Satisfying the basics: reflections from a consumer perspective of attractions management at the Millennium Dome,London

The Millennium Dome, London, was supposed to be the centrepiece of UK celebrations marking the start of the twenty‐first century. Unwittingly, it also emerged as the centrepiece of much media negativity and scrutiny — for the full length of its (projected) 1 year of opening. Four years after the doors closed, and with the perspective of time, this study reflects on the Millennium Dome as a case study of visitor attractions management — with data drawn from the consumer perspective at the time of opening. The focus of the primary research is on the satisfaction of visitors to the Millennium Dome. This was carried out when the attraction was weathering the media storm following its opening. Both quantitative and qualitative data was gathered from 530 exit questionnaires and 350 qualitative interviews. The quantitative data revealed visitor assessments of the experience of the Millennium Dome as a whole, and their assessments of its constituent parts (zones). The findings of the qualitative interviews led to the construction of a typology of meanings for visitors to the Millennium Dome. Even though time has elapsed since closure, both the quantitative and the qualitative findings still have a wider application in the interpretation of the visitor experience in attractions. Recommendations at the time indicated a need for management to focus on ‘the basics’ of the visitor experience with the addendum that a failure to do so could detract from ‘the most amazing day out ever’ or, indeed, ‘a very special day’ — and to ensure a closer match between marketing expectations and the reality of the experience. Reflection has not altered such often neglected but fundamental tenets. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Performance pay and worker cooperation: Evidence from an artefactual field experiment

We report the results of an artefactual field experiment with bicycle messengers in Switzerland and the United States. Messenger work is individualized enough that firms can choose to condition pay on it, but significant externalities in messenger behavior nonetheless give their on-the-job interactions the character of a social dilemma. Second-mover behavior in our sequential prisoner's dilemma allows us to characterize the cooperativeness of our participants. Among messengers, we find that employees at firms that pay for performance are significantly less cooperative than those at firms that pay hourly wages or who are members of cooperatives. To examine whether the difference is the result of treatment or selection we exploit the fact that firm type is location-specific in Switzerland and that entering messengers must work in performance pay firms in the U.S.     

A general impossibility result on strategy-proof social choice hyperfunctions

A social choice hyperfunction picks a non-empty set of alternatives at each admissible preference profile over sets of alternatives. We analyze the manipulability of social choice hyperfunctions. We identify a domain D^λ of lexicographic orderings which exhibits an impossibility of the Gibbard–Satterthwaite type. Moreover, this impossibility is inherited by all well-known superdomains of D^λ. As most of the standard extension axioms induce superdomains of D^λ while social choice correspondences are particular social choice hyperfunctions, we are able to generalize many impossibility results in the literature.     

Debreu’s social equilibrium theorem with asymmetric information and a continuum of agents

We provide several different generalizations of Debreu’s social equilibrium theorem by allowing for asymmetric information and a continuum of agents. The results not only extend the ones in Kim and Yannelis (J Econ Theory 77:330–353, 1977), Yannelis and Rustichini (Stud Econ Theory 2:23–48, 1991), but also new theorems are obtained which allow for a convexifying effect on aggregation (non-concavity assumption on the utility functions) and non-convex strategy sets (pure strategies). This is achieved by imposing the assumption of “many more agents than strategies” (Rustichini and Yannelis in Stud Econ Theory 1:249–265, 1991; Tourky and Yannelis in J Econ Theory 101:189–221, 2001; Podczeck in Econ Theory 22:699–725, 2003). To the memory of Gerard Debreu. A preliminary draft was presented in Paris, in April of 2005. I have benefited from the discussion, comments and questions of Erik Balder, Jean-Marc Bonnisseu, Bernard Cornet and Filipe Martins Da-Rocha and Conny Podczeck. A careful and knowledgeable referee made several useful comments and rescued me from a mishap.     

Returns from social capital in open source software networks

Open Source Software projects base their operation on a collaborative structure for knowledge exchange in the form of provision or reception of information, expertise and feedback on the creation of source code. Here, we address the direction of these knowledge flows among projects throughout social networks and their impact on project success. We identify the roles of membership or contribution that individuals play within projects. We found that connections through contributors who bring their knowledge to the project, improve project success, and that connection through members, who transfer their knowledge towards other projects, enhance project success. Finally, we found that ties through shared membership and contributions hamper project success. The analysis of knowledge flows and their impact on project success imply a translation of returns from investment in social capital, where investment takes the shape of knowledge flows and the returns mean the projects’ diffusion over the network.

Inputs and institutions as conservative elements

Ludwig von Mises argued that capital goods were “conservative elements” that constrain future production decisions. Similarly, social capital and institutions also constrain future production decisions. These insights are applied to the institutional transformation of the post-Reconstruction American South. It is argued that the structure of social capital that developed in the South was inappropriate to the formal institutions that emerged as a result of the Civil War and Reconstruction. The tensions between institutions and social capital are examined in the context of racist lynching.

The economic analysis of social norms: A reappraisal of Hayek’s legacy

This paper is organized as follows: first, we show that the reference to the notion of group selection is coherent with the other parts of Hayek’s thought. Second, we develop the idea that recent works in terms of the emergence and evolution of social norms corroborate in part Hayek’s theses in this domain. Finally, we put to the fore some drawbacks in Hayek’s approach and propose means to solve them.

Land use change, biomass production and HANPP: The case of Hungary 1961-2005

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the human appropriation of aboveground net primary production (aHANPP) in Hungary in the years 1961-2005. In this period aboveground HANPP dropped from 67% to 49% of the potential vegetation's NPP. The trajectory was not smooth, but aboveground HANPP fluctuated with changes in factors affecting agricultural production conditions. Both aboveground net primary production (aNPP) of the prevailing vegetation and harvested aNPP increased during the socialist regime, dropped when the system collapsed and has shown considerable fluctuations since. We discuss the development of aboveground HANPP and the Hungarian land use system in the context of socioeconomic changes during three distinct phases: (1) industrialisation of agriculture (1961-1989), (2) regime collapse (1989-1993) and (3) restructuring of a new economy (1993-2005). Within these periods, different driving factors influenced aboveground HANPP and its constituents. In the phase of industrialisation, mechanisation and agrochemical inputs reduced aHANPP while harvested amounts of biomass increased progressively. In the second phase, political and economic circumstances devastated production conditions resulting in a decline of productivity of actual vegetation and a temporary rise in aboveground HANPP. During the last twelve years, industrialisation patterns of agricultural production recovered. The restructuring of inefficient agricultural production systems raised harvest at moderate levels of agricultural inputs, while climatic conditions intimidated high yield and harvest security. The paper discusses the effect of different economic and political regimes and of major socioeconomic restructuring on the development of the land use system, biomass production and aboveground HANPP.     

我国传媒经济地域差异分析

中国传媒产业发展具有不均衡性,存在"高地"、"洼地"之分,有其历史和政策等诸多成因.行政区划带来了行政壁垒及地方保护主义,使得传媒资源不能顺利地进行优化配置,导致了"高地"的"回波效应"明显而"扩散效应"微弱.因此,国家应从政策、资金和技术上对传媒"洼地"进行支持,打破行业及行政壁垒,走科学和谐的发展之路,以促进社会主义文化的发展与繁荣.     

社会生态环境视域下电子政务发展的制约因素探讨

电子政务作为社会大系统中的一个子系统,必然会和其它子系统进行持续不断的能量交换,以保持自身的动态平衡。基于生态环境视角,从政治、经济和文化等几个方面进行深入分析,探讨了制约电子政务发展的各种因素,为我国电子政务的进一步发展寻找理论支撑。