Emerging Markets and the Global Monetary System: The Challenge of Rising Inflation

While spillovers of the present financial turmoil in mature economies to emerging economies have so far largely been contained, the monetary policy implications of the financial turbulence present a challenge to the approach pursued by emerging markets in integrating into the global monetary system following the crises of the mid to late 1990s. Specifically, the period of a smooth coexistence between meeting inflation targets and maintaining a high degree of exchange rate stability is likely to come to an end. * At the time of writing this paper, the second author was an advisor at the Deutsche Bundesbank on secondment from the European Central Bank. The views expressed are solely those of the authors. They wish to thank Karlheinz Bischofberger, Ulrich Grosch and Sabine Herrmann for their valuable comments and suggestions, as well as Livia Chitu for excellent research assistance.     

From vision to action: Framing the Leitbild concept in the context of landscape planning

Reviewing landscape developments in the last decades evidently shows that in the future most pressing changes can be expected for the land surface. This indispensably calls for strategic approaches based on visions and transdisciplinary creativity. Hence, this paper critically reviews the Leitbild concept, an idea on spatial planning which has been widely discussed in the German-speaking planning literature but which has received scant attention elsewhere. Although the term has been translated as a ‘vision’, this paper shows that the concept is far richer in its content than these casual translations suggest. The paper shows that it defines a particular paradigm for landscape planning that embodies a transdisciplinary approach in which lay-people and experts develop both goals and strategies for realising their joint visions. A systematic overview of the key characteristics that make up the Leitbild approach is provided and set in relation to already available approaches for decision makers. Although there are similarities between the Leitbild approach and other planning and decision-support tools, such as Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), Strategic Impact Assessment (SEA) and Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA-sust), the paper shows that the particular combination of issues considered when developing a Leitbild makes it distinctive. Through an iterative process, the development of a Leitbild allows new approaches to spatial planning in which space and place can be considered as a social construct, and in which the values and understandings of local actors can be better represented.     

Consumer Responses to Homosexual Imagery in Advertising: A Meta-Analysis

Rising support for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, paired with the considerable buying power of this group, has triggered increasing interest from marketers in the gay and lesbian market. Many companies have developed advertising with homosexual imagery to better target this group as well as the mainstream market. The findings on the persuasive effects of homosexual imagery are mixed and do not provide insights on whether and when homosexual imagery in advertising supports persuasion. To resolve the inconsistencies in findings of prior research, this article presents a meta-analysis on the effects of homosexual imagery. The integrated effect size suggests that the net persuasive effect between homosexual and heterosexual imagery does not differ. We find, however, that homosexual consumers show negative responses to heterosexual imagery. Furthermore, the moderator analysis suggests that incongruence between imagery, consumer characteristics, cultural values, explicitness of imagery, endorser gender, and product type results in unfavorable responses to homosexual advertising imagery. These findings provide guidelines for future research and implications for advertisers who intend to address consumers of various sexual orientations.     

Fair Trade and Organic Agriculture in Developing Countries: A Review

Fair trade regimes and organic agricultural systems are 2 innovations that increasingly play an important role for agriculture in developing countries. Whereas fair trade regimes have their origin in the developing countries, organic agriculture was started in the rich countries and has only recently become popular in the Third World. Both innovations can be mutually reinforcing as fair trade often combined with organic production standards opens up new market prospects. In this article we explore the opportunities and constraints of marketing organic products from developing countries under fair trade regimes. Based on available literature, we review evidence of the magnitude of organic production and fair trade systems in developing countries. We also propose a framework for studying the impact of fair traded organically produced commodities using the case of black pepper in India. The framework will generate testable hypotheses regarding the 2 innovations.     

Twenty years of agricultural policy review and forecast

In a lecture on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of his Institute for Rural Structural Research in Frankfurt Professor Dr Hermann Priebe, the agronomist and economist, subjected the agricultural policy of the EC to a critical review¹. For the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, which is socially and financially unsustainable in its present form, he proposed changes which make economic sense and are not politically unattainable.     

The coming era of the financial executive: A broadened,less specialized role

Because corporate financing is becoming more complex, the role of financial executives is increasing in both importance and complexity. In addition to his traditional function of procuring funds from external sources, the new tasks of the financial executive will include generating funds from internal sources. His job will have to be broadened to include actively managing all of the corporations's major balance sheet items, and the author presents seven key questions a financial executive must consider in facing these new tasks. Thus, his role will be less specialized; it will require a knowledge of and experience with general management. The financial executive will increasingly become directly involved in the strategic issues handled by top management.     

Second home second view : Host community perceptions

This paper discusses second home owners' perceptions of facilities and services within the community, and moves beyond previous research that addressed primary motivation for location decisions. A total of 513 respondents contributed information on outdoor and indoor recreational activities, tax-supported services, health-care services, environment, crowding, and increases in tourism within a Wisconsin second home community. Findings show that the second home owners may influence the facilities, services, and sociocultural aspects of the community. Second home owners' attitudes and perceptions may be as important in determining community direction as permanent resident perceptions.