The growth of the French videotex system and its implications for consumers

The French telecommunications authority (DGT) is embarked on the world's most ambitious effort to make videotex into a mass medium. The decision to distribute terminals (Minitels) free of charge as well as a unique approach to pricing services have generated substantial interest in the French Télétel system. This article describes and analyzes: (a) the reasons why this multibillion dollar gamble was undertaken, (b) the major elements of the French videotex system, (c) various measures of the system's progress to date, (d) the major types of services offered, (e) patterns of consumer use, (f) consumer problems and policy issues associated with the videotex medium, and (g) the prospects of the French videotex system taking hold in other nations.

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Die Entwicklung des französischen Videotextsystems und seine Bedeutung für die Verbraucher

Zusammenfassung Die französische Behörde für Telekommunikation macht im internationalen Vergleich die stärksten Anstrengungen, Videotext zu einem Massenmedium zu machen. Sowohl die Tatsache, daß die Terminals (Minitels) kostenlos zur Verfügung gestellt werden, wie auch die besondere Form der übrigen Preispolitik haben zu einem großen Interesse an dem französischen Télétel-System geführt.Der Beitrag beschreibt (a) die Gründe, aus denen dieses millionenschwere Unterfangen begonnen wurde, analysiert (b) die Elemente des französischen Videotextsystems, behandelt (c) verschiedene Indikatoren zur Erfassung der bisherigen Entwicklung des Systems, nennt (d) die wichtigsten Arten der Angebote, die das System macht, skizziert (e) die Nutzergewohnheiten der Konsumenten, diskutiert (f) Verbraucherprobleme und politische Aspekte, die mit dem neuen Medium verknüpft sind, und prüft schließlich (g), welche Zukunftsaussichten des französischen Videotextsystems auch für andere Länder gelten dürften.

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Robert N. Mayer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family and Consumer Studies, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA.The author wishes to acknowledge the special assistance of Claire Ancelin of the Service de la Prospective et des Etudes Economiques of the Direction Générale des Télécommunications, Montrouge, and of Pierre Noel of the Institut National de l'Audiovisuel, Bry-sur-Marne.     

Children between the age of 5 and 11: what “don’t know” answers tell us

Children are increasingly seen as competent informants on their activities, views and needs. Different abilities of children can lead to inadequate (formally or regarding the content) answers or to the misunderstanding of proceedings during an interview process. One inadequate or at least unintended (on the part of the researcher) response is a “don’t know” answer (DK). To study when and why DK answers occur, a possible cause for them in the cognitive process and their relation to age, we analysed the DK answers given in qualitative semi-structured interviews with children aged 5–11, conducted face-to-face and on the telephone. Each of 56 children was interviewed twice, once face-to-face and once via telephone. The results show that age had an effect on DK responses due to the cognitive state of the respondent and their communicative intent, but there was no difference in the number of DKs due to problems with the research instrument or due to an adequacy judgement in respect of respondent age.     

Global rebalancing: Effects on trade and employment

A sustained reduction of global current-account imbalances must include a decline in the share of household consumption in aggregate demand in the United States and the opposite development in China. Accordingly, import demand would decline in the United States and increase in China. Given non-homothetic demand preferences, the resulting change in the income distribution of global import demand affects both the intensity and pattern of other countries’ exports. Simulations suggest that, for the world economy, the net effect of this shift would be a decline in industrial exports, especially from labor-intensive sectors producing consumer durables. A multilaterally coordinated rebalancing that would also include an increase in the share of household consumption in aggregate demand of developed country surplus economies would reduce these adverse effects on trade and employment. Apart from the countries undertaking rebalancing, developing countries in East and South-East Asia face the greatest adjustment pressure from global rebalancing.     

Employment Growth Determinants in New Firms in Eastern Germany

The unification of both Germanies and the introduction of the market economy in eastern Germany came as a shock to existing firms and led to an enormous boom in the establishment of new firms. The first section of this paper shows that during the period under observation (January 1991--June 1995) the number of firms nearly doubled and in 1995, nearly 50% of all jobs were to be found in firms established after 1991. Shortly after unification, a kind of "start- window" existed during which the conditions for establishment, growth and survival of firms were extraordinarily good. The next section deals with the determinates of the growth of these newly founded firms. Most determinants have been selected on the basis of the most recent studies by Brüderl, Preisendörfer and Ziegler (1996), and Storey (1994). The analysis included not only establishment characteristics but also strategic factors such as the technological status of the establishment, the proportion of sales in interregional markets, and a corporate competitive strategy indicator. A comparison of these results with other studies shows that the determinants that affect employment growth in new firms in eastern German are apparently the same as in western Germany and Britain, albeit to different extents.     

Humanising Business Through Ethical Labelling: Progress and Paradoxes in the UK

Labelling schemes are practical arrangements aimed at making ‘ethical’ products widely available and visible. They are crucial to expanded development of ethical markets and hence to the addition of moral dimensions to the normally amoral behaviour linking consumers and retail and production businesses. The study reported here attempts to assess the contribution of UK ethical, social and environmental certification and labelling initiatives to ‘sustainable’ consumption and production. The research sought to assess the overall potential of initiatives to inject human values into the supply-distribution chains, through a qualitative survey of 15 of the 26 main UK initiatives: in social justice, animal welfare and environmental sustainability from the agriculture, food processing, timber, aquaculture, textiles and personal care sectors. By analysing the basic characteristics and concepts of these labels and investigating the emergence of labelling initiatives, we assess whether labels help add an ethical dimension, or whether, in some respects, they also reduce such missions to the technical management of adding only another ‘utility’ to a product. The analysis assesses whether the gradual ‘mainstreaming’ of ethical initiatives such as ‘Fairtrade’ risks subsuming ethical goals within business participants’ competitive and profit-oriented logics. However, the contrasting perspectives revealed between rival labelling initiatives show that the scope and functions of labelling projects go beyond the manifest ones of information communication between consumers and producer and actually introduce elements of socio-political regulation. These are essential for more sustainable and ethical business practices and are an integral part of any humanisation of business involvement.     

Finanzielle Repression — ein Instrument zur Bewältigung der Krisenfolgen?

Financial repression committed by central banks has been put forward as a means to secretly reduce the real burden of high public debts. Financial repression has allegedly played an important role in the impressive reduction of the US debt ratio after World War II. A mix of conventional budget consolidation and rapid growth was the main driver in this relative debt reduction with a minor role for financial repression. But does financial repression really exist? The authors express different opinions on evidence for this concept. Those authors who find that there are indicators of financial repression fear redistributive tendencies between debtors and creditors and high opportunity costs in the form of savings and investment distortions. Therefore, financial repression is not a “cure” for the high public debts amassed in the euro area during the recent sovereign debt and banking crisis. Furthermore, the high sovereign debts in the euro area may threaten economic development and impose high costs on society. Therefore, reducing these debts is politically highly relevant, and fiscal policy should be characterised by a modest reduction in government spending and/or tax increases, combined with a policy promoting economic growth. Macroprudential regulations should supplement this financial policy.