an alternative view of pricing in retail food markets the pricing mechanism of intracity retail food markets has received the attention of agricultural economists who are interested in the competitive nature of food price determination attention has focused on the information theory paradigm and potential impact of publically available comparative price reports in this paper a spatial economic model is developed to describe and analyze consumer choice seller behavior and price determination in retail food markets empirical evidence is then used to test hypotheses developed from the spatial model it is concluded that the spatial model offers added explanatory power of observed food market responses to retail price reporting

integration of spatial markets studies of spatial market integration draw their implications from a theory which assumes that there are no intraregional transport costs an alternative theory is offered based on the assumptions that buyers and sellers are spatially dispersed and intraregional transport costs are significant this implies that the market is a linked oligopoly or oligopsony and that market integration tests are tests of alternative oligopoly price formation processes for example collusive basing point pricing produces results typically assumed to imply efficiently integrated markets while competitive fob pricing does not the theoretical implications are illustrated with an analysis of hog prices in canada

marketing order impacts on farm retail price spreads the suspension of prorates on california arizona navel oranges the 1985 suspension of the prorate on california arizona navel oranges decreased fob retail price spreads in atlanta and san francisco by about 1 3 cents per pound four reduced form models of price spreads were estimated as seemingly unrelated regressions for price spreads in atlanta dallas and san francisco nested and non nested hypothesis testing procedures indicated a markup model as the most plausible one for explaining short run changes in price spreads

interfirm rivalry in a repeated game an empirical test of tacit collusion rivalry in the vancouver retail gasoline market is modeled as a repeated game service station demand cost and intertemporal reaction functions are estimated from daily data on individual station prices costs and sales these functions are then used to calculate noncooperative and cooperative solutions to the constitutent game and the actual outcome of the repeated game the actual outcome is found to be substantially less lucrative than the monopoly solution nevertheless all stations are better off than if they played their noncooperative strategies in every period copyright 1987 by blackwell publishing ltd

the impact of sunday shopping on employment and hours of work in the retail industry evidence from canada abstract between 1980 and 1998 every canadian province passed legislation that in some way relaxed restrictions on sunday shopping this study exploits the variation in deregulation dates between provinces to identify how retail employers adjust employment and hours of work when deciding to open on sundays a major complication of this analysis is to first determine for which provinces the deregulation dates are useful indicators of increases in sunday store openings this paper uses a unique trading day regression approach to identify these provinces and then uses aggregate data from the selected provinces to estimate a simple dynamic labour demand model that allows employment and hours to be imperfect substitutes in production the results suggest that retailers needs for sunday labour were disproportionately satisfied through increases in employment levels comparison of the estimates at three levels of the retail industry suggests that the employment and hours gains were larger among general merchandise stores than among more specialized retail establishments and relatively modest at the aggregate retail industry level in addition despite evidence of an immediate shortfall in the employment level below the long run optimal level the results suggest that firms were unable to compensate by temporarily increasing the hours of their existing employees

spatial competition with free entry chamberlinian tangencies and social efficiency abstract free entry in loschian spatial competition leads to a tangency between each firm s negatively sloped average revenue and the downsloping portion of average costs as in chamberlin s monopolistic competition it is generally concluded that this equilibrium involves too many inefficiently small firms however this conclusion is incorrect the difference between price and firm marginal production costs in spatial equilibrium is just sufficient to cover the additional marginal cost of output resulting from availability of multiple locations this chamberlinian tangency does not imply inefficiency because it does not include all the social costs and benefits resulting from spatial competition

cointegration tests and spatial price linkages in regional cattle markets this analysis empirically evaluates spatial linkages in regional cattle markets using cointegration tests of regional price series several markets were not cointegrated over the 1980 through 1987 period however significant increases in cointegration of several regional livestock markets are observed through the 1980s the increased cointegration parallels significant structural changes in the livestock industry a formal analysis of market characteristics reveals that distances between markets industry concentration ratios market volumes and market types have significant influences on cointegration relationships between markets

interpreting rising concentration the case of beer despite considerable long term progress in distinguishing conceptually between the fact of market power and the calculation of market concentration antitrust claimants the department of justice the federal trade commission ftc and private litigants continue to place substantial emphasis on defining a market computing market shares and calculating measures of concentration the operating supposition is virtually always that monopoly or market power is positively associated with concentration whether other offsetting characteristics are also associated with high concentration ordinarily receives less if any consideration the most often cited consideration weighing against an automatic condemnation of increased concentration say through horizontal merger is that costs market power and concentration may all be jointly related economic analysis suggests that if higher concentration brings with it is caused by or causes lower industry costs then it may also bring positive total benefits even if antitrust concern with industry concentration focuses on market power the ability of firms to restrict output and raise price the brewing industry among others has been a major target of this concern because of its high and rising concentration this paper sketches two alternative explanations for this change in industry structure competitive expansion by the more efficient brewers and anticompetitive exclusion of equally efficient but smaller brewers empirical analysis indicates that competition is the better hypothesis in explaining changes in the structure of the beer market

a reappraisal of interpreting rising concentration the case of beer there has been a tremendous amount of change in the structure and conduct of the post world war ii brewing industry most important concentration has risen scale economies have increased and advertising intensity especially television advertising has changed in a recent article in this journal william j lynk 1984 attempted to determine empirically how changes in concentration and technology affected brewing industry performance between 1974 and 1980 2 he found support for the competition hypothesis that cost reductions due to cost superiority or the exploitation of scale economies have dominated the possible market power effect of rising concentration and have caused output to increase and prices to fall thus the alternative or the exclusion hypothesis that large brewers have squeezed smaller rivals out of in contrast to the finding of william j lynk that rising concentration in the u s brewing industry caused industry output to expand and by his presumption prices to fall the results of this study show that concentration had no significant direct impact on post world war ii beer prices estimates from a reduced form price equation reveal that advertising and costs have had a significant positive effect on beer prices these results provide evidence that the rising concentration scale economies and advertising expenditures in the u s brewing industry generated higher beer prices between 1950 and 1971 i would like to thank william hallagan for bringing lynk s paper to my attention and james f ragan jr carol horton tremblay and an anonymous referee for their helpful comments on earlier drafts any remaining errors are my responsibility 1 for example the number of firms declined from 386 to 37 and the five firm concentration ratio increased from 23 to 71 between 1950 and 1978 see elzinga 1973 1982 keithahn 1978 ornstein 1981 and greer 1971a 1981 for excellent industry studies 2 in this paper industry performance is evaluated from the consumer s point of view for a given level of product quality if structure and conduct changes are beneficial to consumers by causing the market price to fall then industry performance has improved

new venture internationalization strategic change and performance a follow up study abstract although many scholars business experts and government agencies enthusiastically advise all firms including new and small ventures to internationalize such advice does not appear to be based on empirical evidence few researchers have empirically examined the link between new venture performance and the internationalization of new ventures at best the evidence suggests that there is no significant relationship we used a sample of 62 u s new venture manufacturers in the computer and communications equipment industries during the late 1980s these industries were purportedly globalizing and may have been leading other industries into increased international operations we found that higher levels of internationalization percentage of foreign sales to total venture sales were associated with higher relative market share two years later however there was no significant direct relationship between percentage of international sales and subsequent return on investment roi perhaps international operations simply cost more than expected or perhaps as macmillan and day 1987 found in their study of corporate ventures over a 4 year time period increases in market share may be a prelude to higher roi as scale benefits translate into higher profitability however the 2 year time period of our study may simply not be long enough for investments in higher market shares to produce improved profits during the 2 year study period many of the ventures changed their level of internationalization of the 36 ventures who were domestic no international sales in the prior study 10 expanded into international markets over the 2 years of the 26 originally international ventures international sales of at least 5 half increased their percentage of international sales nine reduced it and four stayed the same whereas the average change in international sales percentage of the ventures was only 2 9 percentage points the large standard deviation of 13 0 percentage points and the leptokurtic distribution 9 2 reflected the dramatic changes made by some of the ventures using subgroup analysis we examined these changes in percentage of international sales in conjunction with changes in strategies and performance ventures that had increased international sales relative to those that had not exhibited more positive associations between the degree of strategic change and performance as measured in terms of both relative market share and roi increased international sales in technology based new ventures seems to require simultaneous strategic changes in order to positively impact venture performance this study is a follow up to mcdougall s 1989 finding that technology based new ventures that had sales in foreign markets had significantly different strategies than similar ventures that sold their products only domestically the current study enriches the previous findings by adding consideration of 1 changes in degree of internationalization 2 changes in strategy and 3 venture performance although we found no performance penalty associated with increasing international sales alone indiscriminant advice for new ventures to sell in foreign markets without other supporting strategic actions is inconsistent with our findings internationalization alone did not lead to increased profitability entrepreneurs of young technology based firms who are considering internationalization should take heed of our results internationalization of sales does not appear to be a simple matter of applying established strategies and procedures developed for a domestic arena successful internationalization appears to require changes in the venture s strategy as well

the nature and extent of the market for high quality beef in japan before the abolition of import quotas it is examined whether wagyu beef produced in japan and high quality beef produced in the united states and exported to japan are components of the same product market in addressing this issue an approach is used for defining the nature and extent of a product market relying on the concept of instantaneous causality the results for selected cuts of beef suggest that the markets are in fact separate

spatial price equilibrium with product variety chain stores and integer pricing an empirical analysis a spatial model that incorporates store locations and city topographic features is developed for the edmonton alberta video cassette rental market bertrand nash equi librium prices are computed using a grid search algorithm that maximizes goodness of fit against observed prices the fit is improved by taking into account differences between stores in product variety the tendency of chains to set a common price for all member stores and the tendency of chains to set whole dollar prices implications for further empirical research in spatial pricing are drawn

why shops close again an evolutionary perspective on the deregulation of shopping hours this paper introduces a new perspective on the deregulation of shopping hours based on ideas from evolutionary game theory we study a retail economy where shopping hours have been deregulated recently it is argued that first the deregulation leads to a coordination problem between store owners and customers and second the solution to this problem depends on the specific cost structure of stores and the preferences of customers in particular it may happen that even if extended shopping hours are pareto efficient stores and customers do not succeed in coordinating on this equilibrium the analysis explains the observation in germany where shopping hours have been deregulated recently that store owners tend to go back to the former shopping hours again moreover it emphasizes the important role of advertisement campaigns as a signalling device

the price effects of spatial competition a recent paper by capozza and van order cvo 1977 proposed a generalization of the greenhut hwang ohta gho 1975 analysis of pricing under three alternative types of spatial competition the gho analysis was based on a short run model in which the locations of firms are assumed to be fixed cvo accordingly proposed relaxation of this rigid assumption to examine if the gho results also apply to the long run zero profit industry equilibrium they confirmed the gho results which however they also contended require certain particular modifications as well in the light of their own models the cvo contribution lies in their simple model analysis of long run industry equilibrium conditions a generalization of the gho analysis however they failed to recognize that the gho analysis is based on another restrictive assumption regarding the form of the demand function moreover they assumed even more restrictive demand conditions and misled themselves to a conclusion that l6schian competition never results in a lower price than spatial monopoly their conclusion is invalid since loschian competition can be shown to result in a lower not higher mill price if only the demand function is assumed to be sufficiently convex to the origin ohta 1980 this calls for a more general examination of conditions under which the firm s f o b mill price may rise or fall due to spatial entry of rival firms the present paper presents selected results of such examination section 2 briefly reviews the theory of spatial monopoly initially some fundamental assumptions are set forth this is followed by derivation of the market demand function for the spatial monopolist the market demand in turn is shown to be more or less elastic than the assumed basic demand function depending on the curvature of the latter curve we also comment on the so called paradox of spatial monopoly which we claim is a misnomer the analytical framework of section 2 is employed in section 3 as we generalize previous analyses and present a concise cataloguing of comparative static results of spatial competition 1 again the basic demand characteristics in combination with alternative types of spatial competition are shown to play an important role in yielding the distinct elasticity results and for that matter competitive equilibrium prices in the process a counter example to cvo s aforementioned argument on l6schian pricing is presented also discussed is the conceptual distinction between perceived and realized elasticities of demand under spatial competition which cvo also failed to recognize as a result they erred in speculating that equilibrium mill prices would be the same under alternative types of spatial competition given the size of the market area we will show that they in fact are not section 4 concludes the paper by summarizing the basic results of our analysis

deregulation of shopping hours the impact on independent retailers and chain stores this paper studies shopping hour decisions by retail chains and independent competitors we use a salop type model where retailers compete in prices and shopping hours our results depend significantly on efficiency differences between retail chain and independent retailer if the efficiency difference is small the independent retailer may choose longer shopping hours than the retail chain and may gain from deregulation at the expense of the retail chain the opposite result emerges when the efficiency difference is large then the retail chain may benefit whereas the independent retailer loses from deregulation

shopping hours and price levels in the retailing industry a theoretical and empirical analysis i introduction the debate surrounding shopping laws is very much the same regardless of the country in which it occurs the traditional objectives of regulating store opening hours can be divided into four categories i to guarantee access to essential goods and services ii to promote and protect a certain way of life iii to protect small businesses and iv to assure a day of rest for everyone despite these concerns the recent trend in canadian provinces is to extend store opening hours in the retailing industry for instance in july 1990 the quebec government allowed retail stores to stay open on wednesday nights and on sundays the recent deregulation was prompted by changes in lifestyles and increasing constraints on the time people can devote to shopping activities perhaps the most significant are that the number of one parent families is increasing as is the number of couples in which both spouses work there is evidence that changes in opening hours influence the structure of the retailing industry morrison and newman 1983 show that there is a redistribution of sales from small stores to large stores after deregulation an empirical study by moorehouse 1984 shows that in the united states those states that strictly regulate store opening hours do have a smaller proportion of large stores building on their work we examine the short term impact of extended shopping hours on prices at large stores to determine whether consumers have to pay higher prices for greater shopping flexibility to our knowledge this issue has not been addressed in the literature first we develop an extension of morrison and newman s 1983 theoretical model inspired by becker 1965 and location models pioneered by hotelling 1929 chamberlin 1951 1962 lancaster 1966 and salop 1977 we deem the price of a good to have two components the price itself and the time spent by the consumer to purchase the good thus opening hours and store location play a role in the determination of prices we explore the effect of increased opening hours on the demand faced by stores of different sizes and thus on their price levels among other things our model predicts that after deregulation price levels at large stores will increase because of a demand shift in favor of large stores at the expense of small stores we then test this prediction using pooled time series and cross section data prices of five products for thirty one weeks collected before and after the deregulation of store hours in quebec on july 8 1990 the data were collected at three major food stores in the montreal area we obtain estimates of price equations using the pooling method developed by kmenta 1986 the results support our view that prices have increased at large stores since the deregulation the rest of the paper is organized as follows in section ii we develop our analytical framework section iii presents the data and the estimation strategy since a price increase may signal an increase in costs rather than an increase in demand we deal explicitly with this issue in that section of the paper we discuss the empirical results in section iv and we conclude in section v ii the model the following analysis extends that of morrison and newman 1983 a brief initial overview of their work is needed to develop the necessary notation and to set up the problem in their model morrison and newman make two simplifying yet standard assumptions they assume a single perfectly divisible homogeneous commodity and only two types of stores large and small thus consumers choose to shop at small or large stores to minimize the total cost tc of purchasing the commodity on a given shopping trip the total cost includes the cost of the bundle of goods p sub j b where p sub j is the price per unit at store j and b is the bundle size a consumer intends to buy and his own valuation of the time needed to travel to the store a

bootstrapping confidence intervals an application to forecasting the supply of pork the article demonstrates how the distribution free method of bootstrapping can be applied to the construction of confidence intervals for forecasts generated by a dynamic econometric model because the exogenous variables must be forecast the forecasts of the dependent variable are functions of stochastic forecast period exogenous variables a dynamic model of pork supply is used to illustrate the procedure

timing constraints and the allocation of time the effects of changing shopping hours regulations in the netherlands abstract a 1996 change in shopping hours regulations in the netherlands provides an opportunity to study the effects of timing constraints on total time spent in shopping working and other activities as well as the timing of these activities we develop a simple structural model to make predictions about the effects of imposition and relaxation of a timing constraint on time use patterns and utilize time diary data from 1995 1997 1999 and 2000 to examine time use patterns by demographic group before and after the change in addition to a change in the timing of shopping we find a non negligible increase in the total time spent shopping

asymmetry and rigidity in farm retail price transmission this article demonstrates how retail price transmission asymmetry can arise from intertemporal optimizing behavior among spatially competitive retailers facing concave spatial demand and shows that vigorous competition among retailers may not necessarily result in the larger retail price declines farmers expect during periods of declining farm prices it also shows that when this particular class of retailers incurs repricing costs retail prices can be rigid over a range of upward and downward movements in the farm price this suggests that the rigidity of retail prices during periods of declining farm prices could be due to repricing costs it also suggests that the appropriate econometric model of price transmission is the model of friction where tobit analysis is the proper method of estimation rather than nonreversible functions

the role of family ownership in international entrepreneurship exploring nonlinear effects empirical research on international entrepreneurship is growing but results on the role of family ownership in this phenomenon are inconsistent we believe these inconsistencies owe to prior researchers having not yet investigated nonlinear relationships drawing on opposing perspectives of stewardship and stagnation we explore potential benefits and drawbacks of family ownership for international entrepreneurship and explore nonlinear relationships among these two variables using a sample of 1 035 us family businesses and applying ordinal regression analysis we find an inverted u shaped relationship between family ownership and international entrepreneurship international entrepreneurship is maximized when family ownership stands at moderate levels we discuss the implications of our findings for theory and practice and indicate avenues for future research

estimating price discounts for low quality maize in sub saharan africa evidence from benin summary this article uses household data from benin to estimate the extent that markets in sub saharan africa discount damaged maize stated preference methods indicate that a 10 increase in insect damage results in a 9 maize price discount however revealed preference methods indicate that this discount is only 3 discounts are larger immediately after harvest than they are in the lean period when maize is scarce our results help explain why many smallholder farmers sell maize at harvest rather than making the effort to preserve grain of good quality for later in the season when it may fetch a higher price

the price and output of beer revisited in an earlier article lynk 1984 i discussed several hypotheses about the interpretation of rising industry concentration and concluded essentially that the phenomenon standing alone was consistent with both the ordinary competitive process and with various successful anticompetitive practices i focused on the brewing industry for an empirical investigation of this phenomenon because it has had an unusually high rate of increase in concentration and has attracted a correspondingly high level of antitrust and merger scrutiny noting a number of basic ambiguities with the use of average prices competing brands may sell at different prices as may competing package types i shifted the test of the competitive consequences of rising concentration from price effects to output effects see posner 1981 i found that as concentration grew through the continued expansion of the larger u s brewers over time and in different parts of the country output expanded rather than contracted this finding i concluded was consistent with growing concentration as an effect of the competitive process and inconsistent with the contraction of output we associate with increasing market power victor tremblay s in this issue paper considers rising concentration may often result from an efficient reorganization of an industry s assets but it may also create market power i found earlier that the efficiency effects dominate in the brewing industry in related research tremblay discusses some policy implications of my finding noting that greater concentration may result in more advertising rather than lower prices i argue here that a higher level of competitive advertising does not have the adverse welfare implications that tremblay suggests and that in any case tremblay s tests are biased against finding an inverse relationship between retail prices and either advertising or concentration i note also that despite these biases tremblay s findings confirm and extend my earlier results higher concentration has led to lower prices as well as higher output journal of business 19 85 vol 58 no 4 1985 by the university of chicago all rights reserved 0021 939818515804 0002 01 50

the impact of journals and authors on international business research a citational analysis of jibs articles in this paper we use citational analysis to examine the influence of individuals and disciplines on international business research we collected citational data over the ten year period 1984 to 1993 from every issue of the journal of international business studies we found that management economics marketing and finance disciplines have had significant influence on international business research and identified researchers such as dunning porter vernon casson rugman and hofstede as having made significant contributions to international business research

shopping hours and price competition abstract this paper develops an argument why retail prices may rise in response to the deregulation of opening hours we make this point in a model of imperfect duopolistic competition in a deregulated market retailers view the choice of opening hours as a means to increase the degree of perceived product differentiation thus relaxing price competition if the consumers preference intensity for time is sufficiently high the equilibrium configuration has asymmetric shopping hours where one retailer stays open for longer than the other both retailers charge higher prices than under regulation and both are strictly better off

spatial price and variety competition in an urban retail market abstract we develop a nested logit model of spatial competition in retail markets consumers choose stores on the basis of price variety and transport cost three games are considered a price game a variety game and a combined price and variety game the videocassette rental market in edmonton alberta is used for illustration centrally located stores set lower prices and higher varieties than stores on the market periphery prices in the price and price variety games are nearly identical despite large differences in varieties similarly equilibrium varieties in the price variety game are similar to varieties in the variety game

the farm retail price spread in an imperfectly competitive food industry in a previous article in this journal gardner investigated the effects of three distinct forces affecting food system equilibria shifts in retail demand shifts in farm commodity supply and shifts in marketing input supply he derived comparative static predictions about how the quotient of retail and farm prices the retailfarm price ratio would adjust to changes in each of these exogenous effects the investigation was conducted within a framework that

the international entrepreneurial dynamics of accelerated internationalisation the initial stages of internationalisation prior to firms having established their definitive sources of advantage remain the relatively unexplored area of the international business ib literature at these early stages where firms are seeking to establish themselves and new multinational firms are appearing to exploit new opportunities created by globalisation the entrepreneurial aspects of internationalisation come to the fore in this paper we aim to delineate an emerging field of ib scholarship we use the appearance of international new ventures and the phenomenon of accelerated internationalisation that they feature to identify a set of issues that has slipped through the net of some of the existing ib frameworks we propose that the salient features of accelerated and early internationalisation by the newly internationalising firm are best captured in a framework that is found at the intersection of entrepreneurial and internationalisation perspectives which we propose be known as international entrepreneurial dynamics we discuss such a framework in terms of entry points and pathways mapped by firms as they probe the ib arena and the key factors that impinge on behaviour and strategic choices in line with recent developments in the entrepreneurship literature these are grouped into three milestones of entrepreneurial processes that extend across national boundaries 1 the discovery of new opportunities 2 the deployment of resources in the exploitation of these opportunities and 3 the engagement with competitors implications for mne and internationalisation theory are discussed

price uniformity and competition in a retail gasoline market abstract the purpose of this paper is to examine the price uniformity prediction of the competitive market model of retail gasoline pricing using station specific data on gasoline prices from vancouver bc the specified econometric model also generates results that describe the actual pricing pattern in the market and that permit an assessment of tacit collusion and imperfectly competitive non collusive competition as possible alternative explanations for the results contrary to the competitive model variables measuring brand effects spatial and product characteristics local market structure and time series variation do affect the probability that a station matches the market mode price

after work shopping employment effects of a deregulation of shop opening hours in the german retail sector abstract this study investigates the impact of a deregulation of shop opening laws on employment in the german retail sector exploiting the gradual change in the opening times of shops across states and using data from the german socio economic panel difference in differences estimates indicate an average increase in the employment probability driven by a rise in the likelihood of working marginal part time hours workers in small firms are likely to experience a reduction of their propensity to work for individuals facing high family related supply side constraints the change in shop opening hours has opposing effects on employment positive on lower and negative on upper parts of the hours distribution overall the deregulation is estimated to have raised the likelihood of working fewer hours than desired by the workers

the knowledge network of international entrepreneurship theory and evidence the knowledge network associated with the young and emerging field of international entrepreneurship is defined through a bolean search progression of key words on the ssci data bases from 1992 to 2000 the knowledge network of an applied field portrays and usually follows the actual developmental path of its corresponding field some 287 articles document the early emergence of international entrepreneureship as a field of scholarly inquiry when a field is young and in need of theoretical foundations the knowledge networks of other fields may provide for those early needs this is the case of international entrepreneurship the rich theoretical foundations of the two fields of international business and entrepreneureship among others have nourished and accelerated the internationalization process of entrepreneurship a detailed analysis of 7 651 citations contained in the contributions of the 287 documents reported here traces international entrepreneurship s rich yet young developmental path this analysis reveals a wealth of information for example the lists of highly cited books articles authors and their affiliated institutions presented here

estimating market demand for fresh yam characteristics using contingent valuation implications for crop breeding and production choices this study uses the box cox bc transformations to examine nonlinearity in price modeling and compare results from several functional specifications in hedonic price analysis of yam in togo based on a sample of 6 402 observations on price and produce characteristics generated through a market experiment it is found that the bc quadratic asymmetric specification is the most suitable function several characteristics are valued more than others and prices vary across species time and market sites some residual symptoms of pest and disease damages on yam tubers reduce their market values tuber weight exhibits a diminishing marginal value and price per kilogram decreases above an optimum size therefore producers do not derive additional reward from extra large tubers we conclude that to effectively access and benefit from urban markets producers should focus on small size low weight and conical shaped tubers which are easy to process and meet the esthetic qualities preferred by urban consumers the implications for research on improved variety development to reduce poverty and for crop and resource management practices are drawn

on the economics of regulated early closing hours some evidence from canada in many countries such as australia canada and britain the hours of daily retail operation are controlled through the political process this paper tests one hypothesis for why regulation is adopted the hypothesis is that early closing hours are a low cost institutional response to net social costs that can arise when time is used competitively to redistribute customers spatially competition produces this result when stores s marginal customers value longer shopping hours more highly than the average customer evidence is presented on the characteristics of 45 ontario cities that had the choice of whether or not to adopt early closing hours and logit analysis is used to test the model s predictions the estimates of the probability of choosing early closing hours are then used to test the model s prediction on store density in general the evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that municipal control over shopping hours in ontario is appropriate

modelling trends in food market integration method and an application to tanzanian maize markets abstract pushed by increasing availability of price data and extensive market liberalisation efforts in many developing countries research on food market integration has evolved rapidly over the last two decades empirical methods to measure market integration diverged in two directions on the one hand there is the parity bounds model pbm using a switching regressions technique while on the other hand the use of threshold autoregressive tar models has been proposed this article provides a discussion on the two methods and argues that tar models are better able to capture the dynamics of the arbitrage process underlying interconnected markets furthermore we extend the standard tar model to include a time trend in both the threshold and the adjustment parameter using weekly maize price data on seven selected markets in tanzania we illustrate how both transaction cost and the speed of adjustment have changed during the nineties

comparative performance of spatial models of economic markets with linear household demand a fundamental precept of the traditional theory of economic markets holds that price competition among firms within the model of perfect competition maximizes economic welfare it follows that the establishment of monopolies or oligopolies will result in reduced economic welfare when compared with a perfectly competitive equilibrium however with scattered buyers and positive transportation cost paid by these buyers the demand curve facing each individual firm is necessarily downward sloping and perfect competition is no longer viable 2 furthermore these circumstances in combination with declining average cost warrant the use of spatial models of economic markets it is the purpose of this paper to examine various spatial models and to compare their impact on economic welfare bringing into question the robustness of traditional economic theory holahan 11 concludes that in the spatial context a multiplant monopolistic equilibrium is superior to a competitive equilibrium in high density areas the spatial competitive model employed by holahan has been widely accepted as the standard spatial representation of competitive behavior this model developed by l6sch 13 and further refined by mills and lay 14 and beckmann 1 2 is based on the assumption that in the short run each firm s market area is fixed the implication of this assumption is that all price changes are undertaken uniformly across all firms within the market presumably price changes are undertaken in unison due either to collusion or price leadership the competitive nature of the l6schian model is evident only in the long run as free entry is assumed to prevail capozza and van order 5 have demonstrated that the loschian model is just one particular type of a class of spatial models compatible with free entry each of these

hours of operation restrictions and competition aming retail firms this study examines the redistributive effects of government regulations concerning the hours in which retail stores may remain open for business throughout canada municipal by laws restrict nighttime shopping hours to a few specified days of the week in analyzing the outcome of these restrictions a model of consumer behaviour is used which emphasizes the consumers s decision concerning the allocation of purchases between small and large retail outlets the empirical results are consistant with the theoretical model indicating that such market intervention redistributes sales from large to small stores

the rigidity of prices this paper uses evidence on individual transaction prices to analyze price behavior the evidence shows that for many transactions pricesremain rigid for periods exceeding one year the rigidity of price ispositively correlated with industry concentration for several productsthe correlation of price changes across buyers is low the paper alsoinvestigates the relationship between price rigidity price change andthe length of time a buyer and seller have been doing business together the author interprets the evidence as emphasizing the importance of nonprice rationing and the inadequacy of models in whichprice movements alone clear markets copyright 1986 by american economic association

choosing brands fresh produce versus other products assuming that brands contribute to quality risk reduction prestige and design we derive and test hypothesis on the willingness to pay wtp for brands across different product categories electronics clothing packaged food and fresh produce using the random effect tobit model on the stated point value of wtp and the ordered probit model on the stated range of wtp we find that wtp for brands of fresh produce is least among the four product categories controlling for relevant demographic variations simulations show that fresh produce has a higher optimal price premium for brands but with a much smaller market share copyright 2008 oxford university press

hedonic estimation of quality factors affecting the farm retail margin a model of the farm retail marketing margin is tested using producer and retail prices of a perishable product in which time during season and quality characteristics are variable empirical analysis verifies that the marketing margin of california fresh peaches decreases during the season and increases with improved quality results identify potential producer gains from improving product quality early in the season and from price signals compensating producers for quality characteristics other than weight

explaining the formation of international new ventures the limits of theories from international business research abstract international new ventures invs represent a growing and important type of start up an inv is defined as a business organization that from inception seeks to derive significant competitive advantage from the use of resources and the sale of outputs in multiple countries oviatt and mcdougall 1994 their increasing prevalence and important role in international competition indicates a need for greater understanding of these new ventures oviatt and mcdougall 1994 logitech as described in a case study by alahuhta 1990 is a vivid example of an inv its founders were from two different countries and had a global vision for the company from its inception the venture which produces peripheral devices for personal computers established headquarters in both switzerland and the u s manufacturing and r d were split between the u s and switzerland and then quickly spread to taiwan and ireland the venture s first commercial contract was with a japanese company using 24 case studies of invs we found that their formation process is not explained by existing theories from the field of international business specifically neither monopolistic advantage theory product cycle theory stage theory of internationalization oligopolistic reaction theory nor internalization theory can explain the formation process of invs these theories fail because they assume that firms become international long after they have been formed and they therefore highlight large mature firms they also focus too much on the firm level and largely ignore the individual and small group level of analysis i e the entrepreneur and his or her network of business alliances we propose that an explanation for the formation process of invs must answer three questions 1 who are the founders of invs 2 why do these entrepreneurs choose to compete internationally rather than just in their home countries and 3 what form do their international business activities take who are the founders of invs we argue that founders of invs are individuals who see opportunities from establishing ventures that operate across national borders they are alert to the possibilities of combining resources from different national markets because of the competencies networks knowledge and background that they have developed from their earlier activities following the logic of the resource based view of the firm we argue that the possession of these competencies is not matched by other entrepreneurs only the entrepreneur possessing these competencies is able to combine a particular set of resources across national borders and form a given inv why do these entrepreneurs choose to compete internationally rather than just in their home countries the founders of invs recognize they must create international business competencies from the time of venture formation otherwise the venture may become path dependent on the development of domestic competencies and the entrepreneur will find it difficult to change strategic direction when international expansion eventually becomes necessary as the founder of one inv explained the advantage of starting internationally is that you establish an international spirit from the very beginning mamis 1989 38 what form do their international business activities take founders of invs prefer to use hybrid structures i e strategic alliances and networks for their international activities as a way to overcome the usual poverty of resources at the time of start up this study has important implications for the practice of management in financing decisions relating to invs venture capitalists and other venture financiers should look for entrepreneurs who have a global vision international business competence and an established international network when entrepreneurs start invs they should create hybrid structures to preserve scarce resources finally given the path dependence of competence development founders of new ventures should consider whether establishing a domestic new venture with plans to later internationalize will be as successful a strategy as establishing a new venture that is international from inception

non sequential consumer search and the consequences of a deregulation of trading hours abstract this paper analyzes the consequences of a liberalization of shopping hours in a market where consumers collect price information through non sequential search it is first shown that with as well as without restrictions on search time an equilibrium price distribution and possibly a single price equilibrium with the monopoly price exist then it is demonstrated that a liberalization is either ineffective or leads to price reductions increases in consumer welfare and larger market shares of more efficient firms

on the effects of fiscal and monetary policy a taxonomic discussion current debate on monetary and fiscal policies is much concerned with the effects of such policies and of changes in the budget and money supply i propose here to discuss some taxonomic problems related to the concept of policy effects their resolution bears directly upon the controversy between keynesians and monetarists i shall show that it is largely a sham dispute and it will appear that the empirical findings of the monetarists have little relation to the keynesian creed even negative effects of the budget with strong positive effects of money supply are fully consistent with strong positive effects of fiscal action and weak or strong effects of monetary action the examination of the concept of effects of economic policy will be undertaken in relation to a model that is specified so as to include both the conventional keynesian set up for determining effective demand and a credit mechanism that links effective demand to the banking system in the spirit of the monetarists

demand for farm output in a complete system of demand functions demand interrelationships for farm outputs that are theoretically consistent with consumer demand and marketing group behavior provide important linkages between retail and farm prices a conceptual model based on reduced form specifications for retail and farm prices is formulated and applied empirically to a set of eight disaggregated food commodities this approach circumvents the need for retail quantities which are frequently unavailable for disaggregated food commodities the results are consistent with theory and generally indicate significant substitution between farm and marketing inputs except for poultry derived demand elasticities are at least 40 larger compared to those derived assuming fixed proportions

buyer preferences for sheep and goats in southern nigeria a hedonic price analysis abstract a survey of two rural markets in southwest nigeria over 14 months showed that supplies sales and prices of sheep and goats varied widely during the period with a sharp peak during the muslim festival of eid el kabir and a smaller peak during the christmas new year period local west african dwarf wad sheep and goats and northern y ankasa sheep and red sokoto goats were traded in the markets and animals were purchased for rearing trading ceremonies butchering catering sacrifice and festivals there were significant differences between species breeds purchased for various purposes a hedonic price model was fitted to determine factors influencing price after adjustments were made for age weight sex time of transaction and market wad sheep commanded higher prices than wad goats and red sokoto goats for all purposes except for butchering catering red sokoto goats commanded similar or lower prices than wad goats depending on the purpose for purchase and y ankasa sheep principally purchased for the eid el kabir festival commanded marginally higher prices than wad sheep the market share of wad sheep is currently small and is under competition from northern sheep and goats so increased production of wad sheep in the south will benefit both producers and consumers in the area in general the results indicate that buyers have preferences for specific breeds and species for specific purposes so producers and sellers may benefit by targeting specific buyer categories and times of the year

does the law of one price really hold for commodity prices in spite of the empirical failure of the law of one price it is usually assumed that commodity prices are perfectly arbitraged at least in the long run this paper argues that this assumption is counterfactual and that much of the empirical evidence provided to support it is flawed and affected by econometric shortcomings spurious regressions nonstationarity in the data inappropriate use of first differences an alternative methodology co integration by which a long run relationship between nonstationary series can be tested is proposed tests of nonstationarity and co integration for a group of commodities show quite uniformly that the law of one price as a long run relationship fails and that deviations from the pattern are permanent

the effects of railroad development on price convergence among the states of the usa from 1866 to 1906 this study examines the effects of the reduced transaction costs on the price behaviours in the second half of the nineteenth century where declines in transaction costs were mainly caused by railroad development during this period it employs a panel test introduced by levin and lin 1992 on the convergence of wheat and corn prices using a panel of 48 us states from 1866 to 1906 the results show that by decreasing transportation costs railroads played an important role in price convergence among states of the usa for wheat and corn during the postbellum period

cartel stability and product differentiation abstract this paper employs a supergame theoretic model of collusion to analyze the effects of different levels of product differentiation on cartel stability in contrast to earlier work the ability of the parties to reach an agreement is assumed here the focus is on how greater product homogeneity increases both the gain to cheating on a collusive agreement and the magnitude of the punishments that follow a defection the total effect on the likelihood a cartel is stable is therefore unclear two particular differentiated products models are then used to demonstrate that contrary to the conventional view greater homogeneity can reduce cartel stability