Tourism and employment in the Gambia

In addition to providing formal wage labor in hotels, airports, and the service infrastructure, tourism is said to provide possibilities for independent indigenous enterprise in handicrafts, entertainment, transport, through which the Gambians may, in effect, economically “lift themselves up by their bootstraps.” Such is the theory. This paper analyzes the actual employment possibilities in The Gambia provided by its recent tourism investment. From the findings of an economic survey the author concludes that hopes of economic development being catalyzed by tourism are unfounded and misleading. This conclusion is supported by a structural analysis and a characterization of the tourist industry in The Gambia by an investigation into the economic forces at work in the country, and by direct observations made by informants and the author concerning the impact tourism has made in spheres non-economic: the moral, the social, and the family.     

The effectiveness of economic sanctions with application to the case of Iraq

In a recent article, San Ling Lam (1990) used a probit estimation technique to re-examine the conclusions of Hufbauer, Schott and Elliott (1985) regarding the effectiveness of economic sanctions in achieving foreign policy goals. While Lam's criticisms of the HSE methodology are valid, the results of the model developed here differ in lending support to the HSE conclusions. In addition, the model can be used to predict the probability of sanctions contributing to a peaceful resolution of the recent Middle East crisis. The predicted probabilities of success in the Iraq case were above average and well above 50 percent.     

Contestability and creative destruction: Two approaches to monopoly

The theory of contestability ’attempts to base a model of economic efficiency on oligopolistic markets, thereby justifying adoption of laissez-faire policies in the absence of atomistic competition. The analysis is similar to Schumpeter’s condemnation of government intervention in the theory of creative destruction: both theories claim that superior economic performance is associated with concentrated rather than competitive market structures. Yet in many respects the contestability analysis is less convincing than Schumpeter’s. Whereas Schumpeter admitted the existence of short rum profits and restrictive strategies, arguing that these inefficiencies, are outweighed in the long run, the theory of contestable markets is based on short run efficiency and cannot accommodate evidence of excess profits nor many of the existing models of oligopolistic strategies, including collusion and predatory pricing. Furthermore, the theory lacks a logical explanation of investment, by entrants and convincing empirical support for its claim that concentrated markets maximize consumer welfare.     

The effects of schematic memory on imaginal information processing: An empirical assessment

The relationship between verbal and nonverbal modes of processing consumer information was examined in an investigation of schematic processing, a predominantly verbal mode, and visual imagery, a nonverbal method of information processing. It was found that individuals with a schema for a marketing event exhibited both a higher incidence and greater vividness of imagery during retrieval than did subjects without a schema. No differences were observed in either the frequency or clarity of images related to actions of varying degrees of abstraction in the event schema. These results indicate interdependence between schematic and imaginal processing consistent with the Cyclical Processing Model (Hampson and Morris 1979). A number of implications, both methodological and strategic, are developed from the observed relationship between imaginal and schematic information processing.     

Effective selling approaches to buyers' objections

Approaches for responding to an industrial buyer's indecision and price objections were uncovered. When an industrial buyer refuses to make a purchase decision or objects to price, an effective salesperson will seek understanding of the buyer's indecision, consciously look for common underlying objections, address the buyer's specific concern, and establish a decision deadline for the buyer.     

Planning horizon results for the dynamic warehouse location problem

In the last decade, a number of models for the dynamic facility location problem have been proposed. The various models contain differing assumptions regarding the revenues and costs realized in the opening, operation, and closure of a facility as well as considering which of the facility sites are candidates for acquisition or disposal at the beginning of a time period. Since the problem becomes extremely large for practical applications, much of the research has been directed toward developing efficient solution techniques. Most of the models and solutions assume that the facilities will be disposed of at the end of the time horizon since distant future conditions usually can't be forecasted with any reasonable degree of accuracy. The problem with this approach is that the “optimal” solution is optimal for only one hypothesized post horizon facility configuration and may become nonoptimal under a different configuration. Post-optimality analysis is needed to assure management that the “optimal” decision to open or close a facility at a given point in time won't prove to be “nonoptimal” when the planning horizon is extended or when design parameters in subsequent time periods change. If management has some guarantee that the decision to open or close a facility in a given time period won't change, it can safely direct attention to the accuracy of the design parameters within that time period.This paper proposes a mixed integer linear programming model to determine which of a finite set of warehouse sites will be operating in each time period of a finite planning horizon. The model is general in the sense that it can reflect a number of acquisition alternatives—purchase, lease or rent. The principal assumptions of the model are: a) Warehouses are assumed to have infinite capacity in meeting customer demand, b) In each time period, any non-operating warehouse is a candidate for becoming operational, and likewise any operating warehouse is a candidate for disposal, c) During a given time period, the fixed costs of becoming operational at a site are greater than the disposal value at that site to reflect the nonrecoverable costs involved in operating a warehouse. These costs are separate from the acquisition and liquidation values of the site. d) During a time period the operation of a warehouse incurs overhead and maintenance costs as well as a depreciation in the disposal value.To solve the model, it is first simplified and a partial optimal solution is obtained by the iterative examination by both lower and upper bounds on the savings realized if a site is opened in a given time period. An attempt is made to fix each warehouse open or closed in each time period. The bounds are based on the delta and omega tests proposed by Efroymson and Ray (1966) and Khumawala (1972) with adjustment for changes in the value of the warehouse between the beginning and end of a time period. A complete optimal solution is obtained by solving the reduced model with Benders' decomposition procedure. The optimal solution is then tested to determine which time periods contain “tentative” decisions that may be affected by post horizon data by analyzing the relationship between the lower (or upper) bounds used in the model simplification time period. If the warehouse decisions made in a time period satisfy these relationships and are thus unaffected by data changes in subsequent time periods, then the decisions made in earlier time periods will also be unaffected by future changes.