Religion and International Trade: Does the Sharing of a Religious Culture Facilitate the Formation of Trade Networks?

A bstract .   Despite interest in the influence of religion on economic activity by early economists like Adam Smith, modern economists have done little research on the subject. In light of the apparent religious fervor in many parts of the global economy, economists' seeming lack of interest in studying how religious cultures enhance or retard the globalization of economic activity is especially surprising. This article makes a contribution toward filling this void by examining how religion affects international trade. Specifically, we examine whether the sharing of religious cultures enables the formation of exchange networks that can overcome the failure or nonexistence of other social and economic institutions necessary for completing complex international transactions. We apply an expanded gravity model of international trade to control for a variety of factors that determine trade, and we use two recently developed regression methods, scaled OLS and nonlinear least squares, to exploit the model to its fullest. We find that the sharing of Buddhist, Confucian, Hindu, Eastern Orthodox Catholic, and Protestant cultures by people in different countries has a significantly positive influence on bilateral trade, all other things equal. The sharing of Roman Catholic culture has a significantly negative influence on bilateral trade, and the sharing of Islamic and Judaic cultures neither promotes nor discourages international exchange. These results suggest that some religious cultures are more conducive than others for forming international trade networks.     

The welfare effects of import “subquotas” on heterogeneous product categories

In spite of its importance to policy makers, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the welfare effects of one aspect of trade policy-how to implement an import quota that applies to a heterogeneous product category. The government can impose a simple quota that applies indiscriminately to all goods within the product category or it can divide the quota among them with subquotas. In this paper, we analyze the welfare effects of subquotas. Under certain simplifying assumptions we find that a system of subquotas nearly always exists that provides greater welfare than a simple quota for a large country that retains quota rights or for a large or small country that gives quota rights away to foreigners. However, subquotas cannot increase the welfare of a small country that retains quota rights. The difference lies in the effect of imports on the home country's terms of trade.The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the US International Trade Commission. The authors are grateful for helpful comments on an earlier draft by anonymous referees.     

Preventing wildlife crime with a focus on orangutans: Applying social influence techniques to public education efforts

Orangutans are projected to become critically endangered or extinct this century if humans continue to destroy their habitat. Threats include legal and illegal clearcutting of rain forests to establish palm oil plantations, climate change, and transnational organized crime. This study examines how self-benefit and other benefit appeals, knowledge of threats, concern about habitat loss, and liking orangutans are associated with (a) intent to protect habitat due to licit threats and crimes against wildlife, and (b) seeking information to save habitat. Upon entry to a zoo, 251 (118 men, 128 women, and 5 unknown) persons viewed posters highlighting the benefits of habitat conservation to self or others and completed a survey. Concern, threat knowledge, liking, and self-benefit and other benefit appeals accounted for 28% of the variance associated with intent to take action to protect the habitat. Integrating social influence principles into zoo displays and addressing barriers that prevent conservation behavior are discussed. The ideas in this paper are relevant to many primates and endangered species.     

Salespersons as Internal Knowledge Brokers and New Products Selling: Discovering the Link to Genetic Makeup

Managers increasingly realize the importance of involving the sales force in new product development. However, despite recent progress, research on the specific role of the sales force in product innovation‐related activities remains scarce. In particular, the importance of a salespersons' internal knowledge brokering has been neglected. This study develops and empirically validates the concept of internal knowledge brokering behavior and its effect on selling new products and developing new business, and explores whether a salesperson's internal brokering qualities are determined by biological traits. The findings reveal that salespeople with the DRD2 A1 gene variant engage at significant lower levels of internal knowledge‐brokering behavior than salespeople without this gene variant, and as a result are less likely to engage effectively in new product selling. The DRD4 gene variant had no effect on internal knowledge brokering. Management and future research implications are discussed.     

ARE CONSUMERS MORE LOYAL TO NATIONAL BRANDS THAN TO PRIVATE LABELS?

The evolution of private labels (PLs) can be understood in terms of a strategy adopted by the retail industry with the aim of competing with national brands (NBs). In the 1990s, this strategy led to the development of ‘me too’ products, which currently represent the largest share of store brand products. Since the early 2000s, retailers have widened the range of their store brands by introducing high‐quality products. The aim of this study was to estimate consumers’ attachment to ‘me‐too’ and niche PLs respectively, as compared to NBs. We captured the degree of maturity of these PLs through their price‐elasticities, computed for three staple goods offered by three mass retail companies. It was found that price sensitivity does not differ much between the ‘me‐too’ PLs and the corresponding NBs. This result confirms that ‘me‐too’ products are now considered reliable quality brands. However, in the high quality segment, consumers remain more sensitive to the price of PLs than to that of NBs, a characteristic which may relate to their recent introduction on the market.     

Inequality and Unsustainable Growth:TWO Sides of the Same Coin?

Over the long run, sustained growth is central to poverty reduction.The rapid growth seen in much of the world over the past few decades, notably, but not only, in China and India, has led to an unprecedented reduction in poverty.And, in general, increases in per capita income tend to translate into proportionate increases in income of the poor.As Dollar and Kraay memorably put it, "Growth Is Good for the Poor."Some inequality is integral to the effective functioning of a market economy and the incentives needed for investment and growth.But too much inequality might be destructive to growth.Beyond the risk that inequality.