Conflicting Views on Fiat Currency: Britain and its North American Colonies in the Eighteenth Century

Great Britain and its North American colonies possessed radically different monetary systems in the eighteenth century, particularly in regard to the role of government fiat paper. Parliament issued on fiat monies because of the fear of irreversible depreciation. In contrast, colonial legislatures started issuing various forms of paper monies in the 1690s and some persisted through the 1770s. Every colony issued tax anticipation bills. Most colonies also created public loan offices – called land banks by contemporaries – which loaned currency to private individuals, and the interest revenues made substantial contributions to several provincial budgets. Ironically, after the War for Independence, the new US Constitution prohibited fiat issues by the state legislatures, and the nation shifted to a system of chartered institutions issuing banknotes convertible into specie very similar to the system prevailing in Britain.     

Colston E. Warne Lecture: Consumer Protection 2.0—Protecting Consumers in the 21st Century

The consumer advocacy movement has achieved many successes in the past one hundred years or more but still faces pushback from powerful special interests, including preemption of state authority, and contractual limits, such as arbitration, restricting private enforcement. Further, since laws have not kept up with changes in the financial marketplace, new financial transaction protections are needed. This commentary proposes new approaches for improving consumer protection and giving new tools to consumer advocates, both on and off the Internet, and examines the battle to enact a Consumer Financial Protection Agency.     

Changes in Provincial Retail Practice during the Eighteenth Century,with Particular Reference to Central-Southern England

This essay examines the development of the retail sector in eighteenth-century provincial England, with particular reference to Hamsphire. The move to fixed place retailing is set against a background of changing wholesale and domestic distribution techniques and the significant demographic shifts experienced at the time. The role of the market, fair, and itinerant trader are considered against the rise of the increasingly specialist resident retailer. Innovations in retail practice (fixed pricing, advertising, loss leaders, the promotion of cash, the tightening of credit and the introduction of branded goods) are examined, collectively indicating that retail distribution underwent a significant transformation in the late eighteenth century.     

略论百年营销思想的演进与创新

自市场营销理论于20世纪初期在美国诞生,至今已有百余年发展历史。在营销理论诞生百年之际,有必要对营销思想的发展历程进行大致的阐述和梳理。所以要从营销受众范围、管理哲学、绩效指标、研究范式、组合要素、研究对象、地理界限、实施主体、战略目标、体系框架等十个方面进行总结分析,方能揭示出营销思想的演进脉络和创新轨迹。     

Knorringar,Peter. Economics of Collaboration in Producer-Trader Relations: Transaction Regimes Between Market and Hierarchy in the Agra Footwear Cluster,India.

Small Business Economics -     

Consumers,cars and communities: the challenge of sustainability

The huge subsidization of sprawling development and the unbridled use of the private automobile needs to be brought to the forefront of public policy debate, not left to the excesses of the market‐place. To do this we need citizens‐in‐the‐community, not consumers‐in‐the‐market. The present costly and unsustainable situation of our human settlements is a result of a profound failure in public policy; a failure that resulted when we left the fate of our human settlements to the vagaries of the market‐place. We can no longer rely on the present subsidized, distorted, market‐place system approach to designing, building and operating our human settlements. The consequences have been disastrous for human welfare, health and safety, and the natural environment upon which all life depends.     

Business,Consumers and Sustainable Living in an Interconnected World: A Multilateral Ecocentric Approach

Current conceptualizations of environmental responsibility follow a human-centered approach wherein the natural environment is seen as instrumental to human ends. Environmental responsibility, in this context, emerges primarily as the preservation and sustenance of nature in a manner that would limit waste, enhance the aesthetic and spiritual value of nature, and confer psychological and economic rewards upon individuals and businesses that follow a sustainable course of interaction with nature. In contrast, this paper advances an ecocentric approach to sustainable living that ensures the dialectic between human systems and natural and technical systems by explicitly recognizing nature as central to survival and progress. Environmental responsibility within this approach is viewed to be multilateral and institutional rather than merely as moral responsibility of business or of governments.     

A Comparison of Consumers and Dieticians: Nutrition Focus,Food Choice,and Mental Accounting

Nutrition labels on processed foods are becoming more common throughout the world. How do experts and consumers compare at using this information? This study compares three different conceptualizations of expertise—a body of knowledge, better processing skills, and a greater facility for mental accounting. A survey was used to compare 237 consumers over age 40 with 131 dieticians. We examined the focuses, choices, and mental accounting of food selections. The results demonstrate similar focuses, food choices, predictability, and mental accounting by both groups on all three conceptualizations of expertise. This suggests that nutrition labels benefit both consumers and experts.     

The Affordable Care Act,the Medicaid Coverage Gap,and Hispanic Consumers: A Phenomenology of Obamacare

The historic health care reform of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as Obamacare, enabled more than 20 million Americans to gain health insurance and access to health care. However, the original mandate requiring states to expand Medicaid was ruled as optional in 2012 by the Supreme Court. Focusing on Hispanic consumers residing in a state that opted out of the Medicaid expansion, this study reports on the consumer experience of Obamacare. Findings show that study participants are in an unfavorable situational context, better understood when the cultural context is considered, and cultural resistance recognized. The findings also show that participants are confused, discouraged, and fearful of the continued unaffordability of health insurance and the lawful need to enroll or be penalized. For these participants, affordable health insurance has not been realized and this research gives an insight on those individuals falling through the cracks.     

Sally H. Clarke. Trust and Power: Consumers, the Modern Corporation, and the Making of the United States Automobile Market

Buying a car, the old adage tells us, is "the most importantpurchase you will ever make, after your home." Sally Clarkehas written an extremely important and insightful book thatexplores the never-ending tug-of-war between companies, consumers,and the state to define the parameters of America's most importantmarket. At the core of this broad, longitudinal study, is thesimple yet elegant notion that the marketplace, and the relationshipbetween consumers and firms, shapes not only the organization     

TRADE ADJUSTMENT ASSISTANCE AND IMPORT COMPETITION: Experience in the U.S. Footwear Industry: 1980-1997

This article analyzes the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program within NAFTA, the U.S.-Israel Free Trade Agreement (FTA), U.S.-Canada-FTA, and the Orderly Market Agreement (OMA) for the footwear industry. It evaluates costs and benefits as well as factors affecting TAA's certification and denial processes following trade liberalization. A three-stage least-squares (3TLS) model correlates the a priori specifications we developed from the literature and evaluates TAA's enhancement of net consumer surplus. The benefits have significant, independent effects on four census regions of the United States engaged in footwear production. A simulation of the results indicates some robustness in the estimates and supports the Department of Labor (DOL) rule-of-thumb statements of job gains due to trade liberalization. The results are supportive of the bipartisan NAFTA agreement. Due to TAA's benefits to displaced workers, positive net benefits have been substantial from the inception of NAFTA, in 1994, to 1997.     

Religiosity, Attitude Toward Business, and Ethical Beliefs: Hispanic Consumers in the United States

Growth of the Hispanic consumer population in America is changing the marketplace landscape. Due to their considerable buying power, a better understanding of Hispanic consumer behavior has become a necessity. The marketing literature has examined issues regarding religiosity and attitude toward business in regards to consumer ethical beliefs as well as research differentiating consumers on the basis of ethnicity due to their inherently different religious principles. Therefore, the present study contributes to the existing consumer ethics literature by examining the roles of religiosity and attitude toward business in determining consumer ethical beliefs. Furthermore, this study compares the relationships among religiosity, attitude toward business, and ethical beliefs at the sub-cultural level (i.e., between Hispanic and Anglo-American consumers). Survey data compare a sample of 187 predominately Catholic Hispanic consumers with a sample of 127 predominately protestant Anglo consumers. Results suggest a positive relationship between intrinsic religiousness and beliefs that questionable consumer activities are unethical. However, extrinsic religiousness does not impact consumer views as to the ethicality of consumer practices. Hispanics exhibit higher levels of extrinsic religiousness than Anglos, but no difference in terms of their intrinsic religiousness. Results also suggest that Hispanics have a more negative attitude toward business than Anglos do. Implications of these results are discussed.     

Lisa Jacobson. Raising Consumers: Children and the American Mass Market in the Early Twentieth Century. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. xvi + 299 pp. ISBN 0-231-11388-9, $35.00 (cloth).

Ever since the publication of Thorstein Veblen’s Theoryof the Leisure Class (1899), economists and other social scientistshave studied the importance of consumption to the economy ofthe United States. There are numerous studies of patterns ofconsumption, but, Jacobson argues, the role of children hasbeen seriously neglected. The children Jacobson studies werenot just miniature shoppers; they were "cultural icons" whohelped to establish the legitimacy of consumption in Americansociety (p. 2). Early in the twentieth century     

A Foot in the Door: Relationship Marketing Efforts Towards Transaction-Oriented Customers

Despite the growing awareness and use of relationship marketing principles, there are still limitations to the range of exchange situations to which relationship marketing is applicable. Customers may resist suppliers' attempts to become intimate. This contribution deals with how suppliers seek to overcome customer unwillingness, through an investigative case study. Seven propositions are developed on the marketing relationship policies followed by suppliers seeking to initiate, maintain and terminate relations with transaction-oriented customers.     

The Ethiopian Immigrant Business Enclave in the United States: Perceptions of Residents,Consumers, and Entrepreneurs

This study investigates the Ethiopian immigrant urban business enclave and its infrastructure, aesthetics, and quality of life. These immigrants are revitalizing urban areas, and examining the perceptual differences among stakeholders in these neighborhoods is salient. Economic development literature suggests that stakeholders share a common vision in order for revitalization efforts to be successful. Surveys were administered in an urban area to statistically test hypotheses that stakeholder groups have different perceptions. The analysis of variance technique (ANOVA) was used to analyze the data. Results indicate that stakeholders differ in their perceptions of the business climate and quality of life.     

Information Search,Alternatives Evaluation,and Coping Mechanisms of Functionally Illiterate Consumers in Retail Settings: A Developing Economy Context

Little research has been carried out with regard to marketing to functionally illiterate consumers, despite the size and purchasing power of this market segment. This qualitative study examined the decision-making processes and coping mechanisms of functionally illiterate consumers in the South African grocery shopping environment. The findings provide insights that have important theoretical and practical implications for marketers, retailers, and policy makers. For functionally illiterate consumers, the information-search stage of the consumer decision-making process is either nonexistent or limited to a few trusted sources, such as friends and family, which often occurs only after a purchase has been made. Furthermore, these consumers face difficulties in a grocery store environment but have developed several coping mechanisms to compensate for their limited literacy skills.