Understanding small firms in tourism: A perspective on research trends and challenges

Although small firms in tourism have featured on the agendas of policy-makers for several decades, academic interest over the same period has fluctuated. Certainly the flurry of activity that occurred during the early 1990s became a steady flow of somewhat fragmented output rather than the ambitious and coherent programme of research that was anticipated at the time. The paper traces progress in this field by reviewing inter-, multi- and disciplinary studies that contribute to current understanding of small firms in tourism and how this understanding articulates with wider debates within tourism studies. In so doing, it challenges some conventional wisdom and provides an agenda for future research.     

Retailing in Canada and the United States: Historical Comparisons

Although Canada and the United States are comparable in many ways, the retail environments of these two countries are not identical. This paper explores the evolution of the retail environments of both countries to identify the sources of these differences and provide prospects for the future. It appears that the differences in retail environment observed have their origins in population differentials and differing cultural philosophies of the countries. Although the retail environments of Canada and the United States have been converging for some rime, it is unrealistic to expect that the differences will disappear.     

Pricing training and development programs using stochastic CVP analysis

This paper sets forth, analyzes and applies a stochastic cost‐volume‐profit (CVP) model specifically geared toward the determination of enrollment fees for training and development (T+D) programs. It is a simpler model than many of those developed in the research literature, but it does incorporate one advanced component: an ‘economic’ demand function relating the expected sales level to price. Price is neither a constant nor a random variable in this model but rather the decision‐maker's basic control variable. The simplicity of the model permits analytical solutions for five ‘special prices’: (1) the highest price which sets breakeven probability equal to a minimum acceptable level; (2) the price which maximizes expected profits; (3) the price which maximizes a Cobb–Douglas utility function based on expected profits and breakeven probability; (4) the price which maximizes breakeven probability; and (5) the lowest price which sets breakeven probability equal to a minimum acceptable level. The model is applied to data provided by the Center for Management and Professional Development at the authors' university. The results suggest that there could be a significant payoff to fine‐tuning a T+D provider's pricing strategy using formal analysis. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dividend Stability, Dividend Yield and Stock Returns: UK Evidence

This paper establishes an empirical role for two measures of dividend stability (as a proxy for dividend policy) in explaining UK stock returns. There is little systematic empirical evidence concerning the relation between dividend stability, dividend yield and stock returns despite the fact that a variety of theoretical models point to dividend policy as an important stock attribute. Here we construct two definitions of dividend stability, one of which involves dividend cuts, and use a sample of all listed UK firms from 1975 to 1997 to explore the relationship between stock returns and a variety of characteristics, including dividend stability. We find an inverse correlation between the stability of past dividend policy and systematic risk. Both stability measures have explanatory power over returns, but this is concentrated in January.     

LABOUR AND LAND IN GHANA, 1874–1939: A SHIFTING RATIO AND AN INSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION

The Second Industrial Revolution created markets for new products for Ghana, rubber and then cocoa beans. Mechanised transport spurred the spread of cocoa planting. The paper estimates the resultant shift in factor ratios, and synthesises the data for prices of land-use rights and wages as the economy moved from land abundance to localised land scarcity. The consequences for factor markets were institutional rather than simply quantitative. For the first time markets in land use rights became widespread, while hired labour and farm pledging replaced slavery and debt bondage, as cocoa income made it possible for farmers to offer labourers sufficient inducement to enter the labour market.     

Interpreting shocks to the relative price of investment with a two-sector model

Consumption and investment comove over the business cycle in response to shocks that permanently move the price of investment. The interpretation of these shocks has relied on standard one-sector models or on models with two or more sectors that can be aggregated. We show that the same interpretation can also be motivated with a model that captures key features of the US Input–Output Tables and cannot be aggregated into a standard one-sector model. Our alternative model yields a closer match to the empirical evidence of positive comovement for consumption and investment subject shocks that permanently move the price of investment.     

改革开放以来我国海关管理目标与实现机制演进研究（二）

海关对一个社会开放型经济发展有巨大影响.当海关管理目标定位准确,权力运行机制按客观规律发挥作用,它便会促进国家经济发展,加速对外开放的进程;反之,则有可能影响贸易效率并引起人力、物力和财力的浪费.海关的历史演变和发展,特别是海关管理现代化的经验表明,海关治理的能力及其效率同经济发展、社会的稳定与繁荣有着密切的关系.这些条件主要表现在具有前瞻性的战略思考和管理目标的清晰,海关立法的健全,对具体法律自觉和有力的实施;取决于海关无可替代的专业性和技术性,还取决于海关人员普遍的清正廉洁,以及海关职业的体面和尊严.