The development of integrated marketing communications at the British General Post Office, 1931–39

In the 1930s, the General Post Office (GPO) in Britain became one of the nation’s most innovative pioneers of marketing communication. Following criticism of the organisation in the 1920s for its conservative use of publicity, the GPO embarked upon a series of creative publicity campaigns that applied, amongst other methods, advertising, public relations, promotions, cinema, events and artistic posters. Through an overview of its publicity, and through a narrative of three case-studies, this article argues that one of the most important innovations of the GPO was its integration of marketing communication, both in terms of techniques used and in relation to its emphasis in promoting the organisation and the services it provided.     

财政空间：含义

“财政空间”一词近年来在国际援助界中非常流行，但是它的真正意义却一直飘忽不定。有时，当政府认为应该放松财政限制、加大借款额以支持基础设施类工程时，“财政空间”一词就浮出水面了。因为基础设施类工程可以创造出具有生产力的资产，长期来看一定能够收回投资，创造出自身所需要的财政空间。但是，最近这个词更多地被那些呼吁增加教育和医药、卫生领域投资的人士所使用，     

A Household Production Analysis Of Religious

A bstract Two conventional wisdoms are prevalent among churchgoers with regards to monetary contributions. One is that contributions of their time and money to their church are complementary. The other is that churches are in competition with other charitable organizations for church members'contributions. This study employs the household production model to test these conventional wisdoms. The first is supported (church members who contribute more money also contribute more time) while the second is rejected (churchgoers who contribute more to their church are also more generous to other charitable organizations). Policy implications include advising churches that wish to increase members'financial contributions to focus on increasing member involvement, and to jointly sponsor activities with nonreligious charitable organizations.     

Patterns of power distribution in managerial decision making in Chinese and British industrial organizations

This article is one of three reports about the results of a Sino-British joint research project on managerial decision making in eleven Chinese companies and ten British companies. Forty managers and twenty trade union leaders from both manufacturing and service industries participated in the study. Data about decision-making patterns in eighteen different decision tasks in the organizations were collected. The results showed that there were interesting organizational and cultural differences in decision-making patterns in the two countries between manufacturing and service industries, between management and trade union groups, among short-, medium- and long-term decisions and across organizational levels. There were clear shifts of the decision-making power across organizational levels depending upon the type of decision tasks. A model of decision power shift was proposed in terms of the effects of organizational and cultural factors on patterns of organizational decision making. The implications of the decision power shift model to the management practice in the international context were highlighted.     

Political Denials: The Policy Effect of Intercameral Partisan Differences in Bicameral Parliamentary Systems

Bicameralism in legislatures affects both the legislative processand partisan competition. In the United States, divided partisancontrol of Congress has been found to lead to interparty logrollsand increased budget deficits. In parliamentary systems, itis generally assumed that similarly divided legislatures havelittle effect on policy. I argue, by contrast, that party disciplinemeans that divided control of the legislature has the oppositeeffect: because cooperation dilutes party labels, parties havean interest in passing and claiming credit for policy, but alsoin preventing their counterparts from doing the same. The resultis a game in which chamber majorities balance the desire tomake policy with the need to differentiate themselves from eachother (to the extent that they are different). I test the hypothesisof an inverse relationship between divergence and policy makingin a nine-country, TSCS regression of deficits on an index ofchamber divergence.     

Fiscal policy in the face of long-term expenditure uncertainties

A number of uncertainties about long-term expenditure commitments in industrial countries are examined: (i) the assumptions underlying the projections, (ii) the potential to further reduce non-age-related expenditures, (iii) the implicitly assumed absence of “shocks,” and (iv) the potential for raising revenue. This paper concludes that (i) there is scope, but within narrow limits, to reduce non-age-related expenditures; (ii) fiscal policy frameworks tend to understate risks; and (iii) prevailing tax rates leave little room for increasing taxation in the countries facing the strongest aging pressures. In sum, governments will have to adopt a much more ambitious fiscal policy stance to cope with aging populations. JEL Code H5 · H6