The Delphi technique: Past, present, and future prospects — Introduction to the special issue

The Delphi technique has been around for over half a century, so now seems a proper time to consider its past, present and future. This introduction characterises the papers in this special Delphi issue, which include both conceptual and empirical works. It summarises the main lessons that have been learned from these for the conduct of the technique, and provides a call for more and better empirical studies in the future.     

Service learning and integrated,collaborative project management

This article describes the development of an undergraduate course on project management that incorporates experiential learning and service learning as the primary course learning methodology to instill in students the Project Management Institute's nine Knowledge Areas. The discussed instructional method is a dynamic and participative pedagogy. The project management course content is traditionally structured around system needs and analysis identification, functional requirements analysis, project timelines, network analysis, and project progress metrics. Introduction of service‐learning projects and experiential learning pedagogies provides a pragmatic approach for applying project management concepts. This article compares and contrasts the first three offerings of this course and provides lessons learned that may be helpful to others wishing to embrace project management realism in their course work. The purpose of this article is to encourage a hands‐on method for learning the nine Knowledge Areas in the undergraduate classroom.     

India’s Green Revolution: Economic Gains and Political Costs

Research and development (R&;D) promotion policies are critical for economic development in the sense that they contribute to technical progress. Although it is true that policy space is restricted under the World Trade Organization (WTO) system, there are still some R&;D promotion policy measures made available to developing countries. It is thus necessary for developing countries to utilize such available measures. In addition to explaining the R&;D promotion measures available under the current WTO regulations, I provide suggestions for modifying the Uruguay Round Subsidies Code with respect to the R&;D promotion policies of developing countries from the viewpoint of “distributional fairness” in international trade relations.     

The relative contributions of location and preferential policies in China's regional development: being in the right place and having the right incentives

A large part of the literature on provincial inequality in China has found it necessary to include regional dummies in the provincial growth regressions. A smaller but vocal part of the literature has emphasised the granting of preferential policies to explain the faster growth of the coastal provinces. We replace the regional dummies with a measure of the ability to participate in international trade (Geography), and a preferential policy index (Policy). We find that geography and policy had about equal influence on coastal growth (3 percentage points each). Geography affected growth with a much longer lag than policy, however. The policy index was highest for the metropolises (Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin) and lowest for the central and northwestern provinces. The preferential policies are to a large extent “deregulation policies” that enabled marketization and internationalization of the coastal economies and allowed them to become more like their East Asian neighbours (and competitors). The weak (statistically insignificant) support for conditional convergence is in line with the existence of institutions that retard the income convergence process generated by the movement of labor and capital and by the Stolper–Samuelson mechanism. The household registration system ties the peasants to the land, the monopoly state bank system favors borrowing by state enterprises, and local protectionism reduces inter-provincial trade. Clearly, these institutions need to be deregulated. An effective strategy to develop the western provinces must therefore encompass physical capital formation, human capital formation, and institutional capital formation.     

Consumer preferences and employment discrimination

Many American managers are under increasing pressure to base hiring and other employment decisions on consumers' preferences. This study attempts, in exploratory fashion, to identify traits of in-person service workers (IPSWs) that are preferred by consumers and could serve as the basis for employment discrimination. Preliminary results indicate that consumers do have strongly held preferences when a transaction involves significant customer-worker interaction. Females appear to be a more likely source of consumer-based discrimination than males for high involvement purchases. Briefly discussed is the question of whether consumers have stereotypical beliefs about IPSWs as well as the implications of these beliefs.     

Personal vs. non‐personal sources of information used in the purchase of men’s apparel

This study identifies and examines the relationship between several segmentation variables and the personal and promotional (non‐personal) cues used in the information‐gathering step of the purchase decision process. In the context of this study, personal cues refer to family members, coworkers and friends. Promotional or non‐personal cues refer to magazine advertisements, television advertisements, store displays and salespersons. Information regarding the use of personal and promotional cues was gathered from a national, random sample of 440 male consumers. The study found that adult male consumers report using promotional cues more frequently than personal information sources.     

Impact Of Tariff Reduction On Structural Employment In China: A Computable General Equilibrium Analysis

The paper studies the effect of tariff reduction on employment in China. Using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) analysis, a model simulates the structural adjustment in the Chinese economy as a result of tariff cuts and predicts their quantitative impacts on structural unemployment during the adjustment period. It is concluded that the structural unemployment in China caused by tariff reduction is not as serious as some have claimed. The technique of study on structural unemployment can be extended to other countries to analyze the impact of trade reform.     

Food availability versus consumption efficiency: causes of the Chinese famine

The Chinese famine of 1958–1961 is characterized not only by its great magnitude but also by the uniqueness of its causes. In this article we present evidence that conventional reasons; including FAD and entitlement failure, fail to offer plausible explanations for the tragedy because of the obvious contradiction between food availability and excessive deaths during the famine period. Our thesis is that the famine is caused by consumption inefficiency, a result of the free food supply in the communal dining system in the famine period. This causal factor is unique and unprecedented in the famine history and theory. Yet the thesis is consistent with a basic economic precept: if property rights for food in a society are not defined, food consumption will be inefficient. This inefficiency mades the previously barely adequate food supply in China inadequate, causing a large-scale famine.     

The effect of macroeconomic news on stock returns: New evidence from newspaper coverage

Previous literature has produced weak evidence to support the hypothesis that real economic news affects stock returns. This is, in part, attributed to the difficulty of measuring how investors interpret macroeconomic announcements in different economic environments. In this paper, we choose a different approach of measuring macroeconomic news to better estimate its effect on stock returns. Since newspaper stories provide an interpretation of the statistical releases, we choose newspaper stories as our measure of news. Our findings indicate that news about GDP and unemployment does affect stock returns.