A model of adolescents' online consumer self-efficacy (OCSE)

This paper investigates adolescent online shopping and self-efficacy development in the virtual setting. The authors present and test a model of antecedents and mediators to two dimensions of online consumer self-efficacy. Additionally, a discriminant analysis finds that more involved adolescent online shoppers can be differentiated from less involved online shoppers on key variables of interest-shopping motivations, self-efficacies, shopping behaviors, and relative influence in household decision-making.     

World market integration for export and food crops in developing countries: a case study for Mali and Nicaragua

Using a generalized error correction model, this article measures and compares market integration for export cash crops versus imported food crops for Mali and Nicaragua, and computes transmission elasticities between changes in the goods’ border and domestic prices. Both Mali and Nicaragua obtain the bulk of their export revenue from a particular agricultural commodity—cotton for Mali and coffee for Nicaragua—and both import the same key staple food of rice. To reap the economic gains from this trade specialization, the two countries’ agriculture must be well‐integrated into world markets. The two countries present an important policy contrast that affects their degree of world market integration and price transmission. In Mali, a parastatal enterprise controls its cotton industry, while Nicaragua has less state direction over agriculture. Reflecting this difference, the results show that for both its main export and import commodity, Nicaragua is more integrated into world markets and has higher price transmission than Mali. The results for Nicaragua also show much higher integration and price transmission for its main agricultural export (coffee) than its major import (rice).     

Impact of formalisation of property rights in informal settlements: Evidence from Dar es Salaam city

This paper aims to study the responsiveness of the informal property market and management systems towards the introduction of land registration for informal settlements in Tanzania. City governments are increasingly recognising the need to strengthen legal rights for the urban poor as a means to bring them more effectively into the urban economy and ensure better provision of water, sanitation and other primary services. The research focuses on Tanzania and in particular two case studies within Dar es Salaam. The findings of the work suggest that the introduction of residential licenses whilst potentially assisting in creating legal certainty has not resulted in the financial sector accepting them as full security against loans. Accessing credit by the poor however has not yet been fully realised resulting in some further hurdles for the financial sector to overcome. Finally, and of some significance is the registration of property in the informal settlements has provided the opportunity of formal property transactions within these settlements.     

Monopoly and the problem of the economists

By any measure economists have played increasingly prominent roles in antitrust policy making, at least since the early 1970s. Indeed, the approach to the analysis of public policy toward business pioneered by Chicago school economists dominates the academic literature nowadays. According to the Chicago school's adherents, their insistence that antitrust be examined through the lens of price theory should have produced discernably ‘better’ (read pro-consumer) laws and ‘better’ law enforcement. This paper contends that economists have in fact not had a positive influence on antitrust policy, but have instead actively contributed to its use as a way of subverting competitive market forces.     

TFP change and its components for Swedish manufacturing firms during the 2008–2009 financial crisis

Journal of Productivity Analysis - A driving force of economic development is growth in total factor productivity (TFP). Manufactured goods are, to a large extent, exports, and represent an...     

Applications of amine gelling agents in fire technology

A novel gelatin system for use in oil spills at sea provides rapid immobilization of liquids upon demand.