Implications of Seasonal Climate Forecasts on World Wheat Trade: A Stochastic, Dynamic Analysis

Improvements in seasonal climate forecasts have potential economic implications for international agriculture. A stochastic, dynamic simulation model of the international wheat economy is developed to estimate the potential effects of seasonal climate forecasts for various countries' wheat production, exports and world trade. Previous studies have generally ignored the stochastic and dynamic aspects of the effects associated with the use of climate forecasts. This study shows the importance of these aspects. In particular with free trade, the use of seasonal forecasts results in increased producer surplus across all exporting countries. In fact, producers appear to capture a large share of the economic surplus created by using the forecasts. Further, the stochastic dimensions suggest that while the expected long‐run benefits of seasonal forecasts are positive, considerable year‐to‐year variation in the distribution of benefits between producers and consumers should be expected. The possibility exists for an economic measure to increase or decrease over a 20‐year horizon, depending on the particular sequence of years. Le progrès des prévisions saisonnières du climat a une portée économique pour l'agriculture internationale. Un modèle stochastique et dynamique de l'économie internationale du blé est développé afin d'estimer les effets potentiels des prévisions saisonnières du climat sur la production de blé de divers pays, leurs exportations et le commerce mondial. Les études précédentes ont généralement ignoré les aspects stochastiques et dynamiques des effets liés à l'utilisation des prévisions climatiques. Cette étude montre l'importance de ces aspects. En particulier avec le libre échange l'utilisation de ces prévisions aboutit à l'augmentation des excédents dans tous les pays exportateurs. En fait, il apparaît que les producteurs accaparent une grande part de l'excédent économique créé par l'utilisation de ces prévisions. De plus, les dimensions stochastiques suggèrent que bien que les bénéfices à long terme des prévisions climatiques puissent être substantiels, on s'attend à des variations considérables d'une année à l'autre dans la distribution des bénéfices entre les producteurs et les consommateurs. Il est possible qu'un indicateur économique varie à la baisse sur 20 ans eus fonction de la séquence de variation climatique.     

Gambling,Prediction Markets and Public Policy

The recent worldwide increase in gambling and prediction markets, including casinos, sports betting, lotteries, elections, and wagering on financial instruments has stimulated an important debate regarding the public policy implications of these activities. Some critical research questions concern the efficiency of such markets, heterogeneity in risk attitudes among agents engaged in these activities, the factors that influence performance in gambling, and the desirability of using prediction markets. This special issue provides empirical evidence on these issues.     

Transforming teachers’ temporalities: Futures in an Australian classroom

There is much rhetoric in education about the ways in which students are prepared for ‘the future’. The notion of the future in Australian education is dominantly singular, vague and abstract. This paper describes research which investigates changes which occur within teacher practices, enacted curriculum and student learning. The case study at the centre of this research focuses on a primary school south-east of Melbourne, Australia, which is internationally acknowledged as ‘innovative and leading’ in ‘educating for the future’. Initially, it was apparent that this notion of the future was assumed, and these specific teachers had given little thought to what that future looked like, or how that related to students’ learning requirements. As a result of professional learning, the teachers underwent temporal transformation, in integrating explicit futures dimensions within their curriculum. Arising from this research were significant key findings which highlight the need for a reconceptualisation of the ways in which curriculum and pedagogy are enacted in regards to notions of multiple futures. Furthermore, it generates renewed calls for futures perspectives to be addressed explicitly within education. Importantly it highlights a deficit in current teacher thinking about their roles in ‘educating for the future’.     

A smart place to work? Big data systems,labour, control and modern retail stores

The modern retail store is a complex coded assemblage and data‐intensive environment, its operations and management mediated by a number of interlinked big data systems. This paper draws on an ethnography of a retail store in Ireland to examine how these systems modulate the functioning of the store and working practices of employees. It was found that retail work involves a continual movement between a governance regime of control reliant on big data systems which seek to regulate and harnesses formal labour and automation into enterprise planning, and a disciplinary regime that deals with the symbolic, interactive labour that workers perform and act as a reserve mode of governmentality if control fails. This continual movement is caused by new systems of control being open to vertical and horizontal fissures. While retail functions as a coded assemblage of control, systems are too brittle to sustain the governmentality desired.     

East meets West: Toward a theoretical model linking guanxi and relationship marketing

This conceptual study critically examines the separate concepts of guanxi and relationship marketing, explores the differences between the two approaches, and proposes innovative linkages between them. Chinese guanxi develops relationships at the inter-personal level, whereas relationship marketing develops relationships at the inter-organizational level. Both concepts are well known, but a dearth of critical comparison remains in academic literature, even though evidence suggests that managers can use the linkages between the approaches to improve customer recruitment and retention. Through a critical review and synthesis of prior research on guanxi and relationship marketing, this study proposes a novel theoretical model that links guanxi and relationship marketing and develops theoretical and managerial implications of such linkages. As such, this study offers new and valuable insights and benefits for Asian firms, which employ only guanxi-type relationships.     

Towards effective advertising self‐regulation in Australia: the seven components

Despite claims of social and economic benefits, advertising has always had its critics. However, when dealing with unacceptable advertising, advertisers in developed countries usually choose a self‐regulatory approach in order to stave off government intervention. The recent breakdown of one of the world's longest established advertising self‐regulatory programmes in Australia has reopened the 20‐year‐old debate concerned with enhancing understanding of such regulatory systems. This article presents a framework for assisting in improving the effectiveness of advertising self‐regulation that is informed by both the literature and the key findings of an Australian study. The study used a mixed approach to data collection, including in‐depth interviews with regulators, advertisers and public participants and historical analysis of more than 10 000 complaints over a period of 10 years. From this research three key concepts are developed for assisting industry and regulators concerned with regulating advertising in eliminating undesirable features of such systems in the future. The empirical work succeeds in making both a practical and theoretical contribution to advertising self‐regulation specifically and industry regulation in general.     

A Behavioral Life-Cycle Approach to Understanding the Wealth Effect

The somewhat surprising strength in consumer spending in recent years has focused renewed attention on the much-debated wealth effect, the notion that when individuals feel wealthier, they consume more. This study utilizes survey data to examine the wealth effect within the context of the behavioral life-cycle model of savings. The results indicate that the likelihood of households spending more when their assets increase in value decreases with the portion of assets held in home equity. This unexpected finding is due to homeowners responding to the perceived wealth gain from increased home values by cashing out their equity. The likelihood increases with the portion of assets held in stock outside of retirement accounts, but is not significantly related to the portion of assets held in stock overall. Moreover, households that have a full-time income earner, are homeowners, have more education, have a younger household head, or expect economic growth, are more likely to report a wealth effect. Households that utilize savings “rules of thumb” are less likely to report a wealth effect. These results can be used to improve the wealth effect specification in consumer demand models and assist firms to target consumer markets.