佛性人生——印度佛教圣地"鹿野苑"随笔

记得《大篷车》这部片子在国内上映的时候我还是个学生,当时对片子的内涵并没有什么太深刻的理解,不过在那个时代,借着这部片子,使得印度这个国家在我脑子里留下的印象就是跳不完的舞,唱不完的歌,还有印度女人眉宇之间那颗醒目的朱砂痣。可能这部片子给当时的国人留下的印象太深刻了吧。现在一提起印度,还有很多人会“不可救药”地想起这部片子。前些时候,借工作之便,我有幸来到印度,不过,这次游览的地方没有歌声,也     

Marketing strategy and the hunt for era V

ABSTRACT

This paper is a response to a recent special issue of the Journal of Marketing Management in which Shelby Hunt celebrates the achievements of 40 years of marketing strategy. In noting the passing of the ‘old guard’, Hunt calls on a new generation of scholars to meet the challenges confronting marketing and to develop new theories and frameworks to advance Marketing Strategy into Era V. We take for our inspiration Hunt’s own words, specifically his reference to the ‘promising’ and ‘problematic’ that he uses to characterise the current and latent state of marketing strategy. To build our vision and map out our agenda we offer an alternative reading of this discipline through the idea of Marketing Strategy as Discourse (MSAD). Within the paper, we outline the role that discourse can perform as a resource to reconfigure our appreciation of marketing strategy.     

That Sounds Sweet: Using Cross‐Modal Correspondences to Communicate Gustatory Attributes

Building on existing research into sound symbolism and cross‐modal correspondences, this article proposes that cross‐modal correspondences—systematic mappings between different sensory modalities—can be used to communicate nonmusical, low‐level sensory properties such as basic tastes through music. A series of three experiments demonstrates that cross‐modal correspondences enable people to systematically encode basic taste properties into parameters in musical space (Experiment 1), and that they are able to correctly decode basic taste information embedded in complex musical compositions (Experiments 2 and 3). The results also suggest some culture‐specificity to these mappings, given that decoding performance, while still above chance levels, was lower in Indian participants than in those from the United States (Experiment 3). Implications and potential applications of these findings are discussed.     

Financial disclosure by SMEs listed on a semi-regulated market: evidence from the Euronext Free Market

This study investigates the financial disclosure policy of small and medium-sized enterprises listed on a stock market with very low disclosure requirements: the Free Market of the Euronext Stock Exchange. In contrast to firms listed on a regulated stock market, firms on the Free Market do not have any obligation to disclose periodic or price-sensitive information. We investigate the determinants of voluntary financial disclosure and its influence on stock liquidity. Our results suggest that firms disclose more financial information when they are likely to benefit from disclosure. Firms especially disclose when they issue equity. Voluntary disclosure also has a significant positive effect on stock liquidity, consistent with disclosure reducing information asymmetry.     

Fixed Investment and Economic Growth in China

This paper attempts to investigate empirically the investment-growth relationship in China. Using the exogeneity framework pioneered by Engle et al. (1983) and Engle and Hendry (1993), we find that fixed investment is a key determinant of China's economic growth, which, surprisingly, has not been rigorously examined in the literature. The super exogeneity test results suggest that there exists a robust (or structurally invariant) relationship between capital formation and income growth, thereby giving credence to policy evaluation.     

Alcohol Advertising Controls in the 1990s

Public health campaigners have criticized the British system for the regulation of alcohol advertising, which relies on several distinct codes of practice governing different media. This paper looks at the options for change, in the light of the economic, political and technological factors that will influence the development of the UK's alcohol advertising policy in the 1990s. The available evidence on the costs and benefits of alternative policies is reviewed, drawing on the Addiction Research Centre's multi-disciplinary programme of work undertaken at the Universities of Hull and York. While there is some evidence that a ban on alcohol advertising would have a marginal effect on overall consumption, it is argued that legislative intervention is no longer feasible. Technological innovation and global pressures for deregulation have made it difficult for national governments to ban the advertising of any one product. At the same time, however, it is feared that commercial pressures resulting from the introduction of satellite broadcasting and the increased competition for advertising revenues could undermine the existing self-regulatory system and exert a downwards pressure on advertising standards. It is suggested that the way forward lies in developing a strong self-regulatory system throughout Europe.     

Loan Repayment Performance in Community Development Finance Institutions in the UK

This paper identifies the key institutional factors that influence loan loss rates in Community Development Finance Institutions in the UK. Traditional bank credit assessment puts the blame of poor loan performance largely on the borrower. This is the first study of its kind to examine institutional characteristics of 16 CDFIs in the UK and assess their influence on the loan loss rates. The results show that 8 out of the 13 institutional characteristics examined significantly influence loan repayment performance. Although a vast body of literature supports the view that borrower characteristics are highly influential, our results provide strong evidence to show that institutional characteristics are equally important and both factors need to be taken into account if loan repayment performance is to be improved.