Intermedia Substitutability and Market Demand by National Advertisers

We assess substitute and complementary relationships among eight national advertising media classes, as well as the magnitude of their own-price elasticities. We employ a translog demand model, whose parameters we estimate by three-stage least squares, based on 1960–94 annual U.S. data.We find aggregate demand by national advertisers for each of the eight media isown-price inelastic, and that cross-price elasticities suggest slightly more substitutethan complementary relationships, although both are rather weak. These patterns areconsistent with long prevailing institutional arrangements and media selection practices.     

Kommunikationssteuerung und Kommunikationscontrolling Das Beispiel Henkel

Zusammenfassungen  In Zeiten von immer knapper werdenden Ressourcen sehen sich viele Kommunikationsverantwortliche zunehmend in der Pflicht, die vorhandenden Budgets effizient und effektiv einzusetzen sowie ihren Wertsch?pfungsbeitrag nachzuweisen. Dabei unterliegen sie den gleichen Controllinganforderungen, die an andere Funktionen eines Unternehmens gestellt werden. Eine m?gliche Strategie zeigt das Praxisbeispiel des internationalen Konsumgüterherstellers Henkel. Ernst Primosch Corporate Vice President und Head Corporate Communications bei der Henkel KGaA in Düsseldorf M. A. Simone Gleumes Leiterin Strategy & Steering im Bereich Corporate Communications bei der Henkel KGaA in Düsseldorf     

Production of and trade in African indigenous vegetables in the urban and peri-urban areas of Durban,South Africa

This paper reports on the farming and trade of lesser known crops, here termed African indigenous vegetables (AIVs), in the Durban metropole. Most households grow AIVs, and collect them from the wild, primarily for home consumption. Modal income from sale was approximately R30 per month per farmer, most of whom were middle-aged to elderly females, with limited education, who had been cultivating AIVs here for many years. The main constraints to greater sales were deemed to be low market demand and adverse climate. The commonest AIVs grown were pumpkin leaves, taro and amaranth. Although most farmers sold very little, there is a thriving retail trade in AIVs. Generally, retailers were females, but younger and more educated than the farmers. The majority viewed retailing as a full-time occupation. Modal income for retailers was R450 per month, but included non-AIV produce. Most of the traders thought there was insufficient market demand for AIVs.     

The long-life car

Today, cars last about ten years. This lifespan could be extended to an optimum of 18–25 years. The critical component is the body shell, and more research is needed before all-aluminium bodies could be mass produced. Such a car would consume less material resources in the long run (300 000km), although it would cost about 30% more than the conventional car. Over a decade or so its production would decrease employment in the car industry by about 4%, while increasing employment in the short term.     

The distribution of welfare gains from price stabilization: An international perspective

A two-country model is used to analyze the welfare effects from stabilizing the price of an internationally traded commodity when the underlying demand and supply curves are nonlinear. Cases are found and conditions are stated under which the results are contrary to the ones under linearity. They show that, with a sufficient degree of nonlinearity and sufficiently large supply or demand, consumers in both countries gain from stabilization whereas producers lose. Also, importing countries are likely to gain more from stabilization than exporting countries. The results are thus important for the determination of who should contribute to the costs of operating an international buffer stock.     

Age distribution, education and societal structure

Age distribution, educational distribution and societal structure are interrelated parameters that, in the past, were adjusted to each other in an equilibrium that was only perturbed by rather small and slow changes. Built-in trial and error control mechanisms were evidently capable of containing these minor perturbations without excessive instabilities. Recently, major and fast changes have been occurring in the age distribution through the substantial extension of human life expectancy, and in the educational distribution through the wide availability of educational opportunities. The existing trial and error control mechanisms seem to be inadequate for such major perturbations, and new controls will have to be introduced in order to avoid serious instability and disruption. While the age distribution cannot be controlled through morally acceptable means, ways must be found to control the educational distribution, and to match it to existing societal needs.     

Operations related groups (ORGs): A clustering procedure for production/inventory systems

Many production/inventory systems contain thousands of stock keeping units (SKUs). In general, it is not computationally (or conceptually) feasible to consider every one of these items individually in the development of control polices and strategies. Our objective here is to develop a methodology for defining groups to support strategic planning for the operations function. Accordingly, such groups should take into consideration all product characteristics which have a significant impact on the particular operations management problem of interest. These characteristics can include many of the attributes which are used in other functional groupings and will most certainly go beyond the cost and volume attributes used in ABC analysis.The ORG methodology is based on statistical clustering and can utilize a full range of operationally significant item attributes. It considers both statistical measures of discrimination and the operational consequences associated with implementing policies derived on the basis of group membership. The main departure of this analysis from earlier work is: 1) the approach can handle any combination of item attribute information that is important for strategy purposes, 2) management's interest in defining groups on the basis of operational factors can be accommodated, 3) statistical discrimination is considered directly, 4) group definition reflects the performance of management policies which are based (in part) on group membership, and 5) the method can be applied successfully to systems with a large number of SKUs.The specific application which motivated development of the ORG methodology was an analysis of distribution strategy for the service parts division of a major automobile manufacturer. The manufacturer was interested in developing optimal inventory stocking policies, which took into account the complexities of its multiechelon distribution network, supplier relationships and customer service targets for each market segment. This manufacturer stocked over 300,000 part numbers in an extensive network with approximately 50 distribution centers and thousands of dealer locations (i.e., 1.5 million SKU/ location combinations). The results of this application indicated that the advantage of using operationally relevant data for grouping and for defining generic, group-based policies for controlling inventory can be substantial. The ORG methodology can be of value to operations managers in industries with a large number of diverse items.     

The role of the IMF and the World Bank in the former Eastern Bloc countries

Although the main responsibility for carrying out economic reforms in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe lies with these countries themselves, the transformation of the Soviet-style economic system into a market economy must be made easier by support from abroad. In this the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank will play an important part.