Inflation and the wage lag during the American Civil War

This paper examines the role of inflation in financing the American Civil War, and the effects of that inflation on the level of real wages in the North. A wage determination model is specified in which the equilibrium real wage is determined by real forces and the money wage is allowed to adjust to its equilibrium value with lags. Econometric estimates of the model support Wesley Clair Mitchell's contention that wage movements lagged price movements during the war. Comparison of the estimated equilibrium money wage and the estimated current money wage makes it possible to assess the magnitude and importance of the wartime redistribution of income attributable to inflation.     

Optimal incentive contracts with multiple agents

A setting in which a single principal contracts with two agents who possess perfect private information about their own productivity is considered. With correlated productivities, each agent's private information also provides a signal about the other agent's productivity. In contrast to the setting in which there is only one agent, it is shown that such private information may be of no value to the agents. It is only if the agents are risk-averse that their private information may allow them to command rents. Moreover, when the agents are constrained only to reveal their private information truthfully as a Nash equilibrium, the Pareto optimal incentive scheme may induce the agents to adopt strategies other than truth-telling. This leads to the consideration of truth-telling equilibria that are not Pareto dominated in the subgame played by the agents. Among all such equilibria, the one preferred by the principal restricts one agent to tell the truth as a dominant strategy and the other as a Nash response to truth.     

Brand experience as a moderator of the negative impact of promotions

While price promotions are generally believed to have a positive impact on immediate sales, their effects on attitude towards repurchase, quality perceptions, and repurchase are far less clear. We present a study that tests the effect of brand experience in moderating the negative impact of promotions. The results of the laboratory study indicate that the negative impact of a discount on perceptions of quality and subsequent intent to purchase at full price is eliminated among those who had tried the brand. The moderation of the negative impact of promotions has not been previously shown to occur despite its prediction by a variety of behavioral theories.     

Ethics and environmental marketing

Corporations have scrambled to bring to market products positioned and advertised as addressing the needs of the environmentally-conscious consumer. The vast majority of claims presented in support of these products are best described, however, as confused, misleading or outright illegal. Ethical considerations have not yet been integrated into environmental marketing, and as a result, long-term harm on both the individual and societal level may result. A framework for reversing this trend is presented. It identifies the sequence of actions necessary for the development and communication of ethical environmental marketing claims. The sequence is based upon two aspects of ethical theory: moral style and normative behavior. Specific implications for marketers' actions at each stage in the sequence of framework development are also discussed.Dr. Joel J. Davis is Assistant Professor of Journalism at San Diego State University. Prior to joining the faculty at San Diego State, Dr. Davis was Vice President, Associate Director of Strategic Planning and Research at D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles Advertising.     

Assessment centers: A contrast of usage in diverse environments

The assessment center technique for sales force selection, promotion, career development, and training has received substantial attention. In addition to being cited as having substantial potential for more traditional sales management applications, the approach has been identified as well-suited for cross-cultural and multinational sales environments. This study appraises assessment center applications in two divergent settings: the United States and Europe. Expectations of greater awareness and utilization among European marketing managers were confirmed. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Local search and the evolution of technological capabilities

The assumption that ‘local search’ constrains the direction of corporate R&D is central in evolutionary perspectives on technological change and competition. In this paper, we propose a network-analytic approach for identifying the evolution of firms' technological positions. The approach (1) permits graphical and quantitative assessments of the extent to which firms' search behavior is locally bounded, and (2) enables firms to be positioned and grouped according to the similarities in their innovative capabilities. The utility of the proposed framework is demonstrated by an analysis of strategic partnering and the evolution of the technological positions of the 10 largest Japanese semiconductor producers from 1982 to 1992.