Meat marketing in Burkina Faso after the devaluation of the FCFA: Insights into the functioning of informal market systems

The strategies that participants in informal African markets adopt in response to shocks have rarely been analysed, yet these can provide important insights into how such markets function. Policy advice often seeks to modernise trading practices within such markets so as to improve efficiency. However, efforts to improve efficiency could have undesirable consequences if the current functioning of the markets is inadequately understood. In Burkina Faso, the FCFA devaluation in 1994 led to increasing livestock exports and a subsequent meat shortage on the domestic market. Based on market statistics from Burkina Faso and household interviews, the study investigates the status of meat consumption before and up to four years after the devaluation. Results indicate that the price increase for cattle was only transmitted to consumers after a time lag. Meat is more frequently sold in little heaps than on a weight basis. Lower per-kg prices of smaller size heaps imply an income gain for poorer consumers. Butchers use all edible body parts in addition to the carcass (i.e. head, hoofs, intestines) to buffer price fluctuations and to cope with the consumers’ notion of a fixed nominal price. This suggests that butchers and their clients are embedded in networks of what [S. Plattner, 1989. Economic behavior in markets. In: Plattner S. (Ed.), Economic anthropology, Stanford, pp. 209–222.] called equilibrating economic relations, which are favoured by the perishable nature of meat. Selling live animals or meat by weight is often considered as a measure to increase transparency within informal markets. However, the introduction of formalized or standardized marketing measures alone, without lowering the transaction costs of other components of the value chain, risks undermining the equilibrating social relationships that play an important role particularly for the poorer market actors, and thereby disadvantaging vulnerable population groups.     

The influence of extrinsic product attributes on consumers’ food decisions: review and network analysis of the marketing literature

ABSTRACT

The paper synthesises the existing research on the influence of key product characteristics on the consumers’ food decision-making. By applying network analysis on a sample of 233 empirical studies from the last three decades, the paper demonstrates how marketing-specific variables are embedded in a network of other predictors. The paper also analyses network structure and density using well established measures. The results show that there is still a lack of research concerning the interplay between marketing-relevant extrinsic product attributes (e.g. price, brand, labelling, country of origin) and intrinsic food attributes, policy-related factors, as well as aspects of the proximal and distal environment. The paper identifies gaps in the marketing literature and derives research propositions. Additionally, implications for marketing practice are developed.     

Carrotmob as a New Form of Ethical Consumption. The Nature of the Concept and Avenues for Future Research

A new form of ethical consumption has recently evolved: The carrotmob. As in a flashmob, consumers collectively swarm a specific store and purchase its goods in order to reward corporate socially responsible behaviour. The present paper introduces a conceptionalization of carrotmobs that takes into account the perspective of the three relevant parties: activists, companies, and consumers. First, the paper considers activists?? objectives in initiating such a social movement. It describes how they use guerrilla tactics to foster the participation of companies and consumers. Second, the paper considers the perspective of the target company, stressing the role of corporate social responsibility and describing how companies compete in an auction to become the carrotmob target. Third, the paper highlights the consumer perspective, discussing different views on consumer power and the motivation to participate in a carrotmob. The paper also points out directions for further empirical research for each of these three perspectives.     

Regulatory Uncertainty: A Reason to Postpone Investments? Not Necessarily

There is a polarity in the literature as to whether companies do or do not postpone investment decisions in the light of regulatory uncertainty. In the case of flexible regulation characterized by a high degree and discontinuous resolution of uncertainty, we show that companies do not necessarily postpone investment decisions. We trace this observation back to three motivations: securing competitive resources, leveraging complementary resources, and alleviating institutional pressure. We connect these motivations to fundamental principles of the resource-based view and institutional theory and further show the existence of a regime where institutionally motivated and resource-based actions are not necessarily decoupled. We base our research on a case study covering 80 per cent of the German power generation industry which faces regulatory uncertainty from the European CO₂ Emission Trading Scheme.     

International macroeconomic fluctuations and the current account

Abstract.  Intertemporal models of the current account generally assume that global shocks do not affect the current account. We use this assumption to identify global and country‐specific shocks in a bivariate VAR of output and the current account. Cross‐country evidence from the G7 economies suggests that this identification works surprisingly well. We then employ our method to collect stylized facts on international macroeconomic fluctuations. We find that long‐term output growth is driven mainly by global factors in most G7 countries and that country‐specific shocks are less persistent and generally less volatile than global shocks. JEL Classification: F41, F43, C32
Fluctuations macroéconomiques internationales et compte courant.  Les modèles inter‐temporels du compte courant postulent généralement que les chocs globaux n'affectent pas le compte courant. On utilise ce postulat pour identifier les chocs globaux et ceux qui sont spécifiques à des pays donnés dans un modèle VAR du produit global et du compte courant. Les résultats transversaux pour les pays du G7 suggèrent que cette forme d'identification donne de très bons résultats. On emploie cette méthode pour examiner des faits stylisés des fluctuations macro‐économiques internationales.Il appert que la croissance à long terme du produit dépend de facteurs globaux dans la plupart des pays du G7 et que les chocs particuliers aux pays ont un impact moins permanent et moins volatile que les chocs globaux.     

Education, trade and investment liberalizations

Empirical evidence suggests a two-way causality between skilled labor and inward direct investment. I construct a general equilibrium model that allows for endogenous firm and plant-location decisions and the endogenous accumulation of skilled labor. I examine the effect of an education subsidy when trade is liberalized and investment is restricted and vice versa. For an initially skilled-labor-scarce country, I show that an education subsidy under investment liberalization can jump the economy to a high-level equilibrium, and that it may be possible to remove the subsidy completely and remain at the superior equilibrium.     

Resource relatedness and the mode of entry into new businesses: Internal resource accumulation vs. access by collaborative arrangement

When firms seek to enter a new business segment, they have to decide how to best gain access to the required resources. This paper analyzes how resource relatedness influences a firm's decision between internal development and collaborative arrangement as modes of entry. We distinguish between a firm's capacity to transfer its established resources to the new segment (resource transferability) and the integration and synergistic combination of current firm resources with target segment resources in day‐to‐day operations (resource complementarity). Resource transferability makes entry by internal development more likely, but this effect depends on segment characteristics. Synergies from complementary resources can be exploited more easily within firm boundaries than across an alliance interface. However, certain partner characteristics can substitute in part for belonging to the same firm. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Credit Risk in Interbank Networks

ABSTRACT

One of the most striking characteristics of modern financial systems is their complex interdependence, comprising a network of bilateral exposures in the interbank market, in which institutions with surplus liquidity can lend to those with a liquidity shortage. Empirical studies reveal that some interbank networks have features of scale-free networks. We explore the characteristics of financial contagion in networks whose distribution of links approaches a power law, using a model that defines banks’ balance sheets from information on network connectivity. By varying the parameters for the creation of the network, several interbank networks are built, in which the concentration of debt and credit comes from the distribution of links. The results suggest that networks that are more connected and have a high concentration of credit are more resilient to contagion than other types of networks analyzed.     

Internationalization Strategies Underlying the Performance of Foreign Banks in Latin American Markets

In this article, we evaluate the internationalization strategies underlying the performance of foreign banks in Latin American countries. Based on a multiple case study, we investigated the organizational paths in the study countries, the market segments served and performance. Our results show that it is possible to consider both economic and behavioral perspectives in this kind of analysis in order to map the entry modes and features of large banks in the study countries. We observed that some banks may have similar strategies in local markets, with particular emphasis on local adaptation, while others seem to promote the development of previous corporate characteristics.