Towards Economic Literacy

Following Fred Hankins's initial article on the approach to economics teaching in schools, two educational specialists involved in the 14—16 Project for school economics curricula, outline their approach to the fostering of economic literacy.     

Labour hoarding in a disequilibrium model of the Dutch labour market

Summary This paper presents a method to integrate labour hoarding into a disequilibrium model of the labour market. Disequilibrium indicators for the labour market that include labour hoarding are constructed. These indicators, being important determinants of policy multipliers with respect to employment, are found to be less volatile than the corresponding disequilibrium indicators for the goods market which are available from business surveys. The lower volatility reflects the role of labour hoarding as a buffer between actual and efficient employment levels. Our results indicate that labour hoarding in Dutch enterprises ranges from a minimum of 0.5 per cent of employment in early 1985 to a maximum of 7.0 per cent in 1975. Furthermore, the paper pays special attention to the modelling of mismatch unemployment and to the simulation results of an empirical disequilibrium macromodel of the Dutch economy.The authors thank M.M.G. Fase and two anonymous referees for their useful comments.     

Obstacles to Federal Tax Reform: An Exploratory Inquiry Into the Fiscal Attitudes of a Small Group of Taxpayers

A bstract . An exploratory inquiry was conducted to identify legislative goals of Washington-based tax reformers and to learn bow a small group of taxpayers (n = 54) from various socio-economic backgrounds felt about some of these goals. On a general level most informants claimed they supported elimination of tax loopholes. However, on a more specific level informants tended not to see any tax provision they used to avoid taxes as a "loophole," According to these semi-structured conversations, these taxpayers held no allegience to any particular principle of tax equity or tax justice except that, believing that other taxpayers engage widely in avoiding taxes, they are anxious to lose no importunity to do so.     

E-procurement in the Greek food and drink industry: Drivers and impediments

Most empirical research on e-procurement has focused on large economies and technology-related industries, paying little attention to smaller economies and traditional industries. This paper addresses this gap by presenting a study on the state and development of e-procurement in the Greek food and drink industry, based on four case studies with some of the largest organisations in the industry. This study indicates that the uptake of e-procurement has been slow and reveals some important impediments, such as the uncertainty of the technology and its benefits, the lack of infrastructure and skills and the traditional nature of the industry. These results led to a series of findings, propositions for further investigation. The drivers and impediments to e-procurement have been classified into four different levels: global, country, industry and firm. Each of these levels requires a different approach to dealing with it, having implications for practitioners and policymakers.     

Comparative industrial advertising: The content and frequency

Comparative advertising is the pratice of comparing two or more named or unnamed products in an advertisement. The purpose of this study was to examine the use of comparative advertising in widely circulated industrial publications. The study examined approximately 2100 full-page advertisements in major trade publications for the years 1970, 1975, and 1980. It was found that comparative advertising is not the dominant format for industrial journal advertising. Further, there was a significant decrease in the use of comparative advertising from 1975 to 1980. Nevertheless, when industrial advertisers use comparative advertising, they tend to rely more frequently on implied comparisons rather than on the more aggressive, strictly comparative format. Also, industrial marketers seem to be more inclined to stress product features rather than price, distribution, or promotion when using comparative advertising.     

What's in a label?: Consumers,public policy and food labels

All industrialized countries share a minimum set of food-labelling regulations. A major purpose is to protect and inform the consumer and, in recent years, the labelling of nutritional content and of permitted additives has received increased attention. Differences in labelling practices between countries in these areas reflect differing approaches to complex policy issues such as the relative emphasis to be placed on consumer information, as opposed to price or product modification, and the extent of consumer participation in the policy-making process.