Farmers,Middlemen and Exporters: A Model of Market Power,Pricing and Welfare in a Vertical Supply Chain

Markets for cash‐crops in developing countries are typically characterized by a concentration of buyer power at different levels of the supply chain. For instance, small‐scale coffee farmers sell their produce to a middleman, who in turn sells the coffee onward to an exporter, often a foreign multinational, with monopsony power in the hands of the purchasers at both levels. We analyze pricing behavior and welfare with different assumptions regarding market power. In particular, we show that a more powerful exporter is likely to benefit the producers and may even lead to higher welfare for the producer country as a whole.     

Belief when evidence does not support theory

Marketing has looked to other scientific disciplines to supplement its understanding of motivation. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs theory is frequently uncritically cited in texts, even though most evidence has failed to support its validity. Science requires that theory be supported by empirical facts. Maslow's theory is briefly summarized, along with a review of the related literature. Reasons are given and empirically supported for the continued popularity of Maslow's theory in marketing despite lack of scientific support. A cautionary note for the continued development of marketing theory concludes the presentation. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Conclusion

MOCT-MOST: Economic Policy in Transitional Economies -     

Small Enterprise Development in the Ygoslav Successor States: Institutions and Institutional Development in a Post-War Environment

MOCT-MOST: Economic Policy in Transitional Economies -     

Neo-Liberalism,SME Development and the Role of Business Support Centres in the Transition Economies of Central and Eastern Europe

Support for SME development was one of the most important policy interventions initiated by post-Communist governments in Central and Eastern Europe from 1990 onwards. Substantial financial support for this was forthcoming from both the international assistance agencies and western governments. One major result was the formation of networks of Business Support Centres (BSCs). The design of the BSCs was very much informed by the neo-liberal approach to business development which was still in the ascendancy in the late 1980s. As a consequence, the BSC networks were structured to be private sector-led, financially self-sustaining, to involve minimal local government participation, and essentially pressed into focusing upon support initiatives which were consonant with short run market imperatives. With several years of experience now behind them, it is possible to begin to make an assessment of their operations and impact upon the SME development process. Unfortunately, the BSC networks almost everywhere are failing to deliver upon the heady promises of both their domestic and international supporters, and the SME development process is beginning to falter. Crucially, they compare very badly with previous historical episodes of SME development facilitated and co-ordinated by the local state. A new SME discourse is called for which explicitly recognises that a "local developmental state" approach could have a much greater, if not a pivotal, role to play in SME development in the transition economies.     

South Africa's post-apartheid microcredit experiment: moving from state-enforced to market-enforced exploitation

The international donor community arrived in post-apartheid South Africa in the early 1990s to restructure the economy along neoliberal lines. One of the most important of the interventions it promoted was microcredit, which was widely seen as one of the principal self-help solutions to the exceptionally high levels of unemployment and poverty that prevailed in the Black South African community. In spite of an early ‘boom-to-bust’ episode in the early 2000s and worrying evidence it was actually further impoverishing far more Black South African's than it was actually helping escape from poverty and unemployment, the microcredit model did not lose its international support: if anything, this support was expanded as the international development community desperately sought to ensure the survival of the microcredit model and therefore also the centrality of self-help and individual entrepreneurship as the only way out of poverty for the poor. This article shows how and why the microcredit model was supported so strongly by the international development community and South African financial community in spite of its manifestly calamitous impact on Black South African community. Overall, I conclude, microcredit can be viewed as South Africa's own sub-prime-style disaster which, like the original US version, has mainly served to benefit a tiny financial elite working within and around the microcredit sector, whilst simultaneously destroying many of the most important pillars of the economy and society.     

Reconstructing the Balkans: Alternative Policy Approaches

MOCT-MOST: Economic Policy in Transitional Economies -