Consumer Socialization and the Role of Branding in Hazardous Adolescent Drinking

This study examines the relationship between alcohol marketing and consumer socialization to alcohol brands (assessed here using aided and unaided brand recognition and brand saliency), and the associated relationship between consumer socialization and hazardous alcohol consumption among a cohort of adolescents surveyed in Scotland. The research addresses gaps in the consumer socialization literature, by examining how marketing influences brand consumer socialization, and how brand consumer socialization influences subsequent hazardous consumption behavior over time, using a robust longitudinal design that assesses causal relationships while controlling for a wide range of important confounding variables. The results demonstrate the contribution of marketing to adolescents’ brand socialization to alcohol and the impact of this socialization on subsequent drinking behaviors. Implications for marketing managers, parents, policymakers, and consumer researchers are discussed, together with suggestions for future consumer research.     

Do employment subsidies work? Evidence from regionally targeted subsidies in Turkey

This paper studies the effects on registered employment and number of registered establishments of two employment subsidy schemes in Turkey. We implement a difference-in-differences methodology to construct appropriate counterfactuals for the covered provinces. Our findings suggest that both subsidy programs did lead to significant net increases in registered jobs in eligible provinces (5%–13% for the first program and 11%–15% for the second). However, the cost of the actual job creation was high because of substantial deadweight losses, particularly for the first program (47% and 78%). Because of better design features, the second subsidy program had lower, though still significant, deadweight losses (27%–46%). Although constrained by data availability, the evidence suggests that the dominant effect of subsidies was to increase social security registration of firms and workers rather than boosting total employment and economic activity. This supports the theory that in countries with weak enforcement institutions, high labor taxes on low-wage workers may lead to substantial incentives for firms and workers to operate informally.     

A resilience perspective of the SEEA

While the SEEA is an important advance in national accounting it remains deficient in a number of ways in regard to natural resources. The dynamic and interactive nature of ecosystems means that any linear, compartmentalised system of accounting will miss significant changes that influence human wellbeing. In particular, losses in resilience of critical capital stocks (through changes in underlying ecosystem variables that do not contribute directly to valued flows, and are therefore not included in the accounts) means that the accounts will not recognise that such stocks are becoming riskier, likely to collapse, and are therefore over‐valued. We present a stock‐based approach to measuring sustainable development (the Inclusive Wealth Approach of [Arrow KJ, Dasgupta P and Maler K‐G. (2003) Evaluating projects and assessing sustainable development in imperfect economies, Environmental and Resource Economics, 26:647-685]) at a regional scale, using an example from South East Australia, which includes an assessment of the resilience of critical capital stocks.     

Shared organizational values: Measurement and impact upon strategic marketing implementation

The concept of shared organizational values and its impact upon successful marketing strategy implementation are discussed. The need to measure the degree to which values within the organization are shared is stressed. A method to quantitatively measure the degree of value congruency and the strength of value consistency is proposed. An exploratory, empirical study is presented in which organization values are measured and found to impact upon strategy implementation.     

Fish as the “bank in the water” – Evidence from chronic-poor communities in Congo

Small-scale fisheries in developing countries are often perceived as being a low-productivity and backward informal sector. As a result they are rarely considered in poverty reduction programmes and rural development planning. In this paper, we investigate the dual role of fish as a food and cash crop through data collected in river fisheries in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Fishing in this very remote rural region of DRC is operated both by men and women, as part of a household multiple activity livelihood strategy. The data shows that poor households rely heavily on fishing for their supply of protein-rich food, in particular through women’s subsistence catches. Fishing also appears to be the main source of cash-income for the majority of households, including local farmers. Based on these findings and a review of the literature, the paper argues that small-scale fisheries can play a fundamental role in local economies, especially in remote rural areas where they strengthen significantly the livelihoods of people through their role in both food security and cash-income generation.     

R&D as a business – what are the implications for performance measurement?

There have been considerable changes in the way that Research and Development (R&D) has been managed over recent years, many of which have been influenced by the external environment. These have been discussed in a number of publications with much of the debate centring around the movement from the so‐called first generation to fifth generation models of R&D management.
What has not been debated to the same extent are the implications of recent and likely future trends in R&D management for the way performance is, and should be, measured. In this paper we focus on these implications, drawing upon both the existing literature on performance measurement (PM) in R&D and our own research into organisations which have chosen to move towards a more profit‐centred approach to the management of their technical resources.
Finally, we present and discuss the findings of our review, which indicate that although there are common features, some differences, requiring careful consideration by management, can be identified when movement from a cost‐ to a profit‐centred approach occurs.     

Is the Short Rate Drift Actually Nonlinear?

Aït-Sahalia (1996) and Stanton (1997) use nonparametric estimators applied to short-term interest rate data to conclude that the drift function contains important nonlinearities. We study the finite-sample properties of their estimators by applying them to simulated sample paths of a square-root diffusion. Although the drift function is linear, both estimators suggest nonlinearities of the type and magnitude reported in Aït-Sahalia (1996) and Stanton (1997). Combined with the results of a weighted least squares estimator, this evidence implies that nonlinearity of the short rate drift is not a robust stylized fact.