Women in the migrant economy. A positional approach to contextualize gendered transnational trajectories

ABSTRACT

Drawing on the life histories of migrant women entrepreneurs in the Netherlands and Spain, this article explores the influence of transnational trajectories on their social positions and business strategies. A translocational positional approach enables us to research the transnational strategies of women entrepreneurs more effectively in addition to examining the changes in social positions and gendered identities between the country of origin and the country of destination. This approach contributes to scholarship on ‘context’ by offering a transnational gendered dimension in relation to the effects of social, spatial and institutional factors. Our findings demonstrate how female migrant entrepreneurs redefine their social status in different contexts by establishing a business and challenge, contest or comply with gender relations in their transnational entrepreneurial journeys.     

Taking the ivory from the tower to coat the economic world: Regional strategies to make science useful

In this paper, we aim at providing a critical appraisal of academic research valorisation models adopted in three regions in the world: the Provincia di Milano in Italy, the Technology-Region Karlsruhe in Germany and the Chinese municipality of Chongqing.Our first originality consists in developing a literature-based analytical grid to characterise and classify existing tools. In a second step, we depict and compare, thanks to a qualitative analysis run on fine-grained data (collected through in depth interviews and frequent interactions with actors of the regional innovation systems), the mechanisms adopted in the three regions so as to test for specificities in the implementation of academic knowledge transfer.Our analysis exhibits on the one hand a strong similarity among regions in terms of variety of existing tools. On the other hand, we also notice some specificities in the nature of the tools: European regions are characterised by an under-representation of absorption and appropriation tools, whereas the Chinese region seems to put great stress on direct valorisation mechanisms. Finally, rather than supporting the imitation, multiplication and superposition of newly created tools, our study encourages policy makers to be more selective and adapt their tools to regional innovative needs.     

An empirical test of the inequality trap concept

The paper uses a GMM estimation to prove the impact of equity on inequality persistence which suggests the presence of inequality trap, and underline the significant influence of the credit market, wealth and education access initial levels.     

Demand for Piped and Non-piped Water Supply Services: Evidence from Southwest Sri Lanka

In many countries water supply is a service that is seriously underpriced, especially for residential consumers. This has led to a call for setting cost recovery policies to ensure that the tariffs charged for water supply cover the full cost of service provision. Identification of factors driving piped and non-piped water demand is a necessary prerequisite for predicting how consumers will react to such price increases. Using cross-sectional data of 1,800 households from Southwest Sri Lanka, we estimate water demand functions for piped and non-piped households using appropriate econometric techniques. The (marginal) price elasticity is estimated at  − 0.15 for households exclusively relying on piped water, and at  − 0.37 for households using piped water but supplementing their supply with other water sources. The time cost elasticity for households relying on non-piped water only is estimated at  − 0.06 on average, but varying across sources. For both piped and non-piped households, we find evidence of substitutability between water from different sources. We discuss the implications of these results in terms of pricing policy.     

The drop and collect survey among industrial populations: theory and empirical evidence

This paper examines the effectiveness of drop-and-collect-survey (DCS) method in improving response rates among organisations. It proposes a theory for its effectiveness and advances a number of propositions relating to its usage among organisations. Subsequent analyses, using empirical evidence from two separate DCS-based studies in Nigeria and Germany, suggest that the DCS results in significantly higher response rates among organisational respondents compared to mail questionnaires. These improved response rates are more likely to be achieved among smaller organisations and through direct, face to face, contact with the target key informant. Combining DCS with prenotification showed only a small, but positive effect. Support was also found for the hypothesised greater effectiveness of the DCS among high-technology firms relative to their low-technology counterparts. Based on the proposed theory and the empirical findings, a DCS decision and implementation framework is presented and directions for future research suggested.     

The Methuselah market

In this paper the authors focus on the Methuselah Market, defined as those people within five years of retirement age. Demographic change over the last 100 years has led to a substantial increase in the proportion of the population in the older, near retirement age group. Yet as consumers the needs of this sector of the population have been neglected by marketers. The size, characteristics and potential of the Methuselah Market are discussed, and specific product areas of particular interest to this market are identified. A further paper will be published in the November issue reviewing the decision‐making process of the older consumer and indicating specific marketing strategies relevant to the Methuselah Market.     

European gas imports from North Africa

The uprising and military confrontation in Libya that began in February 2011 has led to a disruption of the country’s gas exports to Europe. An analysis of how Europe has compensated for these missing gas volumes shows that the disruption has not affected security of supply. However, this situation would change if the North African uprising were to spread to Algeria.     

THE DOTHAN PRICING MODEL REVISITED

We compute zero‐coupon bond prices in the Dothan model by solving the associated PDE using integral representations of heat kernels and Hartman–Watson distributions. We obtain several integral formulas for the price P(t, T) at time t > 0 of a bond with maturity T > 0 that complete those of the original paper of Dothan, which are shown not to always satisfy the boundary condition P(T, T) = 1 .     

Beyond drinking: the role of wine in the life of the UK consumer

Since the development of wine sales via supermarkets in the UK in the 1970s wine consumption has more than doubled so now the UK is the largest wine import market (by value) in the world. Wine is now consumed by approximately 61% of the UK adult population on a regular basis. For many social wine consumption has become part of their lifestyle. Given the international importance of the UK wine market, plus the increasing incorporation of wine into regular consumption behaviour, it is remarkable how few academic studies have been undertaken into the consumption behaviour of moderate, social UK wine consumers. This paper aims to start developing that knowledge, thus adding to our understanding of consumer behaviour in general. The results show that consumers use wine in very sophisticated ways via purchasing, gifting and consumption. The findings also show that social interaction with wine varies significantly, dependant upon occasion and environment. Behaviour also varies if the purchase, as gift and/or for consumption, is perceived as a private or public activity. This paper places UK wine consumer behaviour within a social context, and is able to show that all consumers display a range of behaviours in relation to wine which are situation and occasion dependant.     

Toward sustainable consumption: Researching voluntary simplifiers

This article examines and extends the notion of voluntary simplifiers (VS). VS are individuals who have freely chosen a frugal, anticonsumer lifestyle that features low resource use and environmental impact. The article will begin by reviewing empirical work with VS and their mainstream counterparts, non‐voluntary simplifiers (NVS). It will go on to identify and locate within this literature an intermediate group: beginner voluntary simplifiers (BVS). BVS may support some aspects of sustainability (such as buying fair‐trade coffee or recycling domestic waste) without either embracing a complete lifestyle change like VS, or completely dismissing ethical or environ‐mental features of products and services they consume, like NVS. Insight into the complex decision‐making processes of BVS is crucial for the understanding of the concept of voluntary simplification and is therefore important for the advancement of sustainable consumption. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.