Ecosystem services and dis-services to agriculture

Agricultural ecosystems are actively managed by humans to optimize the provision of food, fiber, and fuel. These ecosystem services from agriculture, classified as provisioning services by the recent Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, depend in turn upon a web of supporting and regulating services as inputs to production (e.g., soil fertility and pollination). Agriculture also receives ecosystem dis-services that reduce productivity or increase production costs (e.g., herbivory and competition for water and nutrients by undesired species). The flows of these services and dis-services directly depend on how agricultural ecosystems are managed and upon the diversity, composition, and functioning of remaining natural ecosystems in the landscape. Managing agricultural landscapes to provide sufficient supporting and regulating ecosystem services and fewer dis-services will require research that is policy-relevant, multidisciplinary and collaborative. This paper focuses on how ecosystem services contribute to agricultural productivity and how ecosystem dis-services detract from it. We first describe the major services and dis-services as well as their key mediators. We then explore the importance of scale and economic externalities for the management of ecosystem service provision to agriculture. Finally, we discuss outstanding issues in regard to improving the management of ecosystem services and dis-services to agriculture.     

Purchasing Power Parity

The paper provides a selective and critical review of the literature on purchasing power parity and real exchange rates, with special reference to the literature of the last two decades.     

The trade-induced degradation hypothesis

This paper develops a simple two-sector dynamic model to examine the effects of international trade when government policy regarding the environment is short sighted, but still responsive to changes in income levels and in the quality of the environment. We show that free trade can usher in a negatively reinforcing cycle of increased pollution, lower environmental quality, and lower real incomes. Such cycles are not possible in autarky. We link the potential for trade to cause ‘large’ environmental consequences to the structure of tastes and technologies and the attributes of industrial pollution.     

A three-component model of customer commitment to service providers

Although research into the determinants of service provider switching has grown in recent years, the focus has been predominantly on transactional, not relational, variables. In this research, the authors address the role of consumer commitment on consumers’ intentions to switch. Drawing from the organizational behavior literature, they build on previous service switching research by developing a switching model that includes a three-component conceptualization of customer commitment. Structural equation modeling is used to test the model based on data from a survey of 356 auto repair service customers. The authors’ results support the notion that customer commitment affects intentions to switch service providers and that the psychological states underlying that commitment may differ. As such, future marketing research should consider these different forms of commitment in understanding customer retention. The implications of this model for theory and practice are discussed. Havir S. Bansal (hbansal@wlu.ca) is an associate professor of marketing at Wilfrid Laurier University. He earned his Ph.D. from Queen’s University in 1997. His research interests are focused in the area of services marketing with emphasis on cuctomer switching behavior, word-of-mouth processes in services, and tourism. His research has been published in theJournal of Service Research, theJournal of Quality Management, andPsychology and Marketing and has publications forthcoming in theJournal of Services Marketing andTouris Management. He has also presented at and published articles in the proceedings of various national and international conferences. P. Gregory Irving (girving@wlu.ca) is an associate professor of organizational behavior at Wilfrid Laurier University. He received his Ph.D. in industrial/organizational psychology from the University of Western Ontario. His research interests included commitment and work-related attitudes, psychological contracts, and organizational recruitment and socialization. His research has appeared in a variety of journal including theJournal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, theJournal of Organizational Behavior, theJournal of Management, Human Performance, andBasic and Applied Social Psychology. Shirley F. Taylor (Ph.D., University of British Columbia) (staylor@business.queensu.ca) is an associate professor in the School of Business at Queen’s University, where she teaches and conducts research in the area of services marketing. Her research interests include service provider loyalty and switching, customer commitment, and perceptions management of service delays. Her work has been published in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Marketing, Psychology & Marketing, theJournal of Service Research, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, and theJournal of Public Policy and Marketing. She currently serves on the editorial boards of theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Business Research, and theCanadian Journal of Administrative Sciences.     

International briefing 6: Training and development in the United States

Increasingly, training and development is playing an important and strategic role in the economic success of US organisations (Marquardt, 1999, Tannenbaum and Yukl, 1992). US organisations recognise that they now operate in a new global economy, an economy which involves the use of advanced technologies and increased responsiveness to customers’ needs. It is becoming one that requires greater and greater innovation and flexibility in production, service delivery and market know‐how. American firms realise more than ever that employee knowledge gained through training and development has become a strategic necessity and more and more the source of strategic advantage (Drucker, 1994).     

The information content of implied volatilities and model-free volatility expectations: Evidence from options written on individual stocks

We measure the volatility information content of stock options for individual firms using option prices for 149 US firms and the S&P 100 index. We use ARCH and regression models to compare volatility forecasts defined by historical stock returns, at-the-money implied volatilities and model-free volatility expectations for every firm. For 1-day-ahead estimation, a historical ARCH model outperforms both of the volatility estimates extracted from option prices for 36% of the firms, but the option forecasts are nearly always more informative for those firms that have the more actively traded options. When the prediction horizon extends until the expiry date of the options, the option forecasts are more informative than the historical volatility for 85% of the firms. However, at-the-money implied volatilities generally outperform the model-free volatility expectations.     

An Analysis of the Welfare Effects of Long-Distance Market Entry by an Integrated Access and Long-Distance Provider

This paper discusses the welfare effects of entry by a vertically integrated access and long-distance service provider into the long-distance market. Using a stylized model of these markets, we conclude that substantial net consumer benefits arise when a vertically integrated firm is created by the entry of a LEC into the long-distance market, and these gains are mostly achieved from declines in supra-competitive profits received by long-distance incumbents. We find that these gains dominate losses in producer surplus that could arise even if integrated firm entry were to displace more efficient long-distance providers.     

A transaction cost perspective on foreign market entry strategies of US and Japanese firms

A large scale survey of top US and Japanese executives is conducted in order to assess the power of transaction cost economics (TCE) in explaining a firm's choice of entry mode (e.g., joint venture vs. full ownership) when it enters a foreign market. Results suggest that several TCE tenets are useful in explaining US firms' choice of entry mode. However, TCE predictions were not supported by the entry mode choices of Japanese firms. Implications of these findings for researchers and managers are discussed. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Disability,social inclusion and the marketing of tourist attractions

The participation of persons with a disability (PWDs) in tourism has received growing academic interest in recent years. This paper contributes to a reflection on how accessible tourism relates to the sustainable development paradigm. To investigate this relationship, it goes beyond the question of PWDs’ access to tourism services, and adopts an inclusiveness perspective. Inclusion is examined in terms of legislation, marketing and imagery, and representations of PWDs as consumers embedded within social units – and families in particular. These dimensions are explored empirically in a study of visitor attractions in Cornwall (England) based on a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of brochures and websites. The study shows that the marketing materials of Cornish visitor attractions mainly focus on access, and the imagery used largely projects quasi invisibility or provides ambiguous messages. Communication with PWDs rarely addresses the family unit, making the family tourism experience intangible in the pre-trip phase. These results point at weaker implementation of inclusiveness, which corroborates previous findings of watered down definitions of rights to tourism under neo-liberal ideologies and economic crises. The paper discusses implications for social inclusion and highlights avenues for future research.