The Effect of Concept Formulation on Concept Test Scores

While concept testing is a mainstay of the new product development process, there is little empirical evidence on the variation in consumer responses due to alternative concept formulations, particularly for those tests undertaken early in the product development process. The present study addressed this gap in the literature by using a split sample mail survey to compare stripped, embellished, and visual concept formulations for five heterogeneous product concepts. It was found that respondents' answers to attitude and purchase intention questions showed only minor variation with different formulations of the concept test statement. It also was found that the ranking of the concepts showed no substantial changes across the different formulations. Therefore, the type of concept statement formulation may not be that important, at least for early ranking tasks performed before experiential prototypes are available. Early concept tests therefore may be carried out using stripped concept statements. This may reduce costs, allowing organizations to undertake early concept testing more frequently across a wider range of products.     

Designing Optimal Crop Revenue Insurance

When the indemnity schedule is contingent on the farmer's price and individual yield, an optimal crop revenue insurance contract depends only on the farmer's gross revenue. However, this design is not efficient if, as is the case with available contracts, the coverage function is based on imperfect estimators of individual yield and/or price. The producer's degree of prudence and the extent of basis risks have important influences on the optimal indemnity schedule. In this broader context, optimal protection is not provided by available U.S. crop insurance contracts and may include combinations of revenue insurance, yield insurance, futures, and options contracts.     

Soviet all-union enterprises as new multinationals of the CIS

This paper examines the restructuring of the former Soviet economy provoked by the break-up of the USSR and the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Particular attention is devoted to the changes taking place in the former All-Union enterprises that have now essentially become new multinationals. The pressures influencing the two parallel developments of internalization and divestment are examined and illustrated using two case studies. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Human capital and the internationalisation of venture capital firms

We examine the neglected area of internationalisation by VCs. Using a representative sample of 195 VCs, we show that the decision of a European VC firm to invest internationally is driven by its human resources. Having more VC executives in general and more VC executives with previous international experience in specific, results in a higher probability of investing internationally. In contrast, more VC executives with experience in the VC industry or with an engineering background lead to a higher probability of remaining domestic.     

Strategic profiles and performance: An empirical test of select key propositions

Competing theories on internal orientation versus external orientation are examined. The relevant theories are amalgamated and condensed into a number of competing propositions that are empirically tested. The findings suggest that the internally oriented businesses as well as the externally oriented businesses underperform the efficient, marketing oriented businesses.     

A simple search model of money with heterogeneous agents and partial acceptability

Summary. Simple search models have equilibria where some agents accept money and others do not. We argue such equilibria should not be taken seriously. This is unfortunate if one wants a model with partial acceptability. We introduce heterogeneous agents and show partial acceptability arises naturally and robustly. There can be multiple equilibria with different degrees of acceptability. Given the type of heterogeneity we allow, the model is simple: equilibria reduce to fixed points in [0,1]. We show that with other forms of heterogeneity equilibria are fixed points in set space, and there is no method to reduce this to a problem in R¹.Received: 4 September 2002, Revised: 23 September 2002JEL Classification Numbers: C78, E40.A. Shevchenko, R. Wright: We thank seminar participants at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Indiana University, Purdue University, University of Toronto, the 2002 Midwest Macroeconomics Conference at Vanderbilt University, and the 2001 Conference on Economic Dynamics at the University of Essex. The National Science Foundation and the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland provided financial support. Braz Ministerio de Camargo and Gabriel Camera provided some helpful suggestions. Correspondence to: R. Wright     

Economic Reform and Macroeconomic Policy in New Zealand

In 1984 the Labour government in New Zealand began a wide-ranging process of reform with the objective of achieving a sustainable improvement in economic performance. The breadth and rapidity with which deregulation, tax reform, and privatisation were implemented has attracted widespread interest. The expected improvement in macroeconomic performance, however, has not yet been realised.
This article describes some background to the policy shift, and focuses on macroeconomic aspects of the reforms. It argues that while many improvements in microeconomic resource allocation have been made, the interaction between monetary, fiscal and wages policies has contributed substantially to the present high cost of structural change in New Zealand.