The U.S. industrial marketer's position in international trade

The purpose of this article is to examine some of the interests served by international trade and several of the factors that will affect the environment in which the marketing manager will operate in the next decade. The diverse forces that influence foreign trade are of increasing importance to marketing strategy. Although salesmen are still counseled to “sell-like-hell”, senior marketing people need to have a perspective that permits them to anticipate the threats and oppurtunities these forces create. We will suggest some of the trends and issues to which the marketer must be alert. While our analysis will be most appropriate for American companies, this approach is also applicable for firms based in other countries.The article is divided into five parts. In the first part we examine the importance and motives for U.S. international trade. We then explore U.S. patterns of imports and exports. In the third section we consider the role of technology in trade. Next we consider some of the trends that seem to apply for the next decade. Finally we raise some issues that will probably demand the marketer's attention in the future.     

Implementing Strategic Intent: The Power of an Effective Business Management Process

Today's managerial challenge is translating strategic intent into operational reality quickly enough to meet market needs. Business leaders already have access to a wealth of knowledge and experience in identifying strategic intent and developing market-focused business strategies. And they face no shortage of too is and techniques for systematic business improvement - Total Quality Management, Business Process Re-engineering, Activity-Based Management-the list grows daily. In practice, however, most large organisations struggle to translate their strategic intent into operational reality with pace and vigour. What they typically lack is a systematic framework for identifying, cascading and delivering their strategic objectives. What today's business leaders need - arguably more than anything else - is an effective Business Management Process.     

The Consumption of a Finite Planet: Well-Being, Convergence, Divergence and the Nascent Green Economy

A variety of global metrics indicate the Earth has overshot its capacity to supply source and sink resources without substantial negative feedback. Here the relationship between consumption indicators (oil, freshwater, vehicle and meat consumption, GDP, $\mathrm{CO }_{2}$ CO 2 emissions) and well-being is analysed latitudinally across 189 countries and longitudinally over 60 years within three affluent countries. All latitudinal analyses show the characteristic “consumption cliff and affluent uplands” shape: e.g. at low per capita GDP, life satisfaction increases sharply up the cliff with rising GDP; after a threshold, well-being is independent of GDP across the affluent uplands. Longitudinal analyses of Japan, UK and USA since the 1950s show per capita GDP has grown between 3- and 8-fold, but mean levels of well-being remained unchanged. Consumption patterns are now converging on those typical in affluent countries. Indicators for seven baskets of countries: Affluent North America–Europe–Oceania, Affluent Asia, fast developing BRICs and CIVETS, high income Resource Extractors, Poor with Green Peaks, and the Poorest show the factors of consumption between the poorest and affluent (5- to 100-fold) and the fast developing and affluent (2- to 10-fold). A finite planet cannot resource such convergence. One indicator, climate change, grows more of a concern as evidence emerges, yet denial remains strong. A priority is to create opportunities for divergent ways of living. Although material culture has been sought as the means to meet personal well-being, it has failed both the affluent and poorest. A green economy will require human attachments to both place and possessions, thus reducing disposal and damage. Such entanglement produces high affiliation that improves life satisfaction, as does much non-material consumption. As yet, most political and economic systems are far from recognising these imperatives, though there have been notable policy innovations. A shift to a green economy is inevitable. It is simply whether it occurs before or after the world becomes locked into severe climate change and other consequences of harm to natural capital.     

John Hobson, Thorstein Veblen and the Phenomenon of Imperialism

Abstract . Although Hobson (1858–1940) and Veblen (1857–1929) both wrote extensively on imperialism, a systematic comparison of their views has yet to be undertaken. This is corrected with reference to three issues: their respective condemnation and explanation of, and remedy for, imperialism. The contexts in which they wrote is outlined and it is shown that on the basis of a shared definition of imperialism: (1) they both condemned imperialism on economic and political grounds, although Veblen's hostility was arguably the greater; (2) they both advanced dualistic explanations of imperialism, but whereas Hobson developed more fully and emphasized economic rather than ideological forces, the reverse was the case for Veblen; and (3) they agreed that modern imperialism could be remedied by the establishment of an international system of law and order. Veblen, however, was far less confident that this would solve totally the problem of imperialism and hence argued for the abolition of both capitalism and patriotism. The convergencies and divergencies in their analyses of imperialism may reflect the British liberal and American radical traditions that the politically involved Hobson and the iconoclast Veblen, respectively, operated within. There is a lesson for our time in their views.     

Agri-Environmental Stewardship Schemes and "Multifunctionality"

The United Kingdom introduced the first agri-environmental scheme in the European Union in 1986. Since then, the United Kingdom has developed and implemented several other schemes that also feature stewardship payments to improve agriculture's environmental performance. In this article, lessons learned from the United Kingdom's agri-environmental programs are identified. Using the concept of "multifunctionality," which increasingly is influencing agricultural policy in Western Europe, the authors examine key issues associated with potential major expansions of stewardship payment schemes on both sides of the Atlantic.     

Comparison of Some Static Hedging Models of Agricultural Commodities Price Uncertainty

In static framework, many hedging strategies can be settled following the various hedge ratios that have been developed in the literature. However, it is difficult to choose among them the best the appropriate strategy according the to preference or economic behavior of the decision-maker such as prudence and temperance. This is so even with the hedging effectiveness measure. After introducing a hedging ratio that take into account the prudence and temperance of the decision maker, we propose a ranking based approach to measure the effectiveness using L-moment to classify hedge portfolios, hence hedge ratios, with regard to their performance. Moreover, we deal with the hedging issue in presence of quantity and rollover risks and derive an optimal strategy that depends upon the basis and insurance contract. Such hedging issue includes the relevant risks encountered in practice and we relate how insurance contract, specially designed for production risk could affect the futures hedge. The application on some agricultural futures prices data at hands shows that taking into account quantity and rollover risks leads to better hedging strategy based on the L-performance effectiveness measure.

     

A differential evolution copula-based approach for a multi-period cryptocurrency portfolio optimization

Recent years have seen a growing interest among investors in the new technology of blockchain and cryptocurrencies and some early investors in this new type of digital assets have made significant gains. The heuristic algorithm, differential evolution, has been advocated as a powerful tool in portfolio optimization. We propose in this study two new approaches derived from the traditional differential evolution (DE) method: the GARCH-differential evolution (GARCH-DE) and the GARCH-differential evolution t-copula (GARCH-DE-t-copula). We then contrast these two models with DE (benchmark) in single and multi-period optimizations on a portfolio consisting of five cryptoassets under the coherent risk measure CVaR constraint. Our analysis shows that the GARCH-DE-t-copula outperforms the DE and GARCH-DE approaches in both single- and multi-period frameworks. For these notoriously volatile assets, the GARCH-DE-t-copula has shown risk-control ability, hereby confirming the ability of t-copula to capture the dependence structure in the fat tail.     

Curriculum reform and teachers' training needs: the case of higher education in Ghana

Professional development is the key to curriculum‐based reform, yet there is little empirical evidence upon which to base decisions of design or implementation of training and development programmes. This study examined the training and development needs of Ghana's polytechnic teachers in an existing curriculum reform scenario as they became involved in curriculum design. Forty‐four teachers and four heads of mechanical engineering departments and representatives of the leadership of four polytechnics granted comprehensive interviews and responded to questionnaires. Findings revealed that updating subject knowledge through industrial attachments was a major training and development need for teachers. Teachers indicated that they were keen to get more involved in curriculum design and argued for their subject knowledge to be improved to give them the confidence to do so. The results of the study suggest higher education teachers have training and development needs in relation to effective curriculum design and implementation. It is proposed that polytechnic–industry links are strengthened and that teachers should draw on teamwork to plan and undertake industrial attachments.