Technological Change and Transition: Relative Contributions to Worldwide Growth During the 1990s*

In this paper we use the Kumar and Russell [American Economic Review (2002) Vol. 92, pp. 527–548] growth‐accounting procedure to examine cross‐country growth during the 1990s. Using a data set comprising developed, newly industrialized, developing and transitional economies, we decompose the growth of output per worker into components attributable to technological catch‐up, technological change and capital accumulation. In contrast to the study by Kumar and Russell, which concludes that capital deepening is the major force of growth and change in the world income per worker distribution over the 1965–90 period, our analysis shows that, during the 1990s, the major force in the further divergence of the rich and the poor is due to technological change, whereas capital accumulation plays a lesser and opposite role. Finally, although on average we find that transitional economies perform similar to the rest of the world, the procedure is able to discover some interesting patterns within the set of transitional countries.     

MISGUIDED CORPORATE VIRTUE: THE CASE AGAINST CSR,AND THE TRUE ROLE OF BUSINESS TODAY1

The doctrine of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has now been accepted across the world – not only by businesses and business organisations, together with an array of commentators and NGOs, but also by many governments. This is a worrying development. The doctrine rests on mistaken presumptions about recent economic developments and their implications for the role and conduct of enterprises, while putting it into effect would make the world poorer and more over‐regulated.     

CLIMATE CHANGE ISSUES: A DISSENTING VOICE

(The text which follows formed the basis for a brief presentation to a conference held on 22 April 2009 at the Said Business School, Oxford University. The subject of the conference was 'Beyond Kyoto – Green Innovation and Enterprise in the 21st Century'.)
Governments across the world are mishandling climate change issues. The content, the orientation, and in particular the basis and rationale of current policies to curb emissions of (so-called) 'greenhouse gases', are all open to serious question.     

Consumer Reactions to Corporate Tax Strategies: Effects on Corporate Reputation and Purchasing Behavior

On the basis of an interdisciplinary approach linking taxation, marketing, and corporate social responsibility, the present research investigates the effects of media reports on aggressive and responsible corporate tax strategies (CTSs) on corporate success with consumers. By means of two laboratory experiments (N = 150, 360), we analyze the effects of the CTSs on corporate reputation, consumer purchase intention, and the consumer’s willingness to pay. Our results suggest that aggressive CTSs diminish corporate success with consumers, whereas responsible CTSs enhance it. Nevertheless, consumers are not willing to pay a price premium for products sold by responsible tax-planning companies, but rather punish aggressive tax-planning companies through a slightly lower willingness to pay. Finally, consumers’ tax morale and their attitude toward tax avoidance are important moderating variables. Given the growing level of media interest in taxation, our findings are crucial for assessing consumer-related non-tax costs and the benefits of different CTSs.     

I am who I am: Sharing photos on social media by older consumers and its influence on subjective well-being

We are faced with an aging population whose longer lives need to be lived well. Extant marketing scholarship has largely neglected older consumers' behavior in relation to the social media realm and its influence on well-being. This two-stage qualitative study investigates subjective well-being, exploring whether and how sharing photos on social media increases the dimensions of self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, and personal growth. The findings indicate that photo-sharing is a powerful behavior in augmenting older consumers' well-being as it enables individual self-reflection, self-representation and transforms the individual experience into a collective one. Contributions include, that photo-sharing acts as a bridge in creating, reinforcing but also breaking bonds among older consumers, also a tension exists between the desire for autonomy and the need for relationships with others, and finally that the digital self is a component of subjective well-being in older consumers.