Kernproblem Wachstumsschwäche

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Consumer Ethics Across Cultures

Consumer ethics are an understudied but important counterpart of business ethics. In this study we use qualitative methods and video ethnography to examine consumer beliefs and behaviors in eight countries, including both affluent and poor nations in Europe, North America and Australasia. Using depth interviews and projective methods, informants address three different ethical choices of products involving harm to the environment, poor labor conditions, and counterfeit goods. As the accompanying video reveals, there is a general lack of consumer concern for such issues across cultures. We examine the justifications offered for these views and consider implications for altering consumer behavior.     

Consumer spirituality

ABSTRACT

Consumers increasingly turn to the marketplace in search of spiritual well-being. In this introduction to the special issue, we unpack the concept of consumer spirituality. We define consumer spirituality as the interrelated practices and processes engaged in when consuming market offerings (products, services, places) that yield 'spiritual utility'. The market offerings are purposely designed to quench consumers’ thirst for meaningful encounters with one’s inner self or a higher external power. We identify three vehicles – materiality, embodiment, and technology – that consumers engage with to access consumer spirituality. By unpacking the concept of consumer spirituality along three themes - (1) shaping markets for consumer spirituality, (2) the means for accessing consumer spirituality, and (3) making sense of and researching consumer spirituality - we provide a future research agenda to advance scholarly explorations of consumer spirituality and to facilitate a systematic development of this nascent body of literature in marketing and consumer research.     

Ad agencies

This article highlights advertising agencies as marketplace icons. The role of ad agencies in creating iconic brands can sometimes be obscured, yet ad agencies are central to how the contemporary marketplace works. While ad agencies are no longer the hegemonic instance of consumer culture that they were from the 1950s to the 1990s, they have adapted to today's democratic advertisingscape by shepherding cultural content produced elsewhere to market. Ad agencies have remained the engine behind significant shifts in consumer culture, such as the warming of relations between music and advertising, by acting as the ‘midwife’ between art and commerce, facilitating new cultural practices in the process.     

Nicht der große Wurf

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

India's Trade Policy Reforms and Industry Competitiveness in the 1980s

The paper proposes a method of measuring and analyzing competitiveness, and applies it to Indian manufacturing data of 1980/81, 1987/88 and 1991/92. The method consists of computing a unit cost ration and breaking it down into various components, ditinguishing between comparative advantage measured at shadow prices, and competitive advantage measured at market prices. The difference, equal to the sum of all price ditortions, may enhance or diminish competitiveness, depending on whether the distortions are cost‐increasing or ‐decreasing. The study reviews first the limited trade reforms of the 1980s and examines whether they have led to increased competitiveness. Although the present study is limited to less than the full potential of the method, due to lack of adequate data, it demonstrates, that the policy changes of the 1980s have failed to enhance the competitiveness of the industrial sector as a whole, while some industries have undergone substantive changes. In three industry case studies the results are compared with the findings of earlir studies.     

Does foreign direct investment promote regional development in developed countries? A Markov chain approach for US states

This paper investigates the effects of inward FDI on per capita income and growth of the US states since the mid-1970s. Using a Markov chain approach, it shows that both quantitative and qualitative characteristics of FDI affect per capita income and growth. The empirical findings suggest that employment-intensive FDI, concentrated in richer states, has been conducive to income growth, while capital-intensive FDI, concentrated in poorer states, has not. Consequently, FDI has tended to be associated with weaker rather than stronger income convergence among US states. It appears to be less important whether FDI has been undertaken in the manufacturing sector of US states or in other sectors.     

Spatial effects of foreign direct investment in US states

Abstract This paper estimates the aggregate productivity effects of Marshallian externalities generated by foreign direct investment (FDI) in US states, controlling for Marshallian externalities and other spatial spillovers generated by domestic firms. A regional production function framework models externalities and other spatial spillovers explicitly as determinants of total factor productivity. We employ a system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator to account for the potential endogeneity of FDI and the presence of spatial lags. Using data for US states from 1977–2003, the results indicate that FDI generates positive externalities, while externalities from domestic firms are negative.     

The shadow economy—An expanding field of activity

The existence of a broad range of economic activities in the “shadow” of the official economy is nothing fundamentally new. However, there are signs that the shift into the shadow economy has been increasing considerably from the seventies onwards. Whereas growth in the “official” economy slowed down perceptibly, the shadow economy has clearly become a pronounced growth sector in the Federal Republic of Germany and in many other industrial countries.