Strategic implications of the Soviet‐North Korean alliance

Abstract

Globalization is commonly defined as a strict economic path by most previous works, but it is really a fuzzy concept with unrestrained dimensions. While the ideological location of an incumbent political party is a powerful predictor of its policy position, the role of a political party in the globalization-growth nexus has never been fully empirically investigated. By applying Pedroni's panel cointegration technique instead of a time-series or traditional panel data approach, this paper aims to empirically re-examine the co-movement and the causal relationship among economic growth, the overall globalization index, and its three main dimensions—economic, social, as well as political integrations—by using panel data for 23 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries for 1970 to 2006. Certainly, the political party variable is taken into account as the advanced test is promoted, and we finally discover that all variables move together in the long run. Based on the results of the panel causality test, though the evidence of short-run causality is very weak, it does show long-run unidirectional causality running from the overall index of globalization, economic globalization, and social globalization to growth. Finally, the critical role of the political party is deeply discussed in relation with our results.     

Category management and consumer choice

This paper shows the results of an exploratory analysis of the structure of a complex product category: Wine. In complex categories, a usual strategy of consumers is the partitioning of alternatives into homogeneous subsets and the sequential eliminations of subsets until a product/brand is chosen from among few homogeneous alternatives in the last subset. To identify if there is such a kind of strategy and the product attributes involved is of great interest for the retailer. After a discussion of the different modelling alternatives of the choice process, the authors provide an application of the additive trees (ADDTREE) model to explore the hierarchical structure. The ADDTREE results provide a first overview of the competitive market structure of the wine category: competition becomes more intense as the wine category is partitioned by, first, the type of wine criteria and, second, the designation of origin (DO) criteria.     

Takeoffs

This paper identifies factors associated with takeoff—a sustained period of high growth following a period of stagnation. Countries that experience takeoffs average 2.3% annual growth following their stagnation episodes, while those that do not average 0%. Using probit, we find that de jure trade openness is positively and significantly associated with takeoffs. A one‐standard‐deviation increase in de jure trade openness is associated with a 55% increase in the probability of a takeoff in our default specification. Capital account openness encourages takeoff responses, but measures of de facto trade openness are found to be poor predictors of takeoffs. We also examine the determinants of nations achieving “sustained” takeoffs; i.e. those lasting eight years or longer. Takeoffs in countries with more commodity‐intensive output bundles are less likely to be sustained, suggesting that adverse terms‐of‐trade shocks may play a role in ending long‐term high growth episodes.     

Consumers as researchers – innovative experiences in UK National Health Service Research

Consumer involvement is an established priority in UK health‐ and social‐care service development and research. To date, little has been published describing the process of consumer involvement and assessing ‘consumers’ contributions to research. This paper provides a practical account of the effective incorporation of consumers into a research team, and outlines the extent to which they can enhance the research cycle; from project development and conduct, through data analysis and interpretation, to dissemination. Salient points are illustrated using the example of their collaboration in a research project. Of particular note were consumers' contributions to the development of an ethically enhanced, more robust project design, and enriched data interpretation, which may not have resulted had consumers not been an integral part of the research team.     

An Examination of Entry and Competitive Performance in Rural Banking Markets

This article explores the change in the level of competition in rural banking markets after the deregulation that occurred following passage of the Riegle‐Neal Act of 1994. Using an empirical model that utilizes both the number of banks and the value of deposits in a cross‐section of 278 rural markets, we decompose the impact of the entry of new banks into resulting changes in per capita demand and the costs/profits of local banks in 1994 and 2004. The results support the view that local banking markets have become more competitive since the mid‐1990s.     

The Impact of Program Environment on Recall of Humorous Television Commercials

This study investigated the possible effect of television program types on the recall performance of humorous television commercials. An experimental design was developed to test the relative performance of the same humorous and non-humorous ads in three different contextual environments—situation comedy, action/adventure, and documentary. The findings indicate that the recall performance of commercials and of the product or service promoted are both affected by the program environment within which the ads appear.     

Healthy and tasty school snacks: suggestions from Brazilian children consumers

Children do not choose what to eat based on health issues alone, and the high availability of non‐nutritious food in the environment can be a barrier to the consumption of healthy foods. Brazilian children are consuming processed, savoury, rich in fat, sodium and refined carbohydrates rather than more nutrient‐dense foods. Foods offered in public school meals and those sold in private school canteens in Brazil are subject to regulation, but not the snacks brought from home. This study identified the suggestions of public and private school students about the characteristics that a snack should present in order to be considered both healthy and palatable. A qualitative exploratory study using focus groups was conducted with 128 primary school students aged 7–10 years old. Interviews were transcribed and content analysis was conducted, generating three categories: (1) foods actually consumed during snack breaks; (2) examples of foods considered healthy and/or tasty for consumption during snack breaks; and (3) desired characteristics of a healthy and tasty snack. Foods of high energy density and low nutritional value were mentioned as the most consumed snacks, usually brought from home or purchased within/near the schools. Consumption of meals offered by the National School Meal Program was reported by only one‐third of the public school students. Fruits, natural juices and vegetables were considered healthy foods; sweet‐tasting preparations containing fruits were considered tasty; while fruits and natural fruit juices were considered both healthy and tasty. Sweet‐tasting preparations containing fruits were mentioned as examples of snacks with the desired healthy/tasty characteristics. The disparity between what was actually consumed and what was reported as ideal leads us to question the availability in retail stores of healthy yet palatable foods that meet this population's desires.     

??ber Terroristen und Spitzensportler

Islamophobia is more strongly developed in East Germany compared to the western part of the country. Given the lack of personal contact with Muslims in East Germany, islamophobia is probably strongly influenced by media coverage. For this reason, the coverage of two East German regional newspapers, Nordkurier and Volksstimme, is analyzed against the theoretical background of a conjunction of the social-psychological stereotype content model with the communication-scientific concept of framing. Using content analysis and latent class analysis, two so-called stereotype frames were identified. Two thirds of all Islam-related articles use the ??cold and harm frame??. Here, Muslims are often blamed for the lethal consequences of terrorist action, their behaviour is evaluated as cold or immoral, and military interventions against them are discussed. On the other hand, one third of all Islam-related articles belongs to the ??competence and cooperation frame??. Competence is ascribed to Muslims as their success in artistic, athletic or political activities is recognized and other actors?? interest in cooperation in these areas is emphasized. Whereas the ??cold and harm frame?? probably promotes medial segregation, the ??competence and cooperation frame?? is representing an assimilative model of media integration.     

Transparenz im Journalismus

The transparency that journalists and newsrooms can produce for their audience has long been regarded as a rather marginal criterion for journalistic quality. But new transparency models??due to the interactivity, immediacy, archiving capacity and the absent limitation of space in the internet??offer greater potentials than classical instruments in print and broadcasting. In comments, web videos, blogs, twitter feeds and social networks, journalists discuss with users and publicly account for editorial decisions. Transparency is fashionable in the digital public sphere; its evaluation, however, is not clear, but ambiguous and complex. This paper conceptualizes (self-)transparency and qualitatively classifies the available instruments in a three-dimensional matrix model. This is to facilitate the analysis of problematic areas and potential conflicts: Newsrooms demonstrating open self-reflection dismiss the ideal of ??objective journalism??. Yet, transparency is not only an ethical demand, but is also supposed to strengthen trust in journalistic products because it permits quality evaluations by the audience. An experiment shows, for the first time, that self-transparency has an effect on trust in some aspects but not as a basic principle. Analysing this interdependency, we have to distinguish between transparency of process and of product as well as between different media.