Basically, the offer of sustainable meat products appears of interest for all store formats, with particular emphasis on supermarkets. The results of this study can support producers and retailers developing new and tailored marketing strategies for sustainable meat products.     

Business groups,the financial market and modernization*

Business groups are an important aspect of the industrial organization of many developing countries. This paper develops a theory suggesting that they may be organizations that facilitate modernization in the presence of financial market constraints. An important function of the stockmarket is the diversification of risk that comes with specialized, productive technology. But in the face of serious information problems a well functioning stockmarket may fail to emerge, relegating the economy to a low productivity‐poverty trap. Bilateral links between a firm and a group of others may be a more cost effective way to achieve risk‐sharing. Such business groups may be feasible when a full‐fledged stockmarket is not. As modernization takes place, either because information problems become less severe or more firms enter the economy, business groups actually expand in size before being abruptly rendered obsolete by the stockmarket. This is consistent with empirical results from a number of emerging economies.     

Neutrality in arrow and other impossibility theorems

Summary. Although not assumed explicitly, we show that neutrality plays an important role in Arrow and other impossibility theorems. Applying it to pivotal voters we produce direct proofs of classical impossibility theorems, including Arrow's, as well as extend some of these theorems. We further explore the role of neutrality showing that it is equivalent to Pareto or reverse Pareto, and to effective dictatorship for non-null social welfare functions satisfying the principle of independence of irrelevant alternatives. It is also equivalent to Wilson's Citizens' Sovereignty--which is related to the intuition that symmetry over alternatives makes social preference depend only on citizens' preferences. We show that some of these results are more fundamental than others in that they extend both to infinite societies and to considerably smaller domains of preferences. Finally, as an application of Arrow's theorem, we provide a simple proof of the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem.Received: 13 April 2000, Revised: 6 December 2002, JEL Classification Numbers: D71, C70.I thank Salvador Barberá, Luis Corchón, Cesar Martinelli, Eric Maskin, Tomas Sjöström, Ricard Torres, José Pedro Ubeda, and an anonymous referee for feedback. The proofs of Arrow's theorem and two Wilson's theorems come from a note I wrote in 1987 at Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona (Ubeda [16]). In 1996 Geanakoplos [7] wrote a proof of Arrow's theorem similar but not identical to mine. All work in this paper is independent of his.     

Issues in the estimation and application of latent structure models of choice

Our paper provides a brief review and summary of issues and advances in the use of latent structure and other finite mixture models in the analysis of choice data. Focus is directed to three primary areas: (1) estimation and computational issues, (2) specification and interpretation issues, and (3) future research issues. We comment on what latent structure models have promised, what has been, to date, delivered, and what we should look forward to in the future.     

Factors affecting households’ seafood purchasing decisions in Auckland,New Zealand: an empirical analysis

This paper uses the binary choice model to identify the factors that are significantly influencing the household purchase decisions of seafood products for home consumption in Auckland, New Zealand. It is found that ‘quality’ and ‘cooking easiness’ are the main product attributes that significantly influence households’ choices of seafood in Auckland. Also, the representative household has shown a strong preference for fresh and other alternative seafood products, including processed, smoked and canned, over frozen products. Retail outlets are found to be more attractive to the household purchasing seafood for home consumption. The New Zealand seafood industry may find this baseline study useful as a guide to developing future research structure on the domestic market.