Consumer value and self-image congruency at different stages of timeshare ownership

An understanding of customers’ perceptions of value is fundamental to the competitive nature of all industries. Using the timeshare resort sector as a context for our studies, we explore the ways in which consumers, grouped according to their timeshare ownership stage, perceive value. Data were collected from three samples: non-owners of timeshare, recent purchasers of timeshare, and longer-term timeshare owners. Value was shown to be multi-dimensional, with a stable pattern of eleven correlated value factors evident in all three samples. The groups differed in their assessments of the different dimensions of value. In all groups, however, value was positively correlated with attitudes and future intentions regarding timeshare. Self-image congruency explained additional criterion variance. The findings demonstrate that, even among consumers who have never used timeshare, value and self-image congruency are substantial and unique predictors of attitudes and intentions regarding this tourism product.     

Patents and invention in Jamaica and the British Atlantic before 1857 †

Before 1852 the English patent system operated at both a domestic and a global level, allowing inventors to extend its operation beyond England to the colonies, where it interacted in territories such as Jamaica with a colonial system of patents and grants. It therefore provides one of the few examples of a workable global patent system, and an important case study of the structures that supported the development and circulation of technology within the British Atlantic during the early stages of the industrial revolution. Providing a framework of ‘tiered’ rather than ‘parallel’ powers and jurisdictions, the imperial patent system was a flexible instrument that inventors could use strategically to promote transnational technological innovation, in which people, ideas, and skills moved back and forth between Britain and colonies such as Jamaica. Patenting, which was concentrated in wealthy plantation colonies that sought greater productivity, was therefore a key part of the economic development of empire.     

Relationship between the mode of land redistribution,tenure security and agricultural credit use in KwaZulu-Natal

Data collected from interviews with new landowners in KwaZulu-Natal in 1999 show that households on four government-assisted projects had less tenure security than households that acquired land via private transactions. Households in government-assisted projects also used less agricultural credit and had less liquidity and less wealth. The probability of households using agricultural credit increased with more secure tenure, more household wealth (number of durable goods), higher liquidity and higher levels of household education. It is recommended that more emphasis be placed on redistributing land through the private market and encouraging the creation of management committees or joint enterprises to utilise the land settled by large groups of beneficiaries. This would be a first step towards making tenure more secure, most notably in the government land reform projects. More secure tenure would improve the creditworthiness of emerging farmers, thereby creating incentives for investing in improvements and complementary inputs to raise agricultural performance.     

TOWARD BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN THEORY AND EMPIRICAL REALITY

Introductory (i.e. first year) undergraduate learners often perceive economics to be remote from reality and overly theoretical, leading to a lack of motivation and enthusiasm to study economics. A general survey of curriculum practice reveals that lecture materials and the pedagogic approach to teaching introductory economics often do not place the current “mainstream” economic theory into its philosophical context. The result being that the learners are unable to bridge the gap between abstract economic theory and empirical reality. This paper argues that research into effective teaching and learning should focus not only on learner characteristics but also on curriculum content and its philosophical underpinnings, in order to research why students hold these negative perceptions. The paper recommends that introductory undergraduate teaching needs to engage in a critical examination, with the learner, of the philosophical underpinnings of “mainstream” economic theory and to introduce debates about the implications of these into the curriculum. This would create exciting new opportunities for teachers and learners to explore the connections between economic theory and social science in general and should come a long way in changing the negative perceptions of introductory undergraduate economics.     

How much does tax erode fund excess returns?

We model the tax drag from active fund management based on reported monthly holdings of active equity funds. Tax drag erodes 65 percent of the 0.74 percent excess return in Broad Market funds, but only 21 percent of the 1.80 percent excess return in Small-Cap funds for Australian superannuation (pension) fund investors. Tax drag varies with investment style; market state, which is most detrimental during bull markets; and fund turnover. For high-income individual investors, tax drag is exacerbated to the extent that active management only generates meaningful after-tax excess return for Small-Cap funds of certain styles.