Selling to Socially Responsible Consumers: Competition and The Private Provision of Public Goods

We model firms as competing for socially responsible consumers by linking the provision of a public good (environmentally friendly or socially responsible activities) to sales of their private goods. In many cases, too little of the public good is provided, but under certain conditions, competition leads to excessive provision. Further, there is generally a trade-off between more efficient provision of the private and the public good. Our results indicate that the level of private provision of the public good varies inversely with the competitiveness of the private-good market and that the types of public goods provided are biased toward those for which consumers have high participation value.     

Attitudes of food entrepreneurs towards two grant schemes under the first England Rural Development Programme, 2000–2006

Grant schemes introduced under the first England Rural Development Programme (ERDP) (2000–2006) have been subjected to limited academic research and this paper aims to fill this gap by examining the attitudes of food entrepreneurs in two contiguous English regions to two key elements of the ERDP: the Processing and Marketing Grant (PMG) and the Rural Enterprise Scheme (RES). It does this through a qualitative analysis of data gathered from interviews with 20 ‘adopters’ and 20 ‘non-adopters’ of the two schemes in the South West and West Midlands regions of England. The analysis reveals that, despite the rural development rhetoric, neither the PMG nor the RES was particularly effective at funding enterprises beyond the farm gate; both schemes also appeared to attract what can be described as ‘serial adopters’ and to discriminate against those without experience of applying for government grants. Nevertheless, indirectly they did provide opportunities to safeguard and expand local and regional food production, processing and retailing in the two regions.     

“Sent to Coventry?”

This paper reports on an employment training project undertaken in Coventry with partial funding from the European Social Fund. It involved community organisations, the community education section of the local authority and the university. The approach to training was developed in tandem with community capacity building aims. The partnership achieved a measure of trust, mutual accountability and open decision-making. The two-year project employed a part-time researcher whose role embraced active participation in project processes. There are lessons to be drawn for urban regeneration, whether strengthening local economies, attacking social exclusion or capacity building for people and their communities.     

Economic Consequences of the Declining Relevance of Financial Reports

The proliferation of alternative information sources has reduced the relevance of corporate annual reports. This paper examines economic outcomes in an oligopolistic industry as investors become better informed but financial reports convey a smaller portion of the total information. Results show that an increase in alternate sources of information, and the resulting decline in relevance of financial reports, leads to a loss in economic efficiency despite the presence of additional information. Investors benefit, but at the expense of consumers and social welfare. Investors benefit not necessarily because the amount of information in the economy increases, but because there is a change in the channels through which the same information is communicated.     

Formation of buyer-seller trade networks in a quality-differentiated product market

Abstract .  We examine the formation of buyer-seller links when exchange can take place only if such a link exists. Sellers produce products of different qualities, and multiple sellers can form a sellers' association to pool their customers setting uniform prices. Buyers form trade links with individual sellers or sellers' associations. We show which buyer-seller links will form and find the set of links that are stable and show how these links influence prices. We also show that a trade network mismatch may occur where a high-quality good remains unsold even without an economy-wide excess supply of goods.     

The determination of average hospital length of stay: an economic approach

The observed variation in length of hospital stay across the regions of the country has long been of interest to regulators, providers, and third party payors in the hospital industry. The purpose of this article is to provide an economic model of hospital and industry behavior within which these variations can be explained. The model is tested using state data for the year 1973. The model performs well, although the theoretical role of the occupancy rate suggests that additional testing is warranted.     

On the limits to energy growth

Although the total rate at which energy is released into the environment by man is only a fraction of one per cent as large as the heat absorbed from solar radiation, the continued escalation of energy use could cause global thermal pollution in a surprising short time. If the rate of energy use continues to increase as it has over the past ten years, serious climatic changes could result before the end of this century.