“One-deal-fits-all?” On Category Sales Promotion Effectiveness in Smaller versus Larger Supermarkets

Even within a store chain and format, supermarket outlets often exhibit substantial differences in selling surface. For chain managers, this raises the issue of correctly anticipating the promotion lift, and of profitably managing promotion activities, across these outlets. In this paper, we conceptualize why and how store size influences the category sales effectiveness of four promotional indicators (depth of the promotional discount, display support, feature support, and whether the promotion is quantity-based). We then estimate the net moderating effect on four product categories for 103 store outlets belonging to four chains. For each of the promotion instruments, we find the percentage sales increases to be lower in large stores. For instance, whereas a 10% point increase in feature activity enhances category sales by about 1.64% in a 700 m² store, this figure drops to only 1.03% in a 1300 m² store – a 59% reduction. This moderating effect is especially pronounced for discount depth, the relative sales lift from a typical price cut being about 78% lower in the larger-sized outlet. However, since large outlets also have larger base sales, the picture changes when we consider absolute sales effects. The net outcome is that deeper discounts or quantity-based promotions do not systematically generate larger or smaller absolute sales bumps in large stores, whereas for in-store displays and features, we obtain a clear positive (be it less than proportional) link between store size and absolute category sales lift. When it comes to margin implications, we show that large stores gain higher profit from price cuts than small outlets only as long as the retailer keeps part of the manufacturer discount to himself. Managers can use these insights to improve their promotional forecasts across outlets, as well as to tailor their mix of instruments to store selling surface.     

STOCHASTIC ANALYSIS OF INPUT–OUTPUT MULTIPLIERS ON THE BASIS OF USE AND MAKE TABLES

Although technical coefficients are estimated on the basis of flow data (use and make matrices), they are rarely treated as random variables. If this is done, an error term is added to the coefficients, rather than derived from the distribution of the data. Even so, the calculation of multipliers, by means of the Leontief inverse, is difficult. Due to the nonlinearity of this operation, the multiplier estimates are biased. By going back to the flow data, this paper provides unbiased and consistent employment and output multipliers estimates for the Andalusian economy. Rectangular use and make matrices are accommodated and problems associated with the construction and estimation of technical coefficients and the Leontief inverse are circumvented.     

The Location of Comparative Advantages on the Basis of Fundamentals Only

We propose a new way to locate the comparative advantages of two economies linked by international trade. We construct a competitive benchmark based only on the fundamentals of the two economies: endowments, preferences and technologies. The direction of trade is endogenously determined by a linear program with an input-output core. The factor contents of that trade are compared with factor endowments to test the Heckscher-Ohlin model in the presence of different technologies and preferences. We can also evaluate the gains of free bilateral trade. The model is applied to a customs union between Europe and Canada. The Heckscher-Ohlin factor abundance specialization hypothesis is supported by the data.     

Sharing Common Resources in Patriarchal and Status-Based Societies: Evidence from Tanzania

ABSTRACT

In rural African societies, socioeconomic differentiation linked to gender and social status exerts an important influence on the distribution of common-pool resources. Through a behavioral experiment conducted in 2008 in rural Tanzania, this contribution examines the influence of gender and social status on distribution behavior of users of self-governed common watersheds. It finds that men and women with low social status distribute water equally when water is abundant but keep larger shares when water is scarce, although low-status women try to be as fair as possible at the expense of their returns from irrigated agriculture. Men of high social status keep more than half of the available water for themselves, both in abundance and scarcity, and deprive others from sizeable returns from irrigated agriculture. Women of high social status share altruistically when water is abundant and equally when water is scarce, giving up on returns from irrigated agriculture.     

经济转轨国家劳动力市场政策及对我国的启示

劳动力市场是市场经济的重要组成部分，我国要继续深化经济体制改革。必须要建立一个高效、有序的劳动力市场。本文在阐述了劳动力市场理论之后，分析了原苏联、东欧国家在经济转轨过程中关于劳动力市场的经验和教训，并以此提出了进一步完善我国劳动力市场的几点建议。     

Ethical Codes in Sports Organizations: Classification Framework,Content Analysis,and the Influence of Content on Code Effectiveness

Although there is a growing body of research on social media, only few studies have considered organic products. Therefore, this study mapped the diffusion path of the social media resources for organic products in Mexico and South Korea through Twitter and compared the contents of tweets about organic products in terms of their semantic and hyperlink networks using webometric methods. The results indicate that for organic products, Koreans sent tweets much more frequently than Mexicans. Mexican tweets focused on basic food products in street markets, whereas Korean tweets highlighted promotions and firms, revealing the corporatist structure of its economy. In both cases, the findings support Twitter as a useful tool for Word-of-Mouth Communication on the online environment, among product consumers, and between consumers and enterprises.     

General competitive equilibrium of the spatial economy : Two Teasers

The local indivisibility of space complicates general equilibrium analysis. Mazzoleni and Montesano (1984, p. 286), suggest that the usual reasoning of the non-spatial analyses of competitive equilibrium can be performed in the context of a commodity space that contains subsets of land. This space, however, lacks a linear structure, so it resists application of the usual reasoning. Two examples will show that Mazzoleni and Montesano's existence results are flawed.