Consumer bankruptcy in Utah (USA): who files and why?

This study examined consumer debtors who filed for bankruptcy and their reasons for filing in Utah, the U.S. state that ranked first in household filing rate in 2002–2004 and consistently ranks in the top ten of the 50 states. The purpose of the study was to determine the demographic characteristics of debtors and reasons for filing. Data were collected during 2004–2005 via survey from 508 debtors. The debtors reported employment problems, medical expenses, divorce or other family problems, as well as trouble managing their finances and overuse of credit cards. More than half of the debtors owed medical providers. Debtors were more likely to report a reduction in income than job loss. Self‐employed persons were over represented. Respondent debtors are less educated, less likely to be married and less likely to own a home compared with Utahns and other Americans. Contrary to expectations, debtor households were smaller than the state average, which may be due to the young age of debtors. Results suggest that in order to reduce the bankruptcy rate in Utah, consumer educators should target renters, adults with less than a college education, divorcing persons and small business owners. Utah's mandate for a personal finance graduation requirement should be implemented early in the secondary school curriculum.     

Profiling the modern white-collar criminal: An overview of Utah’s white-collar crime registry

White-collar crime continues to be a central challenge for individuals, organizations, and consumers. Due to the substantial social harm caused by white-collar crime, there has been a focus on prevention and detection strategies, including profiling offenders in an effort to understand their motives, targets, and modus operandi. Despite advances in profiling white-collar offenders, these profiles have relied heavily on the same thirty-year-old, federal-level database limited to major urban areas, which may obscure changes in the sociodemographics of white-collar offenders. Based on Utah’s more recent White-Collar Crime Registry, this article seeks to better identify the profiles of modern white-collar offenders. Our findings uncovered three distinct types of white-collar criminals: The Tech Scammer, the Ponzi Schemer, and the Insurance Fraudster. Despite the registry’s limitations as a database, we offer recommendations regarding the prevention and detection of such offenders. With a more in-depth understanding of the modern white-collar criminal, managers will be better positioned to manage white-collar crime in the workplace.     

加拿大天宇网络公司就合资企业被迫解散在美国法院告四川省政府案评析

加拿大天宇公司因设在中国的合资企业被迫解散,在美国法院告中国相关的地方政府。中国地方政府先要求将该案从美国州法院移转到联邦地区法院。原告就超过时限为由提出上诉。美国上诉法院支持了美国联邦地区法院基于对《外国主权豁免法》的解释以及适用,维持了联邦地区法院的判决。本文在介绍该案的基本案情基础上,归纳了巡回上诉法院判决的理由,并对中国地方政府如何应对类似情况的法律问题进行了评析。     

A Third Eye On Two Sessions

China announced March 11 that it would reorganize the central government by creating five so-called superministries,including one responsible for improving environmental protection. But the plan stopped short of creating a single agency to oversee the contentious issue of energy oolicy.     

Two Sessions: Hopes Fill into Trades

March in Beijing doesn't only embrace the warm spring's coming, also the two parliamentary sessions of China, the national conference in the highest level of China's parliament and top political advisory body. This year's two sessions, namely, the 2nd Session of the 11th Na-tional People's Congress (NPC) and the 2nd Session of the 11th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) lasted from March 5 to 18, and March 3 to 14, respectively. It was the first NPC & CPPCC held since international financial crisis China strongly felt last September.     

Comparison of Political System and Motions between China and US

March is what we called ＂Political Month＂, since ＂Two Sessions＂ will open as scheduled. On March 5, the western presses give great concern to its opening as usual, and even world stock markets rise amid China stimulus hopes.     

Julie Hessler. A Social History of Soviet Trade: Trade Policy, Retail Practices, and Consumption, 1917-1953. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004. xvi + 366 pp. ISBN 0-691-11492-7, $39.50.

Julie Hessler’s work is the first comprehensive historyof the first thirty-five years of Soviet trade written afterthe opening of the Soviet Union’s archives following thatnation’s collapse. It will, without doubt, become a standardwork of reference. Hessler gives due credit to the Soviet historianG. A. Dikhtiar’s three-volume work on Russian and Soviettrade published in the 1960s (in Russian). Despite the book’sobvious ideological overtones, it deserves to be read alongsideHessler’s work. Hessler’s     

The Consumer Costs of Food Certification: A Pilot Study and Research Opportunities

Certification labels have become a ubiquitous feature on food products across grocery store shelves. Although it is widely acknowledged that certified products often garner higher prices than their noncertified competition, less is known regarding what those price differences are based on, and what the personal, political, or ethical implications are for consumers. This research note argues for greater attention to the implications of certified food prices—which we conceptualize as the “consumer costs” of food certification. The paper discusses the theoretical linkages between food certifications and prices, and outlines the resulting consumer costs of which we are concerned. Through a pilot study in Salt Lake City, Utah, we investigate prices found on certified grocery store rice, and consider the causes and implications of the consumer costs of food certification.     

Walter A. Friedman. Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004. 356 pp. ISBN 0-674-01298-4, $27.95.

Given the centrality of selling to the emergence of the modernbusiness corporation, it is surprising that there has been nofull-length study of the subject before. Walter A. Friedman’spathbreaking Birth of a Salesman is a truly welcome attemptto fill this void. While he begins with earlier developmentsin selling techniques, Friedman’s real focus is on theemergence of "modern" selling, when the selling process becamesystematically organized and managed. Friedman maintains thatthis came about in the United States, not in Europe,     

Christopher A. Reed. Gutenberg in Shanghai: Chinese Print Capitalism, 1876-1937. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2004. xvii + 391 pp. ISBN 0-7748-1040-8, $85.00.

In this pioneering study Christopher A. Reed addresses majorissues concerning the modernization of Chinese printing andpublishing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.The book’s most significant contribution is its focuson technology and business organizations. While the historyof print and publishing in China has drawn enthusiastic attentionfrom scholars over the last decade, Reed’s work breaksnew ground by studying the cultural hardware behind the writtenword—printing machines and publishing businesses. Previoushistorical and literary approaches preoccupied with     

Zero Stamp Tax？

In March of 2008 the＂Two Sessions＂proved to be very vital for the Chinese people;many proposals were discussed,including several hot issues that have received concern from citizens across the country.Certainly the first proposal would attract a lot of attention.At the annual session of the Chinese People＇s Political Consultative Conference（CPPCC）,     

Todd A. Knoop. Recessions and Depressions: Understanding Business Cycles. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2004. xv + 289 pp. ISBN 0-275-98162-2, $49.95.

This book covers "the empirics, the theory, and internationalcase studies of recessions and depressions" as a "contributionto the ongoing debate over the nature and causes of recessionsand depressions" (p. xiv). It does this with non-technical narrativesthat can be understood by upper-level undergraduates and thegeneral reader with some economics background: a welcome goalthat the author achieves. Chapters include useful data tablesand charts without being overwhelming and conclude with furtherreading suggestions.     

Consumer Willingness to Pay for Local Designations: Brand Effects and Heterogeneity at the Retail Level

This study examines consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for packaged ice cream with local, private label, and national brands at the retail level. Data were collected through in-person surveys conducted at retail grocery outlets in Utah in 2012. Study results suggest that shoppers are willing to pay significantly more for the national and local brands over the retailer’s private label brand. In fact, the local brand with the state-sponsored designation (Utah’s Own) had a WTP equal to that of the national brand. The use of local designations or labels is important as shoppers were not willing to pay a premium for the local brands in absence of the locally produced or state-sponsored designation label. Additionally, consumer WTP for different brands and the degree of response to local designations varies substantially by consumer attributes. These differences suggest that locally designated products do not compete directly with private label products in the market. This study provides clear evidence of the value of state-sponsored designations, as well as locally produced labeling for food products marketed in a traditional retail setting.     

The Need for the Identification of the Constituents of a Destination's Tourist Image: A Promotion Segmentation Perspective

ABSTRACT

This study was designed to examine the dimensions of tourist image as it may affect the promotion strategy for a given tourist destination. Identification of the different constituents of a destination's tourist image may provide important information that can be used in developing focused promotional strategies in well segmented markets to promote a tourist destination. Constituents of a destination's tourist image for the state of Utah were identified using factor analysis based upon a priori assumption about the nature of constituents of a state's tourist image. Four major constituents of a destination's/state's tourist image emerged. Each dimension represents a potential source of focus for regionally promoting a given destination to various target segments.     

Frank Dobbin, ed. The New Economic Sociology: A Reader. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004. vii + 565 pp. ISBN 0-691-04905-X, $65.00 (cloth); 0-691-04906-8, $27.95 (paper).

This volume is designed to ease the entry of advanced sociologystudents into the growing literature in their discipline aboutmarkets and the organizations and individuals who operate withinthem. It can serve this useful function for business historiansas well, although it will take some tenacity on the part of"splitters" to make sense of what the "lumpers" are gettingat. The collection’s twenty chapters include articles fromleading journals and book excerpts and are organized around     

Gordon Boyce. Over Half a Million Careful Owners: A 75-year history of PSIS, 1928-2003. Wellington, NZ: Dunmore Publishing, 2005. 326 pp. ISBN 0-476-0129-29, NZ$29.95 (paper).

Gordon Boyce traces the history of New Zealand’s PSIS,the Public Service Investment Society, in a book commissionedby the company. Boyce, now Professor of International Businessat Queensland University of Technology after thirteen yearsof teaching business and economic history at Victoria Universityof Wellington, is well qualified for the project. His recentpublications include Co-operative Structures in Global Business(2002). Boyce fulfills his commission well, narrating an engagingstory. "Vignettes" provide personal and anecdotal details thatformer staff     

Carl A. Zimring. Cash for Your Trash: Scrap Recycling in America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005. xi + 220 pp. ISBN 0-8135-3686-3, $39.95.

Paul Revere rode to Concord on a horse shod with shoes re-forgedfrom scrap iron. New York City’s Mayor, Michael Bloomberg,misstepped when he decided that residents would sort only thoserecyclables that actually had a market, rather than the beveragecontainers that went straight to the landfill. During the intervening226 years, Americans recycled for reasons of economy, and ontothat base we recently have grafted a goal of recycling to promoteenvironmental quality. Carl Zimring’s Cash For Your Trashlinks     

“When to Hold ‘Em; When to Fold ‘Em”: Choosing Consumer Protection Battles

On April 25, 2005, the University of Utah hosted a symposium on consumer policy in honor of the retirement of Dr. John R. Burton. All seven of the papers presented addressed, either directly or indirectly, the nature of the consumer interest. In the companion piece to this article, Dr. Stephen Brobeck, executive director of the Consumer Federation of America (CFA), describes how a major consumer advocacy organization like CFA decides what public policy positions are in the consumer interest. In this article, Michael Burton, an assistant professor of political science at Ohio University and the son of the symposium's honoree, draws on his experience on the staffs of Congressman Paul E. Kanjorski (1991–93) and Vice President Al Gore (1993–98) to describe and defend the art of compromise in advancing the consumer interest. –Robert N. Mayer, University of Utah     

Robert H. Gudmestad. A Troublesome Commerce: The Transformation of the Interstate Slave Trade. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003. xii + 246 pp. ISBN 0-8071-2884-8, $59.95 (cloth); 0-8071-2922-4, $21.95 (paper).

From the works of Harriet Beecher Stowe to J. T. Randolph, slavetraders stalked the pages of antebellum fiction and antislaveryliterature. Yet of the many facets of slavery that scholarshave examined in the past three decades, the one topic thathas been consistently understudied has been the internal slavetrade. Compared with other subjects deemed worthy of monographs—fromslave religiosity to rebelliousness to family structure—theinternal traffic in humans of the early to mid-nineteenth centuryhas been curiously ignored. The few exceptions include