Still in democratic deficit

The rejection of the Lisbon Treaty by the Irish electorate has given new vigour to the debate on the European Union’s widely perceived democratic deficit. Does the EU indeed have a serious democracy problem? What are the options open to the European political leadership and which of these should be acted upon?     

Program context antecedents of attitude toward radio commercials

A theoretical model of program context effects on attitude toward the ad (Aad) is developed and tested. Involvement in and liking for a program are shown to exert a positive influence on both claim and nonclaim components of Aad by enhancing commercial-processing motivation. Additional analyses replicate earlier findings that Aad mediates program influence on brand attitude and identify claim strength, appeal of nonclaim factors, and number of exposures as moderators of program effects on Aad. His research has appeared in theJournal of Consumer Research, Journal of Advertising, andJournal of Economic Psychology. He has published previously in theJournal of Economic Psychology. He is the author of articles appearing in theJournal of Consumer Research, Journal of International Consumer Marketing, Journal of Direct Marketing, andEDI Forum.     

Between debt and the devil: beyond the normalization delusion

Since 2008, we have found it incredibly difficult to achieve adequate nominal demand growth. I think a fundamental reason we found it so difficult focuses on debt overhangs, if we first allow private leverage to grow too high, we end up in a situation where the debt doesn’t go away, it just moves around the global economy. Total global debt to global GDP is now higher than it ever was before. When interest rates are already low, further reductions of interest rates have very little influence on investment and consumption. Ultra-loose monetary policy does produce increases in asset prices. But if that’s driving an increase in inequality on top of slow growth of real wages. There has been inadequate focus in economics on the different functions that credit creation plays within the economy. We have to think about control of the credit cycle as an end, per se. Our orthodoxy before the crisis was that private credit and money creation is just fine. We have to understand that both governments can fail and be dangerous, and that markets can fail and be dangerous.     

External Debts,Institutions and Growth in SSA

The study investigates the impact of institutional quality on the external debt–growth nexus in SSA. Data from 36 SSA economies over the 1996–2013 periods were used. The results from the IV-System GMM imply that institutional quality has robust effects on the external debt–growth nexus. Thus, the impact of external debt on growth is through host nation’s institutional quality. However, the mediating effect of institutional quality on this nexus is up to a point. When a country is on the wrong side of the debt-laffer curve, external debt becomes irrelevant; and institutional quality can no longer help.     

Growth without normal capacity utilization

Within the demand-led approach to growth, the long-period tendencies of quantities cannot be effectively studied through theoretical positions entailing normal utilization of capacity. Whether in the form of constant or of average normal utilization, this assumption contradicts the supposed autonomy of aggregate demand. Analysis of the operation of the adjustment of capacity to demand suggests that potentially offsetting forces make fully adjusted positions irrelevant. As quantities cannot be assumed to gravitate towards such positions, the relations between quantity variables determined on the normal utilization hypothesis provide a poor guide to the analysis of reality.     

Students' experiences of learning in a third-year management accounting class: Evidence from New Zealand

An extensive body of literature in higher education (for example, Marton and Säljö, 1984; Prosser and Trigwell, 1999) explores learning from the perspectives of students. Säljö (1979) formed the basis of Sharma's (1997) first study exploring accountancy students' conceptions of learning. Using an open-ended questionnaire administered to third-year management accounting students, this paper investigates accountancy students' conceptions of learning, and extends Sharma's (1997) study by examining the relationship between conceptions of and approaches to learning, and more specifically students' contextual experiences of learning in lectures and tutorials. Findings indicate that, while some students seek understanding as an outcome of their learning, the majority perceive learning quantitatively in terms of knowledge acquisition, reproduction and application. A new classification of the locus of responsibility for learning as perceived by students suggests that a more distributed concept of responsibility might result in enhanced learning outcomes.