Justice: The root of american business ideology and ethics

Although there are many conceptions of Justice, these different perceptions can provide many interesting insights into a business person's ethical standards as well as that person's decision-making processes. Using the Bishops' Pastoral Letter on the U.S. Economy as the basis for asking questions about justice, twenty-four business executives were interviewed about their conception of justice. An analysis of these interviews reveals that this group of businesspeople operated under very different conceptions of Justice at the Macroenvironmental and Microenvironmental levels. This result has some interesting implications not only for those scholars concerned with business ethics but for everyone who has a stake in business education.Men are called good, chiefly on account of their Justice. Cicero, 56 B.C. Ideology is applied philosophy. Lodge, 1986 Richard McGowan, S. J. is an Assistant Professor of Operations and Strategic Management at Boston College. His research focus involves examining both the rationale behind business and public policy decisions as well as determining the effectiveness of these policy measures. Some of his recent publications include Deciphering the Japanese Import Quota, Policy Studies Journal (1988) and Public Policy Measures and Cigarette Sales: An ARIMA Intervention Analysis Study JAI Social Issues Management Volume (1989).     

Editorial - An international association of forest economics

While forestry issues and forest economists' interests are increasingly global, the costs of creating an international association have plummeted. These twinned trends suggest that the time is ripe to form an international association of forest economics.Anecdotally, forest economists have expressed considerable interest in international debates and scholarly exchanges. This anecdotal evidence includes expressed interest in a series of informal conversations with forest economists from around the world, the success of international journals such as the Journal of Forest Economics, and the success of international conferences and meetings organized by ad hoc committees. This increasing interest in international activities appears to reflect on-going trends of increased international trade, standardization of forest economic approaches, and increased mobility of forest economists, many of whom are accepting positions outside of their native country or region.Historically, the costs of organizing and sustaining an international association were extremely high. However, the improvement of communication technologies during the past two decades in the form of e-mail, the internet and fax machines have dramatically decreased the costs of many of the basic functions of an international association including interactions between members on scholarly issues, meeting and conference announcements, and members' direct participation in an international organization. These technological advances have been important to the success of the Journal of Forest Economics and to ad hoc organizing committees of international conferences and meetings. Associations can now be primarily virtual in the sense that the only non-electronic aspects of the organization are delivering paper copies of journals, and actual attendance at a conference and meeting.Currently no organization effectively serves as an international organization of forest economics. Existing forest economics associations are regional or national by design. International forestry organizations such as IUFRO, EFI and CIFOR are generally not led by forest economists, are not designed to promote timely scholarly exchanges among forest economists, and usually are unable to change rapidly in response to the changing needs of forest economists.Over the past few years at several meetings a number of forest economists have either discussed organizing an international association of forest economics or expressed strong interest in becoming a member of an international association of forest economics. The Journal of Forest Economics Editorial Board has expressed support of an international association with some members willing to assist the organizing effort. Other forest economists not associated with the Journal of Forest Economics have offered to help organize an association. Some of these forest economists have expressed particular interest in assisting with setting up internal communications for an international association, or organizing a conference under the auspices of an international association.Although previous discussions and preliminary attempts at organizing have not successfully created an international association of forest economics, they have helped uncover strong interest in an international association. There is reason to be more optimistic about the current organizing effort. Probably the most important source of optimism is that it appears likely that IUFRO will now assist efforts to form an international organizational of forest economics by providing both organizing effort and financial resources.A number of significant issues need to be resolved to form a viable international association of forest economics. These issues include:Clarifying the benefits and responsibilities of membership in an international association.Developing a mutually supportive relationship with both regional associations of forest economists, forest economics research centres and international forestry organizations.Determining the range of activities that the international association will routinely address including internal and external communications, the possibility of association sponsored conferences or meetings, organization details and other possible activities.Forming an international association of forest economics is both timely, and will enhance scholarship in forest economics. If you have interest in joining with others to form an international association of forest economics, I urge you to e-mail, brazee@uiuc.edu, the current initial contact point for the organizing effort.     

Public Research Policy for Today's Agricultural Biotech Research Industry

While the public sector has historically played a very significant role in the direct provision of agricultural research, the appropriate role of government in the future is no longer apparent in a world with intellectual property rights (IPRs) and a concentrated privatized biotech research industry. This study develops a search/imperfect competition framework to examine the public role. The analysis shows that private firms have inadequate incentives to invest in research for varietal improvement relative to the social optimum even with completely enforceable IPRs. A government subsidy on research output can efficiently increase the amount of applied research to the socially optimal point. Government subsidy of the research cost can have the same effect on research and development expenditure. Expanding direct applied public research increases social welfare but cannot achieve a social optimum, as it reduces the already limited incentives for private firms to invest. Finally, in situations where basic research is underprovided, government should address these market failures as part of an optimal research policy. Overall, the analysis suggests that there is a role for public support of applied research, but this role is no longer direct public involvement in applied research where IPRs are well established.     

Cost-Effective Targeting of Land Retirement to Improve Water Quality with Endogenous Sediment Deposition Coefficients

An integrated framework that combines spatial and biophysical attributes of land with a hydrological model and an economic model is developed to identify cropland for enrollment in the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program. Sediment deposition coefficients are determined endogenously depending on the land-use decisions on other land parcels. Application of this framework to a watershed in Illinois demonstrates that highly sloping land adjacent to water bodies should be selected for retirement. A marginal value rental payment scheme can achieve program goals of 20% sediment abatement at 39% lower cost than a productivity-based rental scheme.     

Expenditure on different categories of meat in Greece: the influence of changing tastes

This paper employs a latent variable approach to isolate the effects of changing tastes on the share of total meat expenditure on different categories of meat products in Greece during the period 1965–1995. We find that changes in the relative expenditure on different categories of meat cannot be explained by changes in the relative prices of the different meat products and increased expenditure alone. For pork products in particular, the increase in the share of expenditure has been greater than would be expected as a result of the relative fall in their price. The increase can therefore be associated with changes in taste. This finding is of general interest to those conducting empirical research into consumer behaviour both in economies where there have been significant changes in patterns of food consumption, and where, as in the case of many less industrialised economies, rapid structural changes in food consumption patterns are still to come. It is also of importance to policy makers in assessing die effectiveness of advertising or promotional campaigns in influencing longer term changes in consumer preferences for different products.     

Imperfect competition,functional forms,and the size and distribution of research benefits

The effects of functional forms for supply and demand on the size and distribution of the returns to research are examined under a range of forms of competition. Under perfect competition, the choice of functional form is relatively unimportant for the estimation of research benefits. Under imperfect competition, the combination of the choice of functional forms for supply and demand and the nature of the research-induced supply shift can have profound implications for the results. Functional form plays a much more important role than in the competitive model. The most important contrast is between the constant elasticity model and the linear model (along with various cases of a generalized linear model). These findings are illustrated using a combination of analytical results and numerical simulations.     

Private Pension Arrangements and Retirement in Britain*

This paper looks at the policy debate surrounding private pensions and retirement patterns in the UK. Recent increases in longevity have led not only to increased pressures in public pensions but also to corresponding increases in the importance of private pensions in the UK and changes in the way in which they are structured. We consider the economic implications of these changes, and in particular the increased importance of defined contribution plans. In addition, we discuss the prospects for future trends in retirement ages.     

Experimental analysis of choice

Experimental choice analysis continues to attract academic and applied attention. We review what is known about the design, conduct, analysis, and use of data from choice experiments, and indicate gaps in current knowledge that should be addressed in future research. Design strategies consistent with probabilistic models of choice process and the parallels between choice experiments and real markets are considered. Additionally, we address the issues of reliability and validity. Progress has been made in accounting for differences in reliability, but more research is needed to determine which experiments and response procedures will consistently produce more reliable data for various problems.Sawtooth SoftwareDecision Research     

Marketing globalization: A didactic examination for corporate strategy

Recent empirical research suggests an appended explanation of globalization is necessary. Significant global studies have indicated that converging global homogeneous markets have not arrived, thereby concluding globalization of markets should be reexamined. A didactic examination posits globalization as marketing globalization. Two areas of opportunity for marketing globalization strategy are a modified marketing strategy in diverse global markets and a standardized marketing strategy in homogeneous global markets. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.