Consumer Ethics in the European Union: A Comparison of Northern and Southern Views

There is a growing interest in understanding consumer ethical actions in relation to their dealings with firms. This paper examines whether there are differences between Northern and Southern European Union (EU) consumers' perceptions of ethical consumer behaviour using Muncy and Vitell's (1992) Consumer Ethics Scale (CES). The study samples 962 university students across four Northern EU countries (Germany, Denmark, Scotland, The Netherlands) and four Southern EU countries (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece). Some differences are identified between the two samples, which might question the ability of organisations to consider the EU as one homogeneous market.     

Mark-ups, economies of scale and the role of knowledge spillovers in OECD industries

Using R&D-based models of economic growth as a foundation, this paper argues that market-driven knowledge creation is necessarily linked as an engine of productivity growth to economies of scale and market-power. A cost function and factor demand model is applied to a cross-country industry data set to study market-power, economies of scale and the role of knowledge in an integrated approach. Empirical results reveal the presence of market-power and economies of scale in all of the industries investigated. R&D and spillovers explain some of the productivity growth observed. Spillovers are identified as an external source of economies of scale.     

Academic entrepreneurship

This paper proposes a model of the choice to commercialize research, of the amount and type of pre‐commercial research to perform, and of the timing of commercialization by an academic scientist, and analyzes the returns and costs of these choices. The behavior and performance of the academic scientist is compared with that of an industrial researcher. Unlike the industrial researcher, the academic scientist receives direct benefit from performing research, e.g. in the form of publication and peer recognition. However, the type of research that is more effective in reducing commercialization costs may not be the one generating the highest scientific benefit. It is shown that, while in some cases the academic scientist is more reluctant to commercialize research, in other cases she may commercialize faster than a solely profit‐seeking agent would—and perform less research. Academic and non‐academic scientists also select different projects, and this may explain the good performance of academic entrepreneurs found in several empirical studies. The model offers a unified framework to interpret the mixed evidence on the success of, and the arguments in favor and against, the involvement of universities into commercial activities. Managerial and public policy implications are also examined. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

THE MEASUREMENT OF EMPLOYMENT STATUS IN SOUTH AFRICA USING COHORT ANALYSIS, 1994‐20041

We analyse trends in employment, unemployment and labour force participation by simple graphical techniques, using all the October Household Surveys and the September Labour Force Surveys. We show that African male employment in 1995 seems high, when compared to all the other surveys. Furthermore much of the increase in African female labour force participation is concentrated in the period 1998 to 2000, which suggests that measurement and sampling changes may be partially responsible for the trend. We track cohorts of individuals over the eleven years for which we have data. We show that young people are leaving school earlier, while being better educated than their elders. They are not, however, being absorbed into employment at a faster rate. This has led to a spike in youth unemployment.     

Supply side inflation persistence

We explore the role of the cost channel in accounting for inflation persistence in the New Keynesian model with Calvo pricing. Hump-shaped responses of inflation to monetary shocks are obtained under purely nominal rigidities.     

The impact of corporate social responsibility on consumer trust: the case of organic food

A critical and notoriously elusive issue in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) research is the impact of Corporate Social Performance (CSP) on the bottom line. Instead of looking for direct correlations between social and financial performance, we hypothesize that the first result of CSR activities is the creation of trust among the stakeholders. A survey conducted on consumers of organic products provided support for our hypothesis, showing that CSP influences consumer trust and that that trust in turn influences consumers' subsequent actions. The findings further suggest that intermediate variables between CSP and Corporate Financial Performance (CFP) may best support a business case for CSR.     

EXCHANGE RATE PASS‐THROUGH INTO RETAIL PRICES

We study exchange rate pass‐through and its determinants using scanner data on fast moving consumer goods sold by 1,041 outlets in the United Arab Emirates between 2006 and 2010. The data are augmented with country of origin information. Our main finding is that exchange rate pass‐through varies more across retailers within regions than across regions, and in particular that pass‐through increases with retailer market share. We also find that exchange rate pass‐through is negatively correlated with both product quality and the elasticity of substitution of the product category and positively correlated with the frequency of price adjustment.     

Big push or big failure? On the effectiveness of industrialization policies for economic development

The role of the government in industrialization is heavily debated. Some claim that extensive government involvement is key to initiate a sustainable development process, others see the government as an obstacle to it, pointing to the importance of government failure. We formulate a model, which explains why even a highly inefficient industrial policy can successfully promote big-push development. Moreover, we show that extensive government intervention is more likely to be successful when the initial level of development is low.