Identifying Key Customers for Novel Industrial Products

Managers responsible for novel industrial products seek to identify their most productive customers promptly, as a basis for deployment of marketing and development resources. Using a trial-and-adoption model, based upon invoice data from sales of novel industrial products over a five-year period, Richard Cardozo, David Smith and Madhubalan Viswanathan show that initial interpurchase interval (the time from initial purchase to first repeat purchase) identifies high-volume customers, no matter when they first purchased. In addition to demonstrating the usefulness of a trial-and-adoption model in analyzing purchases of novel industrial products, this study also describes for the first time four distinct purchase patterns for novel industrial products.     

Requests for zoo visitors to undertake pro-wildlife behaviour: How many is too many?

Recognising the potential conservation impact, zoos regularly ask their visitors to undertake pro-wildlife behaviour. This paper presents the results of two studies undertaken to address the question: how often during a visit should visitors be asked? Study 1 sought to a) determine individuals' personal thresholds and b) the point where the number of different behaviours requested began affect visitors' experiences. Study 2 sought the same, but focused on requests for the same behaviour. Results suggest that few respondents' personal thresholds were crossed (2.5% in Study 1 and 9% in Study 2). In neither study did many respondents (2.5% in Study 1 and 2.8% in Study 2) feel that the number of requests negatively affect their overall zoo experience. While there are caveats, we conclude that there appears little cause for concern about asking zoo visitors on multiple occasions to act in support of wildlife. Indeed, such requests may improve experiences.     

Agrarian Change and the Initial Development of an Aboriginal Bourgeoisie in Australia

While the commercial ambitions of indigenous capitalists are continuously displayed in Australia, little is known about the origins and initial development of the class. In this essay one area of the country, the north‐west of Western Australia (WA), is chosen to show how changes in the principal agricultural industry opened space for Aboriginal commerce. Despite the opposition of State governments and existing firms that dominated cattle and sheep production, this space was enlarged as pastoralism underwent major changes. The rise of the indigenous bourgeoisie was also facilitated by the growing power of the class's political representatives in electoral and in executive politics. Parallel with changes in Australian federalism, which gave the national government increased financial and other powers, Aboriginal representatives captured this shift for commercial advantage.     

The Marine Environment: Fencing the Last Frontier

Fisheries resources contribute a valuable source of protein to the world's food supply. While there is much promise for continued production gains from aquaculture and terrestrial sources, the marine fisheries sector faces a number of critical current policy junctures. Since extension of jurisdiction to 200 miles in 1976, there have been dramatic changes in the opportunity for coastal nations to rationally manage formerly open access marine resources. While more spatially encompassing management has brought physical yield close to full biological potential, much of the potential economic yield from fisheries is still squandered. An important issue is whether the future potential of marine resources will be guided by an expansion of private property rights or by an expansion of bureaucratic regulatory structures. New monitoring, information, and enforcement technology is making it increasingly possible to zone the ocean and implement measures that mimic terrestrial property systems. At the same time, there is opposition to privatizing marine resources by groups who view them as public resources. The outcome of the tussle between the forces supporting and opposing property rights creation will largely determine the extent and kinds of values that will be generated from marine resources around the world in the next decade.     

Complementarity and the Measurement of Individual Risk Tradeoffs: Accounting for Quantity and Quality of Life Effects

This paper considers the factors responsible for differences with age in estimates of the wage compensation an individual requires to accept increased occupational fatality risk. We derive a relationship between the value of a statistical life (VSL) and the degree of complementarity between consumption and labor supplied when health status serves as a potential source of variation in this relationship. Our empirical analysis finds that variations in an individual’s health status or quality of life and anticipated longevity threats lead to significant differences in the estimated wage/risk tradeoffs. We describe how extensions to the specification of hedonic wage models, including measures for quality of life and anticipated longevity threats, help to explain the diversity in past studies examining how the estimated wage–risk tradeoff changes with age.