A useful scope for marketing

The debate over the nature and scope of marketing is far from settled, but the desire for change among marketers is apparent. It is urgent that marketers determine what the scope of their field should become as a necessary first step in developing an adequate definition. The effort so far has been somewhat haphazard with a variety of authors-extolling the virtues of their viewpoint. This article represents an attempt to add order to the search for a useful scope for marketing. To achieve this purpose, four norms are developed which seem suitable for testing the scope and definition of marketing. They include the level of abstraction norm, the norm of correspondence, the pragmatic norm, and the norm of simplicity. These four norms are first used to test two extreme positions and then to test a third compromise definition of marketing.     

The effect of property taxes on urban areas

The effects of property taxes on urban areas are studied relative to a local wage tax. The changes in urban population and in the consumption and price of housing are determined in cities with various types of production sectors. Distortions in the composition of housing and residential density patterns are also reported. Examples are constructed to quantify the size of the changes and test whether property taxes are capitalized into land values.     

AIDS is your business

If your company operates in a developing country, AIDS is your business. While Africa has received the most attention, AIDS is also spreading swiftly in other parts of the world. Russia and Ukraine had the fastest-growing epidemics last year, and many experts believe China and India will suffer the next tidal wave of infection. Why should executives be concerned about AIDS? Because it is destroying the twin rationales of globalization strategy-cheap labor and fast-growing markets--in countries where people are heavily affected by the epidemic. Fortunately, investments in programs that prevent infection and provide treatment for employees who have HIV/AIDS are profitable for many businesses--that is, they lead to savings that outweigh the programs' costs. Due to the long latency period between HIV infection and the onset of AIDS symptoms, a company is not likely to see any of the costs of HIV/AIDS until five to ten years after an employee is infected. But executives can calculate the present value of epidemic-related costs by using the discount rate to weigh each cost according to its expected timing. That allows companies to think about expenses on HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs as investments rather than merely as costs. The authors found that the annual cost of AIDS to six corporations in South Africa and Botswana ranged from 0.4% to 5.9% of the wage bill. All six companies would have earned positive returns on their investments if they had provided employees with free treatment for HIV/AIDS in the form of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), according to the mathematical model the authors used. The annual reduction in the AIDS "tax" would have been as much as 40.4%. The authors' conclusion? Fighting AIDS not only helps those infected; it also makes good business sense.     

An empirical examination of the effectiveness of dollar-cost averaging using downside risk performance measures

Some studies find the dollar-cost averaging investment strategy to be sub-optimal using a traditional Sharpe ratio performance ranking metric. Using both the Sortino ratio and the Upside Potential ratio, we empirically test four investment strategies for alternative asset investments. We find the relative ranking of dollar-cost averaging remains inferior to alternative investment strategies. (JEL G1, G11, N2)     

The Influence of Household Formation on Homeownership Rates Across Time and Race

Homeownership rates equal the number of households that own homes divided by the number of households in the population. Differences in the propensity to form a household, therefore, may contribute to changes in homeownership rates over time in addition to long-standing racial gaps in homeownership. We examine these issues on an age-specific basis using data from the 1970 to 2000 public use microsamples of the decennial census. Results indicate that lower headship rates tend to reduce homeownership rates. This pattern is most notable for individuals in their early and mid 20s. For these individuals, declining headship rates between 1970 and 2000 reduced homeownership rates by three to five percentage points. Moreover, 2000 African American headship rates narrow white–black gaps in homeownership by roughly three percentage points, whereas 2000 Hispanic headship rates widen white–Hispanic gaps in homeownership by two to three percentage points. Thus, controlling for differences in headship behavior, white–black homeownership gaps are somewhat more severe than previously recognized, but the reverse is true for white–Hispanic gaps.     

The Impacts of Remittances, Residency Status and Financial Attachment on Housing Tenure for Mexican-Heritage Americans: Inferences from a New Survey

Immigration has and will continue to alter the composition of housing demand in the United Sates. In this article, we analyze results from a new survey of Mexican-heritage households to draw some inferences about tenure choice within that group. Some measures of attachment to the United States—residency status and the amount of money sent to relatives and friends in Mexico—suggest that, among Mexican immigrants, permanence is a key determinant of homeownership in the United States. More specifically, being a citizen increased the probability of ownership, whereas being undocumented reduces the probability. Surprisingly, after controlling for residency status, length of tenure in the United States does not predict tenure status, except that those who refused to report length of tenure were more likely to have higher tenure status. Those who sent remittances home to Mexico were less likely to become homeowners.     

The Correct use of Confidence Intervals and Regression Analysis in Determining the Value of Residential Homes

This paper shows that (1) the principle of substitution has been misinterpreted in regression analysis on residential homes by the misuse of the confidence interval; (2) the proper confidence interval to judge the accuracy of the equation is the mean CI; and (3) the accuracy of the equation can be improved by applying factor analysis to the entire data set rather than a predetermined neighborhood. These results are illustrated in a sample of 571 residential sales in Northwest Arkansas during 1975. The data are divided into clusters, and a regression equation is computed for each. The results show that the mean confidence interval is the correct application of the principle of substitution. The correct decision rule to determine the superiority of the multi-equation or the single equation model compares the explained to the unexplained variation. These results should allow the appraiser to select properties that are better suited for comparison. This will improve the accuracy of the regression analysis and resulting estimates of property value.     

Factors that influence the length of industrial channels

This article is concerned with the length of channels utilized to market industrial products. Several marketing scholars have proposed that the appropriate channel structure is a function of conditions associated with the market for the product, the nature of the product itself, and characteristics of the producer and middlemen. By means of a survey of industrial product manufacturers, this study identified six characteristics of middlemen, industrial markets, and industrial customers that appear to be significant influences on the length of channels used to distribute industrial products.     

Measures used to evaluate industrial marketing activities

Given the importance of controlling marketing efforts, a study was conducted of industrial manufacturers to determine the extent of their use of various measures to evaluate different marketing activities. The predominate measures used for evaluation were sales volume with much less utilization of profitability, productivity, and expense measures.