Aggregation (in-)variance of shared responsibility: A case study of Australia

This article deals with shared producer and consumer responsibility, a concept aimed at overcoming the non-additivity, or double-counting problem in corporate and national sustainability reporting. It reports on the potentially distorting effects that varying sector and business classifications could have on the apportioning of emissions (or other sustainability measures) amongst producers and consumers in an economy. A quantitative (in-)variance analysis is provided which shows that shared-responsibility formulations are remarkably stable under extreme aggregation of the underlying input-output data. Value-added pegging of the sharing parameters generally reduces variance in comparison to constant sharing parameters. These results help in substantiating the robustness of the shared-responsibility concept, a feature which is critically important if shared responsibility were to become corporate and national reporting practice.     

Whose property is it anyway? The social nature of economic actors and egalitarian remuneration ∗

This article formulates an egalitarian theory of property based on an ethic of remuneration for economic contributions. The principle of egalitarian remuneration is developed by revising basic notions of economic contributions. Economic contributions are found to be those activities that contribute to the value of commodities not just those that produce a product. Consumers, and not only producers, contribute to the creation of value, and these economic contributions make consumers eligible for remuneration. However, the concept of consumer contributions needs to be recast, for consumer contributions do not consist of neoclassical, individualistic actors maximizing subjective preferences. Rather, consumers economic contributions flow from their socially self-determined attributes as formed through relation to the system of economic actors. Indirect social contributions spread responsibility throughout the members of the system, affecting calculations of dueness. Other members indirect contributions are relatively equal in degree of responsibility for the social formation of the consumer's economic contributions. The dispersion and equalization of responsibility for the creation of economic contributions entails a correlative equalization of claims to remuneration, on a principle of dueness for economic contributions. This implies a property right to egalitarian remuneration.     

全流程披露视角下的跨国企业供应链社会责任机制研究

不同国家的制度差异使跨国企业供应链所涉及的不同节点企业的社会责任程度产生差异，抑制了跨国企业在地区间的价值溢出功效。通过建立经济学模型，基于跨国企业供应链的东道国供应商社会责任对品牌价值的溢出与消费者的反馈，分析跨国企业社会责任在全流程披露机制的动机和实践路径。研究结果表明，消费者对品牌社会责任的感知使跨国企业产生了通过社会责任强化相对竞争力的直接动机，供应链社会责任全流程披露机制刺破了“品牌面纱”，打通消费者对品牌产品的供应链社会责任信息通道，形成跨国企业在供应链内部的社会责任激励机制。基于理论结果，提出了促进企业社会责任信息披露由主体披露向流程披露转变、引导跨国企业在供应商合同中植入社会责任条款、培育和强化消费者社会责任意识等具体建议。     

消费者的企业社会责任认知研究

本文在对企业社会责任(CSR)相关文献分析、研究的基础上,从消费者的视角出发构建企业社会责任构成模型,研究消费者认知CSR的维度。通过对问卷数据的分析,发现产品自身质量、售后服务、商业道德、危机事件的处理、公益行为及管理层社会形象这6个方面构成了消费者对企业社会责任的认知,这对企业树立良好的社会形象、增加企业的知名度与美誉度具有重要的指导意义。     

Quality upgrading in Ethiopian dairy value chains: dovetailing upstream and downstream perspectives

Abstract

In this article, we analyze opportunities and constraints for upgrading product quality in the dairy value chain in Ethiopia. Our analysis is based on an integrated understanding of supply chain performance both from producer and from consumer perspectives. We outline as main drivers for quality upgrading: (a) factors that influence producers’ willingness to invest toward intensification by smallholder dairy farmers and cooperatives and (b) factors that induce consumer’s willingness to pay for healthy and nutritious dairy products delivered at specific retail outlets. Since there are large gaps between upstream producers incentives and downstream consumers motives, possibilities for dairy quality upgrading remain fairly limited. Given this market structure, decisive policy support is required for better tailoring producer’s investments with consumer preferences.     

Producer and Consumer Interests, the State-Owned Pipeline, and Public Authority Pricing of Natural Gas*

This paper considers producer and consumer interests when state ownership of a pipeline provides a public authority with monopoly and monopsony power. In contrast with the producer/consumer conflict in the regulatory setting where self-interested authorities choose the price at which producers and consumers directly transact with one another, in the pipeline case producers and consumers have a commonality of interest which is sustained even if the authorities take the view that it is politically inexpedient to take advantage of monopoly power with respect to consumers.     

Responses of Economic Activity to Global Oil Market Shocks: A Comparative Analysis of Major Net Oil‐Producing and ‐Consuming Countries

We argue that four channels drive oil price shocks during 1986M5–2013M1, namely the oil supply, aggregate demand, oil‐specific demand and real exchange rates. Our findings are that oil price shocks driven by oil supply positively affect net oil‐consumer countries faster than net oil‐producer countries. Oil price shocks driven by aggregate demand are largely country‐specific. Oil shocks driven by other demands influence net oil‐producers faster than net oil‐consumers negatively, and persistently mostly among net oil‐producers. Other shocks have large negative effects on the industrial production of all countries, with responses appearing very quickly and persisting for at least a year.     

我国玉米产业技术进步的福利效应分析

在分别构建供给和需求模型对我国玉米生产消费状况进行分析的前提下,运用福利效应模型测算了技术进步对玉米生产者和消费者的福利效应,基本结论为:玉米具有较低的供给弹性和需求弹性,玉米技术进步的福利效应表现为消费者福利增加和生产者福利减少,但消费者福利的增加值大于生产者福利的减少值,使得整个社会的经济福利处于上升趋势。     

食品安全治理中的相关者责任:政府、企业和消费者维度的分析

在食品安全治理进程中,政府监管固然重要,但是,企业的自律以及民众对食品安全的正确认知也不可或缺,因此,构建政府、企业和消费者共同参与的相关者责任体系是保障食品安全的有效途径。该体系中,政府的责任主要是通过建立规制、提供信息为相关者提供对食品安全的信任,企业的责任主要是建立有助于实现自律并提高社会信任度的保障体系,消费者的责任主要是正确认知并理性表达对安全食品的需求意愿。     

Consumer demand for local honey

How to best target and attract niche market consumers is an important marketing problem for producers of specialty agricultural products. It is particularly an issue in the honey market where consumers increasingly face media messages regarding threats to honey bee health, honey adulteration and health benefits of locally produced honey. Using auction experiments, this research evaluates consumer behaviour related to informational messages about honey that is produced locally, domestically and internationally. Results from 115 adult consumers show that consumers’ demand for honey varies significantly based on the geographic location of the honey’s production, product packaging and the information they have about the product. Consumers demonstrate greater demand for locally produced honey, especially when provided information about negative aspects of internationally produced honey that include adulteration. This shows that such negative media attention on specialty products offers small producers an opportunity to increase profitability by marketing themselves as a specialized niche alternative.     

武汉城市圈生态足迹分析

根据武汉城市圈各城市1999—2008年统计年鉴的数据,运用生态足迹模型对武汉城市圈各城市2008年的生态足迹进行实证分析后显示：2008年武汉城市圈各城市生态足迹差异较大,生态足迹供需结构存在明显的不对称,虽然1999—2008年各城市资源利用效率有所提高,但仍然处于不可持续发展状态。     

Neoliberalising Feminism

There recently has been an avalanche of critiques of the way in which feminism has gone to bed with neoliberal capitalism and become an instrument of governmentality. In this paper, I look at these phenomena as processes of a ‘neoliberalisation of feminism'. I illustrate such neoliberalisation by introducing women's empowerment projects run by transnational consumer products companies, typically in partnership with public development actors. Under the label of ‘corporate social responsibility', these companies invest in women in their supply and marketing chains, seeking to empower them within a neoliberal rationality of government. The paper is an effort to go beyond the critiques of feminism as co-opted. Rather than inventing new feminisms or taking a break from feminism – as some have suggested, I propose that it is more fruitful and necessary to examine, in concrete contexts, the way in which select feminist movement ideas are being integrated into neoliberal rationales and logics, what is lost in the process and what is perhaps gained.     

A comparative study of hype cycles among actors within the socio-technical system: With a focus on the case study of hybrid cars

Many forms of technology cycle models have been developed and utilized to identify emergent technologies and forecast social changes, and among these, the technology hype cycle introduced by Gartner has become established as an effective method widely utilized in the field. However, if the hype cycle indeed exists in the various dimensions that constitute the socio-technical system, those who seek to analyze innovative activities using bibliometrics will be confronted with the new problem of actors' choices and the need to analyze their hype cycles. In seeking to overcome such limitations of conventional studies, this paper analyzes the hype cycles of three actors that constitute the core of the socio-technical system through the case study of the successful market entry of hybrid cars. The hype cycle of the user, the first actor, is analyzed based on the search traffic generated by their web searches, and the hype cycle of the producer or researcher, the second actor, is measured based on the data regarding patent applications. Lastly, the hype cycle of the information distributor, namely individuals constituting the market network, is analyzed by examining the exposure in news reports. The outcomes of this research showed that among the three actors, the consumers and the information distributors exhibited hype cycle patterns (bell curves) that were distinct from the market trend, and that there was a difference in time interval of around five quarters. By contrast, it was found that the hype cycle of the producers reflected a logical response, exhibiting a pattern similar to the S-curve during the market's growth period unlike the pattern found in other actors. In conclusion, this study of the particular case of hybrid cars confirmed that the two components of the hype cycle can be respectively verified using consumer search traffic and the patent applications made by the producers. If in the future, such analyses of the hype cycles of producers and consumers are expanded in application to various other industries, it will be possible to obtain more generalizable research outcomes. This is expected to contribute to determining technological life cycles or hype cycles with greater objectivity and efficacy, and furthermore to facilitate the systematic identification of promising technologies.     

PRODUCTS LIABILITY WHEN CONSUMERS VARY IN THEIR SUSCEPTIBILITY TO HARM AND MAY MISPERCEIVE RISK

This article examines products liability when consumers have private information about their susceptibilities to product‐related harm. In this case, it is efficient for consumers to self‐select their purchases, with those especially prone to harm refraining from purchase. Achieving this outcome requires consumers to bear their own harm, given that producers cannot observe consumer types. When consumers also misperceive risk, the problem becomes more complicated because accurate signaling of risk requires that firms bear liability. A trade‐off therefore emerges between imposing liability on firms versus consumers. This article characterizes the choice among liability rules in the presence of this trade‐off. (JEL K13, L15)     

Distribution of responsibility in socio-technical networks: the Promest case

The aim of the present paper is to show how (informal) responsibility issues within the context of a network are essentially related with the way networks are organised in order to pursue their objectives. We conceive of organisations as having at least three relevant dimensions: power, coordination and control. The case of the Dutch manure processing factory Promest is analysed in terms of these three dimensions. The analysis provides an illustration of how the dimensions enable actors to discharge their responsibilities, thereby offering insight in responsibility issues within a group of actors and contributing to the prevention of the problem of many hands.     

Private copying,reproduction costs,and the supply of intellectual property

Recent technological advances that have substantially reduced the cost of private copying of intellectual property, and led to widespread copying, have produced claims of severe harm to producers. This paper develops a model to analyze the effect of private copying on the profits of producers and the welfare of consumers. When originals and copies are perfect substitutes and all originals are copied the same number of times, a necessary and sufficient condition for both profits and consumer welfare to decrease is that copying is less efficient than producing originals. However, when some originals are copied and others are not, producer profits may decline even when copying is efficient, and some consumers may benefit from inefficient copying. The analysis suggests that published estimates of the harm to producers resulting from private copying may be seriously in error.     

Efficient Sorting in a Dynamic Adverse-Selection Model

We discuss a class of markets for durable goods where efficiency (or approximate efficiency) is obtained despite the presence of information asymmetries. In the model, the number of times a good has changed hands (the vintage of the good) is an accurate signal of its quality, each consumer self-selects into obtaining the vintage that the social planner would have assigned to her, and consumers' equilibrium trading behaviour in secondary markets is not subject to adverse selection. We show that producers have the incentive to choose contracts that lead to the efficient allocation, and to supply the efficient output. We also provide a contrast between leasing contracts, resale contracts, and different kinds of rental contracts. Resale contracts do not lead to the efficient allocation. A specific kind of rental contract provides the appropriate incentives to consumers.     

和谐营销中的社会责任观念

社会责任对于和谐营销的意义在于：赢得消费者的支持和尊敬,提升企业和谐营销效益;提高企业的凝聚力,促进和谐营销团队建设;实现企业、消费者、社会共赢,企业长久发展。在和谐营销中实施社会责任从根本上讲,是构建企业以社会责任观念为核心的企业价值观和企业文化,营造社会责任氛围,开发社会责任产品,把承担社会责任作为企业战略实现和谐营销与社会责任的统一,使消费者利益、企业利益、社会利益在更高的层次上达到和谐统一,进一步降低消费者、企业、社会的发展成本,是建设和谐社会中发挥企业责任和作用的最佳途径。     

Money: Capital Good,Consumers’ Good,or (Media of) Exchange Good?

Is money a producers’ good or a capital good, or is it sui generus, as Mises, Rothbard, and other Austrians have maintained? We argue that all action is either consumption or production, and that exchange is but a form of production. Consequently, all goods are either consumers’ goods or producers’ goods; there is no third possibility. And that among these two money is a producers’ good, not a consumer good.     

Web2.0环境下网络效应对价值共创的影响机理研究

Web2.0环境下,众多网络平台注重用户参与、交流互动与开放共享,为生产者、消费者等多主体协同参与价值共创提供了条件。为了深入探究网络外部性效应对Web 2.0价值共创模式的影响,研究构建了考虑网络效应的网络平台双边用户参与价值共创的理论模型,模型均衡解表明,消费者参与Web2.0网络平台进行价值共创会增加产品或服务的附加价值,提升消费者满意度,提高消费者对产品或服务的认知价值,进而吸引更多消费者参与价值共创,而消费者数量的增加会进一步提高该服务的价值,并吸引更多商户参与,由此产生正向网络外部性效应。建立了分析消费者剩余的经济模型,剖析了Web2.0环境下消费者无法参与价值分配却仍愿意参与价值共创的内在驱动因素。