Interactive Multiple‐Criteria Methods for Reaching Pareto Optimal Agreements in Negotiations

The common features of two interactive methods that can be used in multiple-party negotiations over continuous issues are studied. One method is based on finding jointly improving directions to the parties to move along and the other on making constraint proposals to the parties. The history and the related literature on the subject is briefly surveyed in order to position the methods within the field. The basic similarities and differences together with the possibility to use them jointly are studied from the point of view of single negotiation text concept. Potential application areas including facilitation agents in distributed artificial intelligence are suggested.     

Die zukünftige Entwicklung auf den Wohnungsmärkten in Deutschland

Die Bev?lkerungsanteile ?lterer und jüngerer Menschen in Deutschland werden sich in den n?chsten Jahrzehnten erheblich verschieben. Damit gehen Ver?nderungen von Haushaltsstrukturen einher. Welche Folgen ergeben sich daraus für die Wohnungsm?rkte?     

Effects of the Euro Changeover on Consumer Behaviour: Introduction to the Special Issue

This paper introduces the special issue “Effects of the euro changeover on consumer behaviour” by briefly reviewing the contents of the included papers. The introduction follows the organization of the papers in three sections each focusing on a common set of issues. In the first section, research revealing the perceived and actual problems consumers face after the euro changeover is described. Research illuminating learning and adaptation to the euro changeover is the focus of the second section. A special problem is the misperception of inflation after the euro changeover. Research on this problem is addressed in the third section. In a final section, the main findings and their policy implications are summarized.     

The limits of public consumer information

The article gives an overview of problems connected with the dissemination of public consumer information. It brings out some implications of psychological research on consumers and other human beings. The perspective taken is that of the consumer's role in a market or mixed economy. It is stressed that psychological research has yielded interesting methodological paradigms amd hypotheses which could and should be explored in practical situations outside the laboratories. If this is done, better advice can be given to guide consumer information campaigns.

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Die Grenzen öffentlicher Verbraucherinformationspolitik

Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag geht von drei grundlegenden Überlegungen aus. Zum einen hat die Funktionsfähigkeit von Verbrauchsgütermärkten zur Voraussetzung, daß die Konsumenten Zugang zu den für optimale Kaufentscheidungen notwendigen Informationen haben. Zum zweiten bieten die vorhandenen Medien nur begrenzte Möglichkeiten, solche Informationen zu übermitteln. Die dritte Überlegung beschäftigt sich mit den Konsumenten, deren Wahrnehmung als selektiv gekennzeichnet wird und deren Verhalten so starke Gewohnheiten ausgebildet hat, daß es häufig nur schwer zu beeinflussen ist und darüber hinaus manchmal sozialen Einflüssen ausgesetzt ist, die den Absichten der Verbraucherinformation entgegenstehen.Abbildung 1 zeigt einen Überblick über die Variablen, die zur Erklärung des Verbraucherverhaltens üblicherweise herangezogen werden. Es wird betont, daß die empirische Verbraucherforschung insbesondere im Bereich des Informationsverhaltens stärker die zeitlichen und räumlichen Beschränkungen berücksichtigen sollte, durch die die meisten Kaufentscheidungssituationen gekennzeichnet sind.Es werden zwei Modelle behandelt. Das eine, ein Modell der Informationsverarbeitung, wurde im Bereich der Verbraucherpsychologie entwickelt und repräsentiert den Stand der Laborforschung in diesem Bereich. Es wäre zweckmäßig, einige seiner Ergebnisse auch systematisch in Realsituationen zu überprüfen. Das zweite Modell ist das Linsen-Modell, das der Experimentalpsychologie entstammt und in den letzten fünfzehn Jahren in der Forschung ausgiebig angewendet wurde. Es kann vor allem der Problemstrukturierung im Bereich der Verbraucherinformation dienen.Abschließend wird die Nützlichkeit von Verbraucherinformation differenziert nach verschiedenen Typen von Kaufsituationen behandelt.

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Karl Erik Wärneryd is Professor of Economic Psychologie and Director of the Economic Research Institute at the Stockholm School of Economics, Box 6501, S-113 83 Stockholm, Sweden.     

Business-to-Business Markets – Status Quo and Future Trends

As a phenomenon of modified value-chain structures the economic importance of business-to-business markets has been growing immensely during the past decades. This paper delivers a quantified overview of the market dimensions in terms of transactional volume. In addition, it explains the causes for this market development such as an increased service orientation in business transactions, higher degrees of customization, and influential factors on a macro level. In this context, future trends in this sector will be outlined as well.

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     

Beliefs affecting additional investment intentions of mutual fund clients

In this article, we aim to examine mutual fund investors’ behaviour in decision-making situations and to analyse future investment decisions via a path model approach. Investors were divided into different groups based on the risk and distribution channel used, and the differences in their investment intentions were examined. The study used empirical survey data collected from the clients of a mutual fund company owned by a Finnish banking group. Loyalty to the common banking group dominated the explanation in the whole model. The safety of the investment was important for branch office investors, whereas obtaining a good return was important for internet investors. Ultimately, explanatory power was highest for the branch office investors and lowest for the internet investors with equity funds. Most investors intended to invest more, and thus there was little variance to be explained. The results indicate that branch office investors with money market funds require more information about the investment business, although it is difficult to see who would be responsible for providing that information. This study has implications for both the theory and management of financial services.     

Strategic technology management issues in japanese manufacturing industry

The argument that regulation is a necessary, though controversial, component of technology policy is discussed in detail. Ib addition to the regulation of technology, various other regulatory policies, such as market regulation, affect the development of technology. Various types of direct regulation and their conditions of operation are discussed. It is shown that regulation can afect technological innovation positively by providing a surrogate market. The paper serves as an introduction to this special issue and shows how the different contributions fit into a general framework of regulatory effects on technolgy. Regulation as a factor in competition is discussed, particularly in the context of developing countries.     

Import-push or export-pull? An industry-level analysis of the impact of trade on firm exit

Does the selection effect of trade work solely through competition from imports, or does the export market further contribute to firm selection? This paper provides a re-interpretation of the different mechanisms in terms of selection on profitability—rather than productivity—and derives novel predictions regarding the export market and the role of product differentiation. Empirical results for a sample of Danish manufacturing industries confirm the import-“push” hypothesis as well as the export-“pull” hypothesis, but also reveal differences across industries. The selection effect of trade is mainly driven by the “import-push” if product differentiation is high, whereas it is driven by the “export-pull” if goods are homogeneous.