the wage impact of trade unions in the uk public and private sectors there is a growing gap in the union membership wage premium between public and private sector workers in the united kingdom using the labour force surveys of 1993 2006 the gap between the membership premium in the public and private sectors closes with the addition of three digit occupational controls although significant wage premia remain in both sectors however using the workplace employment relations survey of 2004 the public sector union membership wage premium remains roughly twice the size of the private sector membership premium having accounted for workplace fixed effects and workers occupations job characteristics qualifications and demographics

smallholder market participation concepts and evidence from eastern and southern africa abstract this paper reviews the evidence on smallholder market participation with a focus on staple foodgrains i e cereals in eastern and southern africa in an effort to help better identify what interventions are most likely to break smallholders out of the semi subsistence poverty trap that appears to ensnare much of rural africa the conceptual and empirical evidence suggests that interventions aimed at facilitating smallholder organization at reducing the costs of intermarket commerce and perhaps especially at improving poorer households access to improved technologies and productive assets are central to stimulating smallholder market participation and escape from semi subsistence poverty traps macroeconomic and trade policy tools appear less useful in inducing market participation by poor smallholders in the region

management of social issues in supply chains a literature review exploring social issues actions and performance outcomes the social dimension of sustainable development and its impact on supply chains have so far received less attention than the environmental dimension the aim of the research is to explore the intersection between social issues corporate social responsibility csr actions and performance outcomes a structured literature review of social issues in supply chains is presented analysing the research published so far in peer reviewed publications linking csr and supply chain management allows the exploration of strategies and performance outcomes with a focus on social issues the corresponding responsible supply chain actions adopted by firms to address these issues are grouped into communication compliance and supplier development strategies social and economic as well as buyer and supplier performance are identified as the key outcomes but the interactions among these constructs would require further research this paper contributes to the understanding of managing social issues in supply chains by linking social issues responsible supply chain actions and performance outcomes the paper consolidates related research by offering an overarching conceptual framework and points to future research directions and simultaneously provides insights into the management of social issues in supply chains

resolving differences in willingness to pay and willingness to accept reply gwendolyn c morrison 1997 raises a logical point regarding our experimental test of the divergence between willingness to pay wtp and willingness to accept wta measures of economic value shogren et al 1994 she argues that our design does not provide a true test of the existence of a fundamental endowment effect since we did not control for the potential of a pivoting indifference map daniel kahneman et al 1990 she concludes that even though our ev idence shows that the mean wtp and wta bids for market goods with close substitutes e g candy bars and coffee mugs converge after market experience the endowment effect might still be alive and well albeit at statisti cally insignificant levels

reversing urban bias in african rice markets evidence from senegal summary urban bias constitutes an important institutional impediment to economic development in poor countries some african governments now recognize that they should invest in agricultural productivity in order to reverse urban bias but often forget the equally important objective of investing in quality tailored to consumers so as to reverse urban bias footprint on food markets we conduct framed field experiments in two major urban markets in senegal and find that the majority of urban consumers are willing to pay quality premiums for local rice suggesting that investment in post harvest rice quality is a priority in the reversal of urban bias 2012 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

country of origin effects on product evaluations this article reviews the literature regarding the effect of country of origin on buyer evaluations of products the issue is important for countries especially resource poor developing countries that need to increase manufactured exports and for firms that source products in countries different from where sold marketing inferences are drawn and implications for future research are developed

toward a broadened theory of preference formation and the diffusion of innovations cases from zinder province niger republic the standard model for the diffusion of innovations in consumer behavior does not adequately account for the incorporation of novel items of non local origin into the material culture inventory of hausa speaking peasants in niger a synthetic culturally relative model composed of elements drawn from the standard diffusion paradigm from world systems theory and from economic and symbolic anthropology provides a more satisfactory account of these processes analysis shows that novel goods provide a medium through which alternative paradigms of consumer behavior and reality contend among the hausa a premarket model a western market mediated model and an islamic ethnonationalist model compete for consumer affiliation

shaming the corporation the social production of targets and the anti sweatshop movement as social movements co evolve with changes in states and markets it is crucial to examine how they make particular kinds of actors into focal points for the expression of grievances and the demand for rights but researchers often bracket the question of why some kinds of organizations are more likely than others to become targets of social movement pressure we theorize the social production of targets by social movements rejecting a simple reflection model to focus on configurations of power and vulnerability that shape repertoires of contention empirically we extend structural accounts of global commodity chains and cultural accounts of markets to analyze the production of targets in the case of the anti sweatshop movement of the 1990s using a longitudinal firm level dataset and unique data on anti sweatshop activism we identify factors that attracted social movement pressure to particular companies firms power and positions strongly shaped their likelihood of becoming targets of anti swea

cereals demand in the sahel and potential impacts of regional cereals protection abstract recent policy debate in the sahel has focused on a regional protection zone for cereals this paper discusses crosscountry evidence of consumption patterns and the sensitivity of these to policy variables and considers potential income distribution and efficiency impacts of a rice tariff increase a tariff would hurt the poor in the short term because the poor depend to a large extent on rice as a fast food purchased from street vendors the trend toward rice consumption is a long term structural phenomenon linked to urbanization rather than to short term price changes maize and millet sorghum are substitutes in consumption which should serve to encourage development of maize in the guinean zone to help assure sahel food security in drought years

comparative advantage in demand and the development of rice value chains in west africa summary national rice development strategies in africa are often supply focused and implicitly assume that consumers will readily substitute imported for domestic rice however due to increasing import dependency urban consumer preferences for rice have become biased toward asian export quality standards against which african rice has difficulties to compete anecdotal evidence suggests that this import bias is higher in cities close to the port and remote from the geographical centers of cultural heritage where african rice was domesticated more than 3 000 years ago we purposely select a sample of five west african urban markets which are supplied by both foreign and domestic rice value chains and which are located at varying distances from the nearest ports and centers of cultural heritage and conduct framed field experiments based on auctions to analyze the drivers of urban demand for domestic rice with upgraded quality characteristics we find that west african rice has increasing difficulties competing against imported rice on urban markets the more consumers appreciate characteristics of imported asian rice the closer to the port and the further the geographical and genealogical distance from rice cultural heritage these challenges provide crucial insights into value chain upgrading in policy makers struggle to achieve rice self sufficiency in west africa our findings suggest that the optimal portfolio of investment in value chain upgrading is a function of the targeted end market and its distance from the port and rice cultural heritage the closer the end market is located toward the port the more investment is needed in lifting demand of domestic rice through quality upgrading branding and promotion to enable it to compete against imported rice proximity to centers of cultural heritage on the other hand endows rice value chains with a comparative advantage in demand requiring less investment in demand lifting and leaving more room for supply shifting investments

targeting capital a cultural economy approach to understanding the efficacy of two anti genetic engineering movements in the late 1990s the british anti genetic engineering ge movement effectively closed britain s market for genetically modified foods while the u s anti ge movement had a negligible impact in seeking to explain the different outcomes of these similar social movements the authors draw upon the global commodity chains gcc literature to extend the understanding of the economic and industry related openings and closures social movements face as they seek to promote social change this analysis not only illustrates the importance of economic structures and organization for movement outcomes but also shows how the economic sphere is culturally constituted in this fashion it broadens the social movement literature s understanding both of the way that political economy matters to movement efficacy and of the way that cultural processes infuse the economic sphere the study advances the gcc literature by showing how gccs are cultural as well as economic constructs

public enforcement private monitoring evaluating a new approach to regulating the minimum wage this paper examines compliance with federal minimum wage laws in the u s apparel industry and analyzes the impact of new methods of intervention designed to improve regulatory performance drawing

modeling food consumption decisions as a two step process this article evaluates the suitability of tobit analysis of food consumption patterns by comparing results generated by a tobit model and a modification with a two step decision process two samples of adult women were selected from the 1977 78 nationwide food consumption survey and the 1985 continuing survey of food intakes by individuals results show strong statistical evidence for questioning tobit analysis in examining food consumption decisions determinants of the decision to consume food within a particular food group often differ from the determinants of how much to consume particularly for more highly defined food groupings analysis of u s food consumption patterns and their dietary aspects with respect to consumer behavior has a long history traditionally ordinary least squares ols or some variant has been used in many studies where ols was not appropriate the tobit method was applied tobit allows for a discrete mass point for observations as well as a continuous range of values for the dependent variable this nonlinear method has yielded good results in a variety of studies e g mccracken and brandt lane and devaney and fraker this article examines the suitability of the tobit method for analysis of food consumption patterns the tobit method assumes that the decision to consume a given food item is the same as the decision about the amount of the food to consume ignoring the two step nature of the decision process may hamper understanding of true behavioral patterns lead to erroneous conclusions and generate incorrect policy recommendations this article compares results generated by a tobit model and a modification with a two step decision process in the next section the statistical methods used to test whether food consumption is a one or two step decision process are described the following sections discuss the variables and data present the results and consider the conclusions

focus on fairtrade propositions for integrating fairtrade and supply chain management research driven by increased consumer interest and stakeholder pressure the number of fairtrade ft products has been steadily increasing the mainstreaming of ft means that the products are now facing stiff competition within the generic product categories in which they operate while consumers may pressure organizations for ethical conduct they are less willing to pay premium prices for fairly traded products for ft to continue to grow more efficient operating models are required to offset the premium prices paid to producers to ensure competitiveness in the market one such improvement approach may be the management of ft supply chains to investigate the feasibility of this approach this article systematically combines literature on ft with key supply chain management scm constructs and theories we discuss existing scm paradigms in the context of ft and demonstrate aspects where the efficiency of ft chains needs to be improved to ensure their viability we present propositions that demonstrate the key limitations of the ft model from the point of view of scm theory and practice and suggest the potential changes needed in the management of ft supply chains the article provides a timely first attempt to systematically combine ft with scm constructs thus establishing a basis for the further development of ft chains and for the improvement of the operating efficiency within them

leveraging reputational risk sustainable sourcing campaigns for improving labour standards in production networks ethical or socially sustainable sourcing mechanisms mandating labour standards among the suppliers and subcontractors that organisations source goods and services from are becoming more common the issue of how labour activist groups such as trade unions can encourage organisations to adopt and strengthen these mechanisms within domestic production networks is largely unexplored using three cases of domestic sustainable sourcing campaigns developed by unions in britain the strategies used by labour activists the characteristics of the organisations targeted and the motivations of lead firms for improving sourcing practices are analysed the article makes a significant contribution by demonstrating that organisational susceptibility to reputational risk is a key factor influencing the capacity of activist groups to convince and compel their targets to improve sourcing practices it argues that different types of organisations are susceptible to reputational damage in different ways that risk events provide opportunities for unions to strengthen their leverage against target organisations and that the multidimensional nature of corporate reputation needs to be better considered for understanding how campaigns are framed and executed

a meta analysis of country of origin effects this note reports a quantitative analysis of the country of origin coo effect based on fifty two articles or papers containing sixty nine independent studies and 1 520 effect sizes an analysis of fifteen study characteristics revealed that country of origin effects are only somewhat generalizable using omega squared as the measure of effect size verbal product descriptions produced larger coo effect sizes than did the presence of an actual product likewise single cue studies produced larger coo effect sizes than did multiple cue studies and larger samples produced effect sizes that on average were greater than those produced by smaller samples the size of an observed coo effect was a function of whether the dependent variables was a quality reliability perception or a purchase intention the average effect size of quality reliability perceptions was 30 whereas the average effect size for purchase intentions was 19 purchase intentions were most susceptible to methodological artifacts than were quality reliability perceptions study findings selectively confirm and refute common beliefs regarding the impact of a country of origin cue on product perceptions and purchase intentions

appreciating the renminbi international pressure to revalue china s currency stems in part from the expectation that rapid economic growth should be associated with an underlying real exchange rate appreciation this hinges on the balassa samuelson hypothesis which sees growth as stemming from improvements in traded sector productivity and associated rises in wages and non traded prices yet despite extraordinary growth after the mid 1990s china s real exchange rate showed no tendency to appreciate until after 2004 we use a dynamic general equilibrium model to simulate the economy and show that during this period trade reforms and a rising national saving rate were offsetting forces in the presence of elastic labour supply we then examine the possible determinants of the striking transition to real appreciation thereafter noting mounting evidence that an improved rural term of trade has tightened china s labour market we show that should the chinese government bow to international pressure by appreciating the renminbi either via an extraordinary monetary contraction or via export disincentives the consequences would be harmful for both chinese and global interests

middlemen and peasants in rice marketing in the philippines abstract this paper reports the results of a field survey covering all links in the channel of rice marketing from farmers to consumers in laguna province philippines the survey revealed a highly competitive nature of rice marketing in this area where the countless number of middlemen compete in the procurement of paddy from farmers for rice mills leaving little room for monopoly monopsony exercises intense competition was also found in wholesaling by mills to retailers as well as retailing to consumers

implications of population ageing for economic growth the share of the population aged 60 and over is projected to increase in nearly every country in the world during the period 2005 50 population ageing will tend to lower both labour force participation and savings rates thereby raising concerns about a future slowing of economic growth our calculations suggest that oecd countries are likely to see modest but not catastrophic declines in the rate of economic growth however behavioural responses including greater female labour force participation and policy reforms including an increase in the legal age of retirement can mitigate the economic consequences of an older population in most non oecd countries declining fertility rates will cause labour force to population ratios to rise as the shrinking share of young people will more than offset the skewing of adults towards the older ages these factors suggest that

a profit driven approach to building a people responsible supply chain abstract today an increasing number of companies have publicized policies to improve corporate social responsibility performance related to human resources in their supply chain management practices such as safer and healthier working conditions higher payment better benefits and fewer working hours however there are still concerns about the sincerity and effectiveness of such efforts this could be attributed to the fact that the economic benefit of those improvements is not clearly structured as an integral part in the companies decision making process in this paper we develop a stylized analytic framework that links a firm s supply chain social performance in people with its economic performance in profit specifically we examine how consumers responses to the outbreak of social misconduct in supply chains affect competing firms market segmentation and profit and subsequently provide economic incentive for proactive social responsibility investment closed form optimal solutions for proactive social responsibility strategy are found for our model setup numerical tests and sensitivity analyses have been conducted to study the effects of various factors on the firms supply chain social responsibility strategies factors such as consumers ethical disposition the social environment and consumers perception of a product s functional versus social value are a few among them the results of our analysis demonstrate that proactive investment in supply chain social responsibility can enhance a firm s competitive advantage and economic performance thereby suggesting a profit driven approach to achieving supply chain social responsibility and sustainability

consumer preferences for fresh food items with multiple quality attributes evidence from an experimental auction of pork chops this study illustrates an application of experimental auction methods using both experimental economics and experimental design to evaluate consumer perceptions and willingness to pay wtp for fresh pork chops we test and reject hypotheses that a market prices and consumers wtp are unaffected by the level of attributes embodied in the pork chops b appearance based on photographs or actual product and actual taste are equally good sources of consumer information and c consumers are consistent in their preferences for fresh pork attributes a major conclusion is that predicting consumer demand for fresh pork or any fresh food based on appearance without tasting is unproductive

stakeholder forces of socially responsible supply chain management orientation this project investigates salient stakeholder forces of socially responsible supply chain orientation srsco in the apparel and footwear sector focusing on fair labor management issues srsco was conceptualized as a composite of internal organizational direction and external partnership for a creation and continuation of fair labor conditions throughout the supply chain primary stakeholders identified were consumers regulation industry and media a total of 209 mail survey responses from sourcing managers of u s apparel and footwear companies were analyzed two dimensions of srsco were confirmed internal direction and external partnership consumer and industry peer pressures were found significantly related to internal direction while industry peers and media were significantly related to the external partnership regulation was not significantly related to either internal direction or external partnerships lack of regulation forces to govern labor issues and roles of consumers industry peers and media in promoting fair labor management are discussed in this article

tnc motives for signing international framework agreements a continuous bargaining model of stakeholder pressure over the past decade discussion has flourished among practitioners and academics regarding workers rights in developing countries the lack of enforcement of national labour laws and the limited protection of workers rights in developing countries have led workers rights representatives to attempt to establish transnational industrial relations systems to complement existing national systems in practice these attempts have mainly been operationalised in unilateral codes of conduct recently however negotiated international framework agreements ifas have been proposed as an alternative despite their growing importance few studies have empirically studied ifas this paper starts to fill this gap by studying why corporations adopt ifas based on a qualitative study of the process leading to the signing of a recent ifa the study s findings complement existing research into why corporations adopt ifas codes of conduct and csr policies by demonstrating that corporate motives can be linked to a desire to retain a trusting relationship with the labour union movement in addition the findings indicate that the discrete campaign model of stakeholder pressure dominant in previous research should be complemented by a continuous bargaining model of stakeholder pressure the paper concludes by discussing differences between these conceptual models of stakeholder pressure and avenues for future research

experimental auction procedure impact on valuation of quality differentiated goods despite increased use of experimental auctions a myriad of different procedures are being employed without formal consideration of how the procedures might affect results this study investigates the effect of several procedural issues on valuation estimates from experimental auctions results indicate the second price auction generates higher valuations than english becker degroot marschak bdm and random nth price auctions especially in latter bidding rounds and that random nth price auction yields lower valuations than english and bdm auctions we find that endowing subjects with a good prior to eliciting bids can have an impact on valuations but the effect varies across auction mechanism

rising trends and variability of rice prices threats and opportunities for sub saharan africa abstract nearly 40 of the rice consumed in africa is imported that is about one third of all rice traded in world markets with such high dependence on imports africa is highly exposed to international market shocks with sometimes grave consequences for its food security and political stability as attested by events during the 2008 food crisis in this paper it is argued that africa can turn the rising trends in world markets to a historical opportunity to realize its large potential for rice production after a review of the policy responses of african countries to the 2008 global rice crisis the opportunities and challenges for enhancing domestic rice supply are discussed the competitiveness of rice production in africa is analyzed for selected countries and rice ecologies the potential for increasing paddy production is illustrated using a spreadsheet simulation that considers alternative rice sector development scenarios reducing the yield gap and expanding cultivated rice areas under lowland and irrigated hold the greatest potential for substantially increasing paddy production in africa

the economics of movement success business responses to civil rights mobilization1 this article explores why movements are successful in obtaining concessions from economic actors while social movement theorists have suggested that economic actors weigh the costliness of protests the author considers the vulnerability of movement targets to both the cost of disruptions in routine transactions and the cost of conceding to movement demands by addressing the magnitude of these costs and their interaction the author derives an economic opportunity structure to predict the receptivity of economic actors to movement demands and the likely struggles among them over the decision to yield also this cost assessment approach reveals patterns of vulnerability across economic sectors to the costs of disruptive mobilization the author tests this analysis based on case studies of the responses of economic actors to civil rights mobilization in the 1960s in five southern localities these cases depict how the character of protest and variation in the configuration of business communities defined

labour leverage in global value chains the role of interdependencies and multi level dynamics the global segmentation of production and distribution has resulted in highly complex global value chains gvcs where vertical and horizontal dynamics are equally important in determining working conditions and providing points of leverage for labour borrowing notions of multi level governance we propose an analytical framework for describing and explaining success and failure of labour agency when attempting to improve working conditions along gvcs our starting point is that the high complexity of gvcs and the absence of a global overarching authority have been balanced by the emergence of governance mechanisms of different forms and at different levels an assessment of these mechanisms which emphasize process over institutions reveals how different types of interactions and interdependencies along gvcs impact on labour s use of power we argue that in order to fully situate labour agency within governance debates any future research agenda needs to be driven by micro level bottom up approaches

the contribution of environmental and social standards towards ensuring legitimacy in supply chain governance increasingly companies implement social and environmental standards as instruments towards corporate social responsibility csr in supply chains this is based on the assumption that such standards increase legitimacy among stakeholders yet a wide variety of standards with different requirement levels exist and companies might tend to introduce the ones with low exigencies using them as a legitimacy front this strategy jeopardizes the reputation of social and environmental standards among stakeholders and their long term trust in these instruments of csr meaning that all expenses for their implementation are of no avail for the companies therefore this paper highlights which criteria are important for the selection implementation and improvement in order to achieve a company s aim but also to strengthen the legitimacy of social and environmental standards this research is based on conceptual thought and some existing empirical research comparing four different social and environmental standards revealing weaknesses and strengths it exposes the basic conditions for the success of such standards among stakeholders and identifies the need for more empirical data

impacts of devaluation on senegalese households policy implications abstract in january 1994 the franc cfa was devaluated from 50 to 100 fcfa to the french franc this article uses detailed income and expenditure data to simulate the impact of the devaluation on real household income and identify the groups in senegal that are most damaged urban households are hit hardest because they consume large quantities of imported rice and do not earn income from exportables surprisingly one rural area is as negatively affected as the urban areas one experiences no change and a third realizes only a small 5 increase in real income these small or negative affects occur because consumption of imported rice is high which is still the case a year after devaluation and income from the production of exportable peanuts is low relatively strong positive impacts 14 16 increase in real income were realized only in the two zones where peanuts account for a large share of total income about 50 this is perhaps a more negative or in some cases ambiguous impact in rural areas than we think policymakers expected the difference from expectations is due to the higher than expected levels of rice consumption and the lower than expected shares of income earned from peanut production these two facts together lead to a greater negative demand side effect and smaller positive supply side effects of devaluation in several rural zones attention should be given to 1 policies to protect vulnerable groups and 2 policies to stimulate investment by groups realizing short run increases in income thereby channeling the short run benefits into actions that will foster long run economic growth

how environmentalists greened trade policy strategic action and the architecture of field overlap this article examines why and how environmental activists despite considerable political weakness and disproportionally few resources won substantive negotiating concessions that far outstripped labor achievements during nafta s negotiation despite a trade policy arena hostile to their demands environmentalists gained official recognition for the legitimacy of their claims obtained a seat at the negotiating table turned a previously technocratic concern into a highly visible populist issue and won an environmental side agreement stronger than its labor counterpart we argue that this unexpected outcome is best explained by environmentalists strategic use of mechanisms available at the intersection of multiple fields while field theory mainly focuses on interactions within a particular field we suggest that the structure of overlap between fields the architecture of field overlap creates unique points of leverage that render particular targets more vulnerable and certain strategies more effective

consumer demand for rice grain quality and returns to research for quality improvement in southeast asia abundant world rice supply has led to renewed interest in improving grain quality of modem rice varieties implicit prices of grain characteristics are estimated for thailand indonesia and the philippines these prices are used to evaluate rice breeding goals and to estimate returns to research for quality improvement results indicate that the past focus on physical quality improvement was appropriate and future welfare gains are possible from chemical quality improvement returns to quality improvement are substantial and indicate underinvestment in this type of research as asian rice production grew faster than population from 1965 to 1980 the real price of rice declined in world markets and several asian countries flinn and unnevehr greater supply and falling prices have increased concern for rice grain quality improvement in national and international research programs in tropical asia khush in this article the consumer goods characteristics model develo ed bv ladd and suvannunt is used to estimaie thedimplicit prices of rice grain quality characteristics in thailand indonesia and the philippines these estimated implicit prices answer three questions a do observed consumer preferences correspond to measures of quality used to screen material in breeding programs b are consumer preferences similar across countries so that quality improvement can be undertaken at the international level c what are the returns to re

measuring the relative importance of preferences for country of origin in china france niger and the united states recent labeling policies in developed countries place new focus on origin labeling especially country of origin labeling for a variety of food products it is not clear if this new emphasis on origin is the result of more ethnocentric consumer preferences for food we measure consumer preferences for country of origin in four different international locations and one domestic control location using a conjoint experiment to test the null hypotheses that consumers do not have stronger own country preferences in addition we compare the relative importance of consumer preferences for origin to their preferences for genetically modified food and pesticide free production using attribute coefficients from within location ordered probit models the study was conducted in china france niger and the united states we find consumers tend to prefer food from their own location indicating ethnocentric tendencies do play a role in shaping country of origin preferences country of origin is generally less important to consumers than genetically modified food content and pesticide use in food production

generic product advertising spillovers and market concentration we examine the decision to advertise a homogenous good we show that the likelihood of inefficiently low advertising rests heavily on how one models the mechanism by which advertising affects demand regardless of this mechanism however there is always a lower bound of concentration below which no advertising occurs even when welfare enhancing in such cases mandatory programs will raise welfare if they induce entry although producer surplus may decline our model also provides an explanation for the stylized fact that advertising intensity first rises and then falls as concentration increases copyright 2008 oxford university press

mandated social disclosure an analysis of the response to the california transparency in supply chains act of 2010 in this study we examine investor and firm response to the california transparency in supply chains act ctsca of 2010 the ctsca requires large retail and manufacturing firms to disclose efforts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking from their supply chains and is a rare example of mandated corporate social responsibility disclosure based on a sample of 105 retail companies subject to the ctsca we find a significant negative market reaction to the passing of the ctsca furthermore we find that the reaction is significantly more negative for larger firms and companies facing greater supply chain risks apparel and footwear retailers suggesting that investors place a negative value on exposure to legitimacy threats in the social domain with respect to company disclosure response we document relatively high compliance with the legislation although we also find that the disclosure response appeared to be more symbolic than substantive in nature finally our analysis indicates that both disclosure choice and disclosure extensiveness were significantly higher for the high supply chain risk companies suggesting that the response was influenced by concerns with strategic legitimation overall the limited quality of disclosure suggests that without additional rules and guidance mandates alone may not lead to meaningful social disclosure

meat marketing in burkina faso after the devaluation of the fcfa insights into the functioning of informal market systems abstract the strategies that participants in informal african markets adopt in response to shocks have rarely been analysed yet these can provide important insights into how such markets function policy advice often seeks to modernise trading practices within such markets so as to improve efficiency however efforts to improve efficiency could have undesirable consequences if the current functioning of the markets is inadequately understood in burkina faso the fcfa devaluation in 1994 led to increasing livestock exports and a subsequent meat shortage on the domestic market based on market statistics from burkina faso and household interviews the study investigates the status of meat consumption before and up to four years after the devaluation results indicate that the price increase for cattle was only transmitted to consumers after a time lag meat is more frequently sold in little heaps than on a weight basis lower per kg prices of smaller size heaps imply an income gain for poorer consumers butchers use all edible body parts in addition to the carcass i e head hoofs intestines to buffer price fluctuations and to cope with the consumers notion of a fixed nominal price this suggests that butchers and their clients are embedded in networks of what s plattner 1989 economic behavior in markets in plattner s ed economic anthropology stanford pp 209 222 called equilibrating economic relations which are favoured by the perishable nature of meat selling live animals or meat by weight is often considered as a measure to increase transparency within informal markets however the introduction of formalized or standardized marketing measures alone without lowering the transaction costs of other components of the value chain risks undermining the equilibrating social relationships that play an important role particularly for the poorer market actors and thereby disadvantaging vulnerable population groups

multi stakeholder regulation privatizing or socializing global labor standards summary this paper evaluates leading non governmental labor regulation initiatives in the united states and europe it comparatively assesses the codes of conduct and monitoring systems within these initiatives discusses their different models of regulation and proposes criteria for evaluating their effectiveness it identifies critical factors which appear to support more effective non governmental regulation such as substantive participation of local stakeholders public transparency of methods and findings and mechanisms that bring market pressures to bear on multi national corporations and simultaneously support processes of multi stakeholder problem solving within factories and global supply chains

business codes of multinational firms what do they say business codes are an oft cited management instrument but how common are codes among multinationals and what is their content in an unprecedented study the codes of the largest corporations in the world have been collected and thoroughly analyzed this paper presents the results of that study of the 200 largest companies in the world 52 5 have a code more than half f these codes describe company responsibilities regarding quality of products and services 67 adherence to local laws and regulations 57 and the protection of the natural environment 56 many codes make reference to principles governing stake holder relations e g transparency 55 honesty 50 and fairness 45 corporate core values e g teamwork 43 appropriate conduct among employees e g discrimination 44 and intimidation 43 and treatment of company property by employees e g conflict of interests 52 corruption 46 and fraud 45 monitoring compliance with the code is addressed in 52 of the codes based on this content study three types of codes are distinguished the stakeholder statute 72 the values statement 49 and the code of conduct 46 the results of this inquiry present a benchmark for the evaluation and development of both individual and international business codes

the importance of taste in experimental auctions consumers valuation of calorie and sweetener labeling of soft drinks a majority of purchases that consumers make are classified as repeat purchases one of the main reasons why consumers make repeat food purchases is the food s taste therefore we examined the importance of including taste testing in nonhypothetical experimental auctions specifically we used two experiments to determine consumers willingness to pay for soft drinks labeled with different calorie and sweetener information in experiment 1 participants tasted the soft drinks prior to the bidding rounds in experiment 2 participants did not taste the soft drinks prior to the bidding rounds bidding behavior for the soft drinks was significantly different between experiment 1 and experiment 2 results suggest that including taste testing in the design of experimental auctions is important to accurately capture consumers willingness to pay for foods that are purchased repeatedly results also imply that policies aimed at combating obesity by making the calorie content of foods more visible may not produce desired outcomes

institutional emergence in an era of globalization the rise of transnational private regulation of labor and environmental conditions1 why have systems of transnational private regulation recently emerged to certify corporate social and environmental performance different conceptions of institutional emergence underlie different answers to this question many scholars argue that firms create certification systems to solve problems in the market a view rooted in a conception of institutions as solutions to collective action problems the author develops a different account by viewing institutions as the outcome of political contestation and by analyzing conflict and institutional entrepreneurship among a wide array of actors using a comparative case study design the analysis shows how these arguments explain the formation of social and environmental certification associations both theoretical approaches are needed but strong versions of the market based approach overlook an important set of dynamics that the author calls the political construction of market institutions the analysis shows how both problem solving in markets and

geographical indications and the competitive provision of quality in agricultural markets the economics of geographical indications gis is assessed within a vertical product differentiation framework that is consistent with the competitive structure of agriculture it is assumed that certification costs are needed for gis to serve as collective credible quality certification devices and production of high quality product is endogenously determined we find that gis can support a competitive provision of quality and lead to clear welfare gains although they fall short of delivering the constrained first best the main beneficiaries are consumers producers may also accrue some benefit if production of the high quality products draws on scarce factors that they own copyright 2008 oxford university press

public policies on corporate social responsibility the role of governments in europe over the last decade corporate social responsibility csr has been defined first as a concept whereby companies decide voluntarily to contribute to a better society and cleaner environment and second as a process by which companies manage their relationship with stakeholders european commission 2001 nowadays csr has become a priority issue on governments agendas this has changed governments capacity to act and impact on social and environmental issues in their relationship with companies but has also affected the framework in which csr public policies are designed governments are incorporating multi stakeholder strategies this article analyzes the csr public policies in european advanced democracies and more specifically the eu 15 countries and provides explanatory keys on how governments have understood designed and implemented their csr public policies the analysis has entailed the classification of csr public policies taking into consideration the actor to which the governments policies were addressed this approach to the analysis of csr public policies in the eu 15 countries leads us to observe coinciding lines of action among the different countries analyzed which has enabled us to propose a four ideal typology model for governmental action on csr in europe partnership business in the community sustainability and citizenship and agora the main contribution of this article is to propose an analytical framework to analyze csr public policies which provide a perspective on the relationships between governments businesses and civil society stakeholders and enable us to incorporate the analysis of csr public policies into a broader approach focused on social governance

promoting sustainable intensification and productivity growth in sahel agriculture after macroeconomic policy reform abstract policy reforms and structural adjustment programs in sahelian countries have eliminated many public agricultural support programs creating a vacuum that has not yet been filled by the private sector sahelian farmers thus face more difficult access to inputs and higher input costs input use has stagnated or declined yet higher population and less land for expansion of cultivation make it vital to increase the productivity of already cultivated land through adoption of intensive agricultural production techniques while partial intensification is becoming common too little investment is occurring in inputs and land improvements that maintain soil fertility control erosion and improve water availability partial intensification therefore risks being an unsustainable strategy higher and more sustainable productivity growth requires significantly increased use of chemical and organic fertilizer improved seeds bunds and animal traction the dilemma is how to ensure that such investments are financially and economically profitable and affordable in terms of government budgets it is crucial to 1 improve input access and reduce the unit cost of inputs to farmers through infrastructure investment 2 increase the productivity of fertilizer and improved seed by encouraging complementary farm level investments 3 improve the coordination of input and output marketing systems and improve incentives for private sector involvement 4 improve farmers ability to buy inputs using credit and non farm income 5 reduce the financial risks of purchased input use through integrated input output markets and innovative credit schemes and 6 evaluate the net economic benefits of selected agricultural support programs including input subsidies

population pessimism and economic optimism in the asian giants the timing of china s and india s demographic transitions and the implications of alternative fertility scenarios are explored here using a global economic model incorporating full demographic behaviour and measures of dependency that accurately reflect the changing proportion of workers rather than working aged in the total population the baseline scenario confirms that demographic change in india may yield significant gains to future real per capita income resulting from a continuing sharp decline in its total dependency ratio for china these gains are largely in the past although the positive contribution of declining youth and working aged dependency to future per capita income will continue to offset the negative impact of rising aged dependency through to 2030 whilst a policy change to foster higher fertility rates and hence more rapid population growth in china might ultimately ease its dependency burden in the short run it will increase it in any case such a course is contradictory to the goal of delivering improvements in real per capita income for india we confirm that the benefits of further fertility reductions in the form of increased real per capita income are substantial

explaining agricultural and agrarian policies in developing countries the paper describes and as far as possible explains variations in policies programs and institutions that influence agricultural growth agrarian relations and rural welfare across developing countries and over time it evaluates the impact of distorted policy patterns on agricultural production and rural poverty and identifies conditions under which policy reforms meant to bring about greater efficiency and equity are likely to be initiated and sustained it draws upon a broad range of literature to show how material conditions missing markets and government policies affect static welfare outcomes patterns of accumulation state formation and the establishment of political institutions it suggests ways to improve policy advice and proposes directions for future research

socially and environmentally responsible purchasing comparing the impacts on buying firm s financial performance competitiveness and risk abstract the paper presents a study that aims to compare the contribution of social and environmental practices along the purchasing process to economic performance competitiveness and risk mitigation of the buying firm the number of studies dealing with the topic has significantly increased in the last few years the majority of the extant research is focused on the environmental dimension whereas fewer studies have explored the social dimension or the combination of both factors the results are mixed with some scholars supporting the existence of a positive relationship between socially and environmentally oriented purchasing management and financial performance competitiveness and risk mitigation and others being more cautious relying on suggestions from earlier literature the study presents an analysis of a database made up of 189 international buying companies operating in italy and the results have provoked two main observations data were collected through a closed question questionnaire to purchasing managers which was defined from items and variables identified in the previous literature on the one hand the results corroborated the hypotheses of the study confirming that both dimensions contribute to firm performance on the other hand the findings showed that differences do exist and that the positive relationship between social and environmental dimensions and firm performance depends upon the stage into which those criteria are integrated the integration of social criteria has proven to impact only risk mitigation throughout the purchasing process whereas the environmental dimension contributes to risk mitigation and competitiveness when included in the supplier selection phase and to economic performance when considered in supplier relationship management

embedding csr values the global footwear industry s evolving governance structure many transnational corporations and international organizations have embraced corporate social responsibility csr to address criticisms of working and environmental conditions at subcontractors factories while csr codes of conduct are easy to draft supplier compliance has been elusive even third party monitoring has proven an incomplete solution this article proposes that an alteration in the supply chain s governance from an arms length market model to a collaborative partnership often will be necessary to effectuate csr the market model forces contractors to focus on price and delivery as they compete for the lead firm s business rendering csr observance secondary at best a collaborative partnership where the lead firm gives select suppliers secure product orders and other benefits removes disincentives and adds incentives for csr compliance in time the suppliers csr habit should shift their business philosophy toward pursuing csr as an end in itself regardless of buyer incentives and monitoring this article examines these hypotheses in the context of the athletic footwear sector with nike inc and its suppliers as the specific case study the data collected and conclusions reached offer strategies for advancing csr beyond the superficial and often ineffectual code of conduct stage