Weber’s Protestant Work Ethic: a case study of Scottish entrepreneurs,the Coats Family of Paisley

This study examines the potential of Weber’s Protestant Work Ethic (PWE) to illustrate the growth, development and business philosophy of J & P Coats, a thread manufacturer from Paisley. The company grew from humble beginnings in 1826 to dominate the world thread market in a comparatively short period of time. The article will begin with a synopsis of the key arguments from the PWE, before moving to a summary of many of the debates, both past and recent, which have been put forward both for and against Weber’s work. The review of this body of work will highlight the continued relevance of Weber’s thesis. The brief history of the J & P Coats firm, and the main family members involved in its rise and progress will be provided, which will then provide a background against which Weber’s theories can be examined. Finally, the article will conclude that Weber’s thesis provides a rationale for understanding the development of the company, and the behaviour of its owners, which will in turn offer more contemporary validation of Weber’s theories.     

How common is new product failure and when does it vary?

Marketing Letters - This study aims to explore how common new product failure is in consumer packaged goods (CPG) categories and investigate the conditions in which the new product failure rate...     

An investigation into food-away-from-home consumption in South Africa

Food policy that ignores food-away-from-home (FAFH) in a developing country like South Africa will be misleading given changes in demand for food over time. This study contributes to our understanding of the factors that influence the demand for FAFH in South Africa. Using panel data from the Income and Expenditure Survey, this study analyses the effects of income and socio-demographic variables on FAFH expenditure using a double-hurdle model. The results show that small-sized households headed by younger white females/males and living in an urban settlement are most likely to purchase FAFH while male-headed households spend more than female-headed households. Furthermore, income of the household head is an important determinant of household FAFH expenditures. The income elasticity of expenditure on FAFH is inelastic and a normal good. The small size of the participation elasticities means that growth in the FAFH sector will be driven by households with existing expenditure.     

Euro-Area Inflation: does the Balassa–Samuelson effect matter?

The paper argues that the Balassa–Samuelson effect is of little importance for the inflation target of the ECB. First, econometric tests of the Balassa–Samuelson effect suggest that the most robust link is found between relative sectoral deflators and relative unit labour costs; i.e. a link that accounts for an incomplete wage pass-through. For the (change in the) HICP — the target of the ECB — and its components additional factors seem to cause divergent international and sectoral developments. Second, countries with high productivity growth in industry may experience a real devaluation in the sector of tradable goods which counters the real appreciation resulting from a relative increase in service prices. It follows that the difference in productivity growth and thus the difference in the size of the relative price adjustment between countries does not have unambiguous consequences for the overall inflation rate, and as such can thus not justify an inflation target well above zero.

Assets,Attributes and Ownership

The notion of full asset ownership is important in economics, for example, in recent work on the boundaries of the firm. Much of this work has been taken up with the issue why it matters who owns an asset. However, recognizing that assets have multiple attributes, and that these may be subject to capture in a world of positive measurement and enforcement costs, implies that the notion of full asset ownership is problematic. New property rights theorists sidestep these issues by implicitly assuming that residual rights of control are perfectly enforced (i.e. full asset ownership obtains). We discuss the notion of property rights and ownership in a setting characterized by positive costs of enforcement, and suggest that in such a setting, the new property rights model is a part of a more overarching perspective, which also includes older contributions to property rights economics.     

The economic impact of irrigation agriculture: Methodological aspects and an empirical application

This article considers the regional economic impact of irrigation development by means of a case study. Theoretical aspects of irrigation development are discussed, followed by a brief overview of methodological alternatives for the determination of the economic impact of irrigation development. A case study of the south‐western Orange Free State is used to test some of the theoretical principles that have been put forward. First the deduction of a regional input‐output table is discussed. This is followed by the determination of the economic impact of irrigation agriculture in the south‐western Orange Free State. The article concludes with a discussion of the major findings.     

Measuring the Trade Restrictiveness of Domestic Support using the EU Common Agricultural Policy as an Example

We develop an index that measures the overall trade effects of domestic support payments. Our index is based on the Mercantilist Trade Restrictiveness Index (MTRI) and is capable of analysing the development of the trade restrictiveness of domestic support payments over time and across countries. It facilitates the evaluation of agricultural policy reforms introducing changes in the composition of domestic support payments. We conduct this analysis with a computable general equilibrium model that is extended to depict detailed agricultural policies using the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union (EU) as an example. For the representation of agricultural policies, we updated the underlying database by incorporating detailed EU domestic support payments taken from the OECD Producer Support Estimate (PSE) tables and reconcile PSE data with the WTO classification scheme. Our index confirms a decrease in trade distortion stemming from the implementation of decoupled support in the EU. In addition, the trade-equivalent protection rate shows that the trade restrictiveness of domestic support payments depends on the assumptions made with regard to the degree of decoupling of those payments.     

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