Global city regions and the location of logistics activity

The aim of this paper is to extend and develop research surrounding the links between transport and urban regions. An understanding of transport activity has long involved the use of spatial frameworks, seen in the idea of a gateway city (with its surrounding hinterland) and in the identification of hubs or nodes. The particular framework used here is the global city region, a build-out from the much researched global city, and acknowledged as the most prominent feature of spatial development in the global economy. As these areas can accommodate important sea and airport infrastructure, the global city region can be expected to play a significant role in global logistics. Whether that significance extends just from the physical realm, as reflected in the infrastructure, or whether it is embedded in the scale and complexity of the advanced business services sector within the global city, is the issue that lies at the heart of the research. The research has set out to answer the question: “How important are these regions in logistics activity?”. The question has relevance in the context of transport geography as it provides an urban structure perspective on what is commonly seen as separate port or airport activity. Its relevance is enhanced as its answer relies upon a simultaneous analysis of both sea and air freight activity. Results show these regions counted for a substantial and growing share of sea and air freight between 1996 and 2006. In accounting for that outcome the research explores the particular effect of infrastructure (showing that global city regions with multiple seaport and airports play a special role) and also isolates the links with global city functions. The paper concludes with some insight on the special challenge these places create for strategic urban planning policy.     

The Effects of Market Concentration and Horizontal Mergers on Hospital Costs and Prices

Antitrust advocates believe that horizontal consolidation in hospital markets can reduce competition and increase prices while merger advocates believe it can benefit consumers by reducing service duplication. This study analyzed the market conditions, operating characteristics, and costs and prices of approximately 3500 short-term general hospitals (including 112 within-market-area mergers) from 1986 to 1994 to investigate the effects of market concentration, hospital mergers, and managed care penetration. The results show: a shift away from non-price competition toward price competition in health care markets; that this shift was fueled by increased market penetration by price-sensitive buyers; that horizontal hospital mergers produced average cost savings of approximately 5%, which were generally passed on to consumers as lower prices; that cost savings were generally greater for mergers of similar-size hospitals, with a higher degree of duplicative services, and with lower pre-merger occupancy rates; and some evidence that post-merger price reductions were smaller in less-competitive markets.     

Customer‐led and market‐oriented: a matter of balance

This article is prompted by Slater and Narver’s (1998) SMJ article entitled ‘Customer‐led and market‐oriented: Let’s not confuse the two’. It is suggested here that Slater and Narver’s contention that strategic success is a function of market‐led orientation rather than customer‐led orientation is too reductionist a proposition which gives inadequate weight to the resource endowment and scale differences between companies. The argument is offered that success through time for the bulk of businesses will be directly related to close relationships with existing customers, particularly for smaller companies, which are the vast majority. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Market orientation and performance

This response is prompted by Hult, Ketchen and Slater's (2005) article entitled ‘Market orientation and performance: an integration of disparate approaches.’ As a contributor to the foregoing debate in the pages of this journal to which they refer I am writing to offer some observations on the nature and implications of the research reported in their paper and to clarify my essential difficulty as a strategist with the ‘market‐oriented: customer‐led’ construct. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Rural Anti-Poverty Policy For The Future*

After noting the holistic nature of the concept of poverty, four types of people illustrate some dimensions important for policy-making and planning. Ten elements in a more effective rural anti-poverty policy for Canada are outlined with an underlying focus on a systems approach which fosters the involvement of all potential contributing factors and several channels for rapid and self-correcting feedback so that policies and programs may be modified to meet functional needs. An appendix lists the 160 policy suggestions obtained at the CAES annual meeting. PROGRAMME D'ANTI-PAUVRETÉ RURAL POUR L'AVENIR: Après avoir constater failure sacrée dans le concept de la pauvreté, quatre types de gens illustrent quelques suggestions importantes pour une planification et une meilleure politique. Dix éléments sont soulignés pour une politique d'anti-pauvreté rurale plus efficace, avec une concentration de base sur une méthode d'approche, lequelle alimentera l'enroulement de tous les éléments participants et les divers votes à suivre pour une régéneration plus rapide afin que les programmes soient modifiés à faire face aux besoins fonctionnels. Un appendice énumère les cent-soixante propositions obtenues des participants à l'assemblée annuelle de la Société Canadienne d'Économie Rurale.     

Cartel overcharges: Survey and meta-analysis

The article presents a novel meta-regression analysis of the size of cartel overcharges from a sample of more than 800 observations collected from a wide variety of published sources. The analysis of a subsample of 395 cartel episodes finds that duration, legal environment, and organizational characteristics of cartels explain variation in overcharge rates to a greater extent than the type of publication or the method of calculation. Overcharges tend to be significantly higher for durable international cartels. Secular decline is observed as antitrust-enforcement regimes have stiffened.     

The attributes,behavior, and performance of U.S. mutual funds

This article examines the risk and return characteristics of U.S. mutual funds. We employ an equilibrium version of the Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) and a principal-components-based statistical technique to identify performance benchmarks. We also consider the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) as an alternative. We implement a procedure for overcoming the rotational indeterminacy of factor models. This procedure is a hybrid of statistical factor estimation and prespecification of factors. We estimate measures of timing ability for the CAPM and extend it to the APT. We find that this timing test is misspecified due to noninformation-based changes in mutual fund betas. We develop a modification of the timing measure that, under certain conditions, distinguishes true timing ability from noninformation-based beta changes.     

When ambush marketing is beneficial to sponsorship awareness: creating sponsor distinctiveness using exclusivity and brand juxtaposition

ABSTRACT

Ambush marketing is a contentious practice whereby brands communicate an association with an event without being an official sponsor. Those involved in sponsorship commonly try to limit it by restricting ambusher activity in event contexts. We introduce theoretical ideas around distinctiveness to explain that sponsors may actually fare better in terms of awareness outcomes when ambushers are present in the event context, if they strategically use ambusher presence to highlight their own distinctive sponsor status. Across two experiments we show that sponsor distinctiveness can be achieved by communicating sponsorship exclusivity in ambusher presence, and by facilitating juxtaposition of sponsor and ambusher messages. Results include increased recall to sponsor cues, and reduced recall to ambusher cues. The findings suggest ambusher restrictions may sometimes be counter-productive.