Monetary Policy Independence under Flexible Exchange Rates: An Illusion?

I analyse whether countries with flexible exchange rates are able to pursue an independent monetary policy, as suggested by traditional theory. I use data for three Latin American countries with flexible exchange rates, inflation targeting and capital mobility – Chile, Colombia and Mexico – to investigate the extent to which Federal Reserve actions are translated into local central banks' policy rates. The results indicate that there is significant ‘policy contagion’ and that these countries tend to ‘import’ Fed policies. The degree of monetary policy independence is lower than what traditional models suggest.     

Marketingerfolg richtig messen: Optimale Kennzahlensysteme

Zusammenfassung  Wie kann man zuverl?ssige Methoden entwickeln, um die Erfolgswirkungen von Marketingma?nahmen auf den Unternehmenswert zu messen? Am Anfang steht dabei die Frage, was Marketingerfolg eigentlich ist. Eine reine Fokussierung auf die Stakeholdergruppe der Kunden reicht hier nicht aus. Andere, durch Marketing ebenfalls erreichte Interessensgruppen wie z.B. Investoren oder Mitarbeiter müssen auch betrachtet werden. Und das alles vor dem Hintergrund moderierender Kontextfaktoren wie etwa der Unternehmensstrategie oder der Branche. Dipl.-Kfm. Sascha Raithel Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Institut für Marktorientierte Unternehmensführung an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit?t München sowie Consultant bei der Pepper GmbH in München Dipl.-Kfm. Sebastian Scharf Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Institut für Marktorientierte Unternehmensführung an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit?t München Prof. Dr. Manfred SchwaigerVorstand am Institut für Marktorientierte Unternehmensführung an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit?t München     

Brand Attachment and Consumer Emotional Response to Unethical Firm Behavior

Attaching consumers to a brand is a cornerstone of relationship marketing as attachment increases loyalty. This research investigates another possible benefit of attachment, its potential and limits for shielding brands from firms’ ethical missteps. Merging motivated reasoning and attachment theories, two studies focus on how brand attachment influences consumer judgments of firm ethics and the emotional and behavioral consequences developing from those. A field study indicates that attachment attenuates judgments of unethical behavior, contributes to emotional ambivalence, and affects purchase intentions. A subsequent experiment corroborates these findings and shows that the buffering role of attachment is limited to conditions when the information about firm ethics is moderately rather than extremely negative. Implications focus on advancing research on ethics and emotional ambivalence in consumer brand relationships and on managerial implications.     

Crafting customer insight: What we can learn from the revival of the vinyl record

The recent resurgence of the vinyl record and the proliferation of so-called craft and artisanal products offer unique opportunities to observe ongoing shifts in the contemporary consumer’s values and attitudes. In this article, we explore such thought-provoking market developments and their implications by contrasting them with the conventional understanding of markets and consumers. This understanding can lead to marketing myopia as it works from the utility-oriented assumption that what ultimately matters for both the company and the customer is cost efficiency and convenience. Against this backdrop, in this article, we discuss how market developments representing the contemporary consumer’s mindset prove valuable in creating customer insight that highlights aspects often obscured by an exaggerated focus on cost efficiency and convenience. We provide an alternative approach to evaluating markets and consumers that encourages companies to build their customer-centric market strategies around questions of context, authenticity, story, and resonance. This will help them narrow the gap between their market offerings and the actual wants and needs of their customer, and consequently allow them to revitalize their market.     

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Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Leveraging sponsorship with corporate social responsibility

Sponsors increasingly engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities surrounding sponsored events (e.g., the soccer World Cup and Olympic Games). This study examines how linking CSR to sponsorship affects consumer attitudes towards sponsoring brands. Schema theory suggests that consumer CSR perception and brand credibility act as serial mediators. They transfer the positive effects of a CSR-linked sponsorship strategy. These effects only occur for brands with a moderately low congruity to the sponsored event (but not for brands with a moderately high congruity to the sponsored event). Two experiments measuring (Study 1) and manipulating (Study 2) sponsor–event congruity confirm the proposed mediation mechanism for brands with a moderately low sponsor–event congruity. CSR-linked sponsorship (vs. sponsorship without CSR linkage) does not influence attitudes towards brands with a moderately high congruity to the sponsored event. The study develops theoretical and practical implications for sponsorship and CSR strategies.     

The Climate Policy of the European Union

There is now almost universal agreement that climate change, with potentially disastrous consequences, is happening and that it is contributed to by human activities. This Forum is dedicated to the discussion of various aspects of the European Union's climate policy, e.g. the EU's future role in the global effort to combat global warming, the efficiency of its climate strategy, the design of a new rule for sharing the corresponding burdens fairly among member states, and the interrelationships between the Union's climate policies, on the one hand, and its energy and transport policies, on the other. * and member of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU). The author wishes to thank Helen Bicknell (Mainz University of Applied Sciences), Oliver Deke (WBGU) and Jürgen Schmid (ISET, Department of Efficient Energy Conversion at the University of Kassel) for their helpful comments. ** This contribution is based on a Jean Monnet Lecture held at Aarhus University on 19 March 2007. The author would like to thank Harri Kalimo for valuable comments.     

Reconsidering Media Discourses on Food Crisis from a Quantitative Perspective

In 2007–2008, when food prices started to increase dramatically, purchasing power parity of consumers, especially the urban poor, started to decrease automatically. High food prices were argued to cause poverty, hunger, and food riots among urban populations. Henceforward, “food crisis” became a new storyline in the current debate. In contrast, in the pre-2007 period, when rural farmers had been facing negative welfare effects of low food prices for many years, there were no crisis talks. This article analyzes different media coverage of urban consumers and rural producers under changes in relative incomes for the 2000–2013 period and propounds media bias on the food crisis debate by using content analysis and the OLS regression model.     

Reflections on the Euro Area Fiscal Stance

Avoiding the mistakes of the past, when the good times were not used to build buffers, will be crucial to avoid countries again being forced to engage in a pro-cyclical fiscal tightening in the next downturn.     

Talking by numbers — Communicated uncertainty of the ECB

Using a novel approach, this paper analyses the deliberately communicated uncertainty of the ECB to the market. Specifi cally, it semantically analyses the uncertainty expressed in offi cial ECB press statements. The analysis shows how the ECB tries to alert or appease the market with different levels of communicated uncertainty. The appeasement through low uncertainty communication levels is particularly pronounced during times of fi nancial distress. Further, the analysis shows that the ECB tried to alert the market through an increasing level of communicated uncertainty prior to the outbreak of the global fi nancial crisis.