Understanding the demand-side of economic change: a contribution to formal evolutionary theorizing

An outstanding fact of capitalist change in the last few centuries is the ongoing emergence of new consumption alternatives which accompany income and productivity growth in expanding economies. Far from satiating consumers, exponential economic growth seems to stimulate human desires by providing novelty and variety embodied in a persuasive flow of unsettling goods. Although this is a well-known fact characteristic of capitalist change, little attention has been paid by modern growth theorists to the understanding of demand-side phenomena related to the increasing significance of consumption activities in our societies. Against this background, in this article, we show that as soon as we start drawing the demand-side contour of economic change, new phenomena appear which enrich our understanding of economic growth and structural change. By using ‘replicator dynamics’ systems, consumption dynamics are formally linked to the ongoing generation of innovations in capitalist economies. Certain emergent properties concerning economic growth and structural change and several policy implications follow.     

家庭户消费风险分担实证研究评述

自20世纪80年代起,家庭户之间的风险分担作为平滑消费、分散风险的主要方式之一被广泛的研究.自此发展经济学正式将收入风险作为个人陷入贫困的主要原因.文章追溯了风险分担的理论发源,回顾早期实证检验以及最新研究动向,并且在综述国内研究的基础上对未来的研究方向进行了展望.     

Producing and Consuming Gendered Representations: An Interpretation of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras

The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is considered to be one of Australia's "hallmark" consumption events. This paper draws from anthropological literature on carnivalesque festivals, postmodern streams of thought, and original participant observation data in order to construct a new theoretical interpretation of the Mardi Gras. The festival is a contested event with meanings associated with the carnivalesque and gay and lesbian politics, executed with an attention to serious political issues. Findings include insights about contemporary manifestations and embodiments of the carnivalesque, the "frivolous" approach to serious political issues and negotiating "Australian-ness" and the perils and pitfalls of marketing an oppositional sensibility. Findings are discussed in light of advancing a "spiral" model of appropriation and resistance with respect to oppositional gendered representations and meanings.     

Concepts and practices of digital virtual consumption

Despite the popularity of online spaces that simulate aspects of consumption‐like experiences (online virtual worlds, video games and interactive functions on online retailers) conceptual tools that aim to comprehend such consumer practices are yet to emerge. In an effort to better understand them this paper puts forward a taxonomy that may help us capture emerging consumer behavior in the digital virtual terrain in relation to virtual and material consumption. This may be read as a fluid template that considers the movement between what resides in consumer imaginations as ideal or virtual, its actualization in material and now also digital virtual spaces. We then offer examples of the practices that are emerging, specifically the increase in imaginative resources that interactive media provide; practices that actualize probable, everyday commodities and experiences in the digital virtual and practices that actualize fantastic commodities and experiences in the digital virtual. Finally, we discuss the potential for these to produce new consumer subjectivities and new markets, and as a result we conclude with a discussion of the implications of such developments for consumer cultures, noting the potential for both liberatory/celebratory and critical discourse as well as avenues for future research.     

Ground Zero: A Contested Market

This article provides a theoretical reflection on the documentary Selling Tragedy, which relates to the commodification of Ground Zero. It discusses the theoretical framework that has inspired our understanding of this place, and the methodological choices that have informed our ways of filming and editing it. This account explores the extent to which the documentary results from iteration between research, filming, screening, filming again, and editing. It leads to a discussion of the particularities of film‐making, and culminates in a call for the recognition of the film as means of entering academic debates.     

Aesthetic Products and Aesthetic Consumption: A Review

This article presents a review of recent thinking about consumers’ aesthetic experiences. These experiences are examined within the context of philosophical, psychological, and social science perspectives on aesthetics. A distinction is made between aesthetic products and aesthetic consumption, and these two concepts are discussed in terms of marketing views of their core elements. The review also reflects on the impact of “postmodernism” on aesthetics within marketing. Consideration is given to four philosophical conundrums relating to the aesthetic experience which are relevant to marketing theory: disinterested attention; objective and subjective taste; the nature of the aesthetic encounter; and the relationship of evaluation to preference.     

Characteristics of materialism and its measurement: assessing the Belk's materialism scale in Hungary

In terms of consumer values, the socialist system (altruism, acting for the good of the community, interest in culture, etc.) reflects a post‐materialist orientation. According to data from World Value Surveys, however, there was a strong shift towards materialist values in the former socialist countries after the political changes; this also holds true for Hungary. Most likely, this shift is due partly to the success of the market economy, competition and private enterprise and partly to the disappearance of the obligatory system of values of the socialist regime. The present research study uses the materialism scale developed by Belk to measure possessiveness, non‐generosity and envy in Hungary. The research study focused on the quantitative analysis of a national representative sample (n = 500) in 2002 and 2007 respectively. The results of the study indicate that in both periods surveyed, possessiveness was the most significant dimension within the three examined features of materialism. Changes in the nature of possessiveness, however, corresponded to the changes in consumer behaviour. Based on our findings, we can assume that possessions have a central place in people's life.     

我国农村居民消费水平预测的实证研究

本文介绍了自回归移动平均模型即ARIMA(p,d,q)模型的基本原理、构建及其应用方法。文章广泛搜集从1952年到2011年以来我国农村居民消费水平的相关数据,运用统计学和计量经济学原理,从时间序列的定义出发,结合统计软件E-views运用ARMA建模方法,将ARIMA模型应用于我国农村居民消费水平的分析与预测,得到较为满意的结果。     

The meanings of informal and second-hand retail channels: some evidence from Leicester

Conventionally, informal and/or second-hand channels were viewed as being used by disadvantaged consumers out of economic necessity. With the cultural turn in retail and consumer research however, a new reading has emerged that views participation in such channels to be broader and more a matter of choice. To evaluate these contrasting perspectives, data collected from 120 face-to-face interviews in the English city of Leicester is reported in this article. Finding that the agency-orientated view of such retail channels is valid in affluent populations - but economic necessity remains the principal motive amongst lower-income populations - this paper reconciles these contrasting readings of economic and cultural theorists through a both/and approach sensitive to the varying meanings of such practices in different populations.     

Consumption and macroeconomic policies: Theory and evidence from developing countries

Abstract

This paper examines determinants of private consumption in a sample of developing countries. The empirical model includes income, a proxy for the cost of consumption, and the exchange rate. Anticipated movements in these determinants are likely to trigger adjustment in planned consumption, while unanticipated changes determine random transitory adjustment in consumption. Fluctuations in private consumption are mostly random with respect to unanticipated changes in income and, to a lesser extent, the exchange rate. Consumption increases during cyclical expansion of income and decreases in the face of an unanticipated increase in the cost of consumption. Exchange rate fluctuations have mixed results on private consumption. As for the effects of domestic policies, fiscal policy has a limited, and sometimes negative, effect on private consumption. Monetary growth, in contrast, stimulates an increase in private consumption. This evidence supports recent calls to decrease the size of government and enhance the role of monetary policy in stimulating private activity in developing countries.