the role of brand image and product characteristics on firms entry and oem decisions we investigate the optimal market entry and original equipment manufacturer oem decisions of a firm facing a market in which firms brands can be horizontally differentiated and products can be vertically differentiated the entrant might sell under its own brand and compete with an incumbent become a supplier to the incumbent or both findings reveal that when consumers perceive the firms are horizontally and vertically differentiated the entrant profits by simultaneously entering the market and establishing an oem arrangement with the incumbent in such competitive scenarios both buyer and seller increase profits by agreeing on wholesale prices that are not too low which softens both horizontal and vertical conflict between the firms findings also show that the incumbent may prefer to pay high wholesale prices to the entrant even if the incumbent had the option to source the product independently at a lower marginal cost when firms have the capability of producing each other s product lines su

does craigslist reduce waste evidence from california and florida abstract there is much discussion but little research on the environmental impacts of online platforms associated with the sharing economy economic theory suggests that falling transaction costs in secondhand markets increase incentives for people to exchange rather than discard used goods this paper uses difference in difference methods to estimate craigslist s effect on solid waste by exploiting a natural experiment in how the platform expanded across california and florida the econometric results suggest that craigslist reduced daily per capita solid waste generation by about one third of a pound though the estimates are not very precise a plausibility analysis of the weight of items posted on craigslist concludes that the 200 million annual for sale posts created by californians and floridians can reasonably account for waste reductions of roughly this magnitude

a dynamic generalisation of the almost ideal demand system abstract this paper proposes and estimates on annual time series u k data 1900 1980 a dynamic generalisation of the almost ideal demand system the results support the proposed generalisation and point to the dynamic aids as a potentially useful tool in future applications

the effect of fringe benefits on employment fluctuations in u s automobile manufacturing the authors present a theoretical and empirical analysis of employment adjustment by u s automobile manufacturers the model allows for variable elasticities of substitution among labor and other inputs and between hours and workers they use total compensation as their measure of labor cost the authors labor effectiveness function has diminishing marginal returns to hours the speed of employment adjustment depends on the relative costs of straight time and overtime hours copyright 1991 by mit press

reasons for household food waste with special attention to packaging the amount of food waste needs to be reduced in order to sustain the world s limited resources and secure enough food to all humans packaging plays an important role in reducing food waste the kn

household food waste behaviour in eu 27 countries a multilevel analysis abstract a large amount of food is lost along the entire food supply chain causing serious environmental economic and social impacts and most food is wasted during the final consumption phase especially in industrialized countries starting from the analysis of the main regulations and initiatives at various administrative levels and by introducing a two level framework for modelling complex household food waste behaviour this paper aims at investigating the behaviour of eu 27 citizens towards food waste by referring to the 2013 flash eurobarometer survey n 388 the multilevel statistical perspective enabled us to jointly consider factors at both individual and contextual levels as potential variables associated with food waste firstly by analysing territorial variability it was possible to identify groups of countries characterized by similar behaviour patterns and therefore target them according to the need and exigency of public policy interventions secondly at individual level it was observed that people living in towns and large cities tend to produce more waste thus emphasizing the need of diversifying policy interventions at local level according to the extent of urbanization moreover education level sorting practices attitudes and concern regarding food waste proved to be associated with individuals behaviour towards food waste thirdly public private partnerships as well as targeting community based interventions to address food waste should be encouraged

an end use analysis of global food requirements in examining the long term prospects for global food supply and demand the balance of research has favoured the examination of global food supply and not global food demand centre for agricultural and economic development 1967 chou et al 1977 council on environmental quality 1980 crosson and anderson 1992 fao 1993 mitchell and ingco 1993 bongaarts 1994 forecasting of global food demand has been limited to an exploration of alternative assumptions about the growth of incomes prices and population in particular the analysis and forecasting of global food demand has used income and price elasticities estimated from historical data which assume a fixed link between levels of income and levels of food demand for expository purposes this discussion presumes a particular pattern of prices with changing relative prices the link between incomes and food demand is more complicated but this does not change the fundamental argument being made here

the competitive newsboy we consider a competitive version of the classical newsboy problem in which a firm must choose an inventory or production level for a perishable good with random demand and the optimal solution is a fractile of the demand distribution and investigate the impact of competition upon industry inventory a splitting rule specifies how initial industry demand is allocated among competing firms and how any excess demand is allocated among firms with remaining inventory we examine the relation between equilibrium inventory levels and the splitting rule and provide conditions under which there is a unique equilibrium our most general result is that if all excess demand is reallocated i e there is perfect substitutability then competition never leads to a decrease in industry inventory

neoclassical consumer demand theory and the demand for money m friedman 1956 suggests that the demand for money should be analyzed in terms of consumer demand theory although often the interpretation of empirical results from studies using aggregate data appears to be in terms of the motives approach i e transactions precautionary and speculative motives the authors develop friedman s ideas within an explicit model of consumer theory and find that they provide a consistent framework for analyzing portfolio choice and offer greater insights into results from aggregate studies of the demand for money than the motives approach in particular the authors provide a new interpretation of the role of nominal interest rates inflation and a hicksian measure of wealth in the demand for money function copyright 1991 by royal economic society

short run employment functions when the speed of adjustment depends on the unemployment rate a bstratacross industry and country comparisons have found the speed of adjustment in short run employment functions to be positively related to the rate of unemployment the present paper develops a time series model in which the reaction coefficient varies with unemployment and estimates it for the manufacturing sectors of the eight oecd countries for which suitable data are available the new model is non linear and is estimated using full information maximum likelihood procedures application of the log likelihood ratio test finds that the new vanable reaction coefficient model is superior to the fixed reaction coefficient model for the united states canada australia austria ireland and the united kingdom

access based consumption the case of car sharing access based consumption defined as transactions that can be market mediated but where no transfer of ownership takes place is becoming increasingly popular yet it is not well theorized this study examines the nature of access as it contrasts to ownership and sharing specifically the consumer object consumer consumer and consumer marketer relationships six dimensions are identified to distinguish among the range of access based consumptionscapes temporality anonymity market mediation consumer involvement the type of accessed object and political consumerism access based consumption is examined in the context of car sharing via an interpretive study of zipcar consumers four outcomes of these dimensions in the context of car sharing are identified lack of identification varying significance of use and sign value negative reciprocity resulting in a big brother model of governance and a deterrence of brand community the implications of our findings for understanding the nature of exchange consumption and brand community are discussed

consuming use orientated product service systems a consumer culture theory perspective abstracts research suggests that product service systems pss may usefully form part of the mix of innovations necessary to move society toward more sustainable futures however pss implementation rates are disappointingly low and an implementation gap has emerged drawing on consumer culture theory cct this paper provides insights to help resolve this issue in business to consumer markets since consumption of use orientated pss is analogous to access based consumption six dimensions of access are set out to analyse a case study of infant car seat provision five outcomes are derived from the analysis and these include partial identification with accessed product and interplay of use and symbolic value this analysis questions the view that pss do not create sufficient value to overcome a preference for ownership in western societies rather pss consumption is likely to arise when both functional and symbolic value are extracted by consumers and when pss are promoted to appropriate consumer groups such as nomads further research is needed to explore these phenomena and address the issues they raise in pss design processes

an analysis of substitution bias in measuring inflation 1959 851 we analyze the substitution bias in laspeyres type price indexes such as the cpi using 1959 1985 nipa consumption data for 101 commodities we employ two methodological approaches to calculation of the bias first we construct the tightest theoretical bounds on the col by applying nonparametric methods using algorithms developed by afriat and by varian second following diewert we construct superlative price index formulas namely tomqvist and fisher s ideal indexes under a chain as well as a fixed base specification homothetic preferences are found to be consistent with the data and sensitivity tests indicate that this result is not vacuous if the hypothesis of homotheticity is maintained the col bias has upper and lower limits of 0 22 and 0 14 percent per year respectively using the superlative indexes as the measure of the col the bias is about 0 18 percent per year for the period 1959 85 this estimate is somewhat larger than found in earlier studies our use of more disaggregated data is found to be responsible for part of the difference with the size of the estimated bias directly related to the extent of the aggregation

a comparison of nonparametric tests of weak separability for annual and quarterly data on consumption leisure and money among the most fundamental assumptions made in economics are utility maximization and the separability of the arguments in the representative consumer s utility function these assumptions are important for theoretical and empirical applications of economics in this article we present results from nonparametric tests of these assumptions of consumer behavior we find that utility maximization generally obtains with either annual or quarterly per capita data on consumption goods leisure and relatively liquid monetary assets annual data on consumption goods leisure and all monetary assets are consistent with utility maximization there is some evidence in support of using partial adjustment models when estimating quarterly data models of the demand for monetary assets further annual data on consumption goods and leisure and on liquid monetary assets meet the necessary and sufficient conditions for weak separability these results support the notion of a monetary aggregate more broadly based than cu

the politics of housing consumption renters as flawed consumers on a master planned estate master planned estates offer package dreams of homeownership to those wanting to live among others who share their lifestyle aspirations yet we show in this paper how divisions can arise between housing tenure types with owner occupiers constructing private rental tenants as a problem extending bauman s concept of the flawed consumer using rose s writings on ethopolitics we show how renters are viewed as failing in three domains of social life aesthetics ethics and community by undermining the aesthetic value of the neighbourhood and by failing to demonstrate an ethic of care for themselves and others as a result the homeowners in this study try to avoid living among rental properties and are disappointed to find that contrary to expectations moving to a master planned estate does not guarantee this

green entrepreneurship in the sharing economy utilising multiplicity of institutional logics the green potential of the sharing economy to exploit underutilised or redundant resources has generated a considerable interest and expectations on the part of government institutions investors and consumers alongside the emerging green logic more established economic and social logics appear to be critical for growth of sharing platforms applying an institutional logics approach this paper investigates how entrepreneurial teams in the sharing economy deal with this complexity of expectations of various constituents and institutions based on 30 semi structured interviews with founders and executives of uk sharing platforms we examine the strategies used by entrepreneurial teams to utilise and combine the green logic with other institutional logics present the results demonstrate that sharing platforms are able to grow via utilising the green logic together with the economic and social logics in a flexible manner applying complexity reducing and complexity absorbing strategies as well as temporal adjustments in the use of logics

an experiment on the pure theory of consumer s behaviour by checking whether consumer demand satisfies the axioms of revealed preference one can test the empirical validity of the neoclassical theory of consumer behaviour however applying the axioms to actual consumer purchase data is difficult if not impossible since it poses serious problems of both a methodological and a practical nature after commenting on the few existing empirical studies in this field we summarise the results from an experimental approach to revealed preference theory data were obtained through a controlled experiment that involved real consumption of the goods chosen we find that most subjects violated the axioms

interpreting consumers a hermeneutical framework for deriving marketing insights from the texts of consumers consumption stories the author describes and illustrates a hermeneutically grounded interpretive framework for deriving marketing relevant insights from the texts of consumer stories and gives an overview of the phi

a semi nonparametric approach to the demand for uk monetary assets we estimate an asymptotically ideal model of the demand for uk personal sector monetary assets we use data that are consistent with utility maximizing behaviour and find that uk monetary assets are generally substitutes in use the estimated elasticities of substitution during the 1980s and the early 1990s indicate that a relatively broad monetary aggregate should be used in economic studies the results also suggest that any policy based on interest or user cost elasticities of substitution between financial assets should be based on the morishima elasticities as the allen uzawa calculation can give misleading results

monetary integration and currency substitution in the ems the case for a european monetary aggregate abstract this paper examines the phenomenon of cross currency substitution and the validity of monetary aggregation within the european monetary system using non parametric methods which exploit the relationship between intergroup substitution and separability the separability property is tested using the methodology developed by varian the nonparametric approach to demand analysis econometrica 50 945 974 1982 nonparametric tests of consumer behaviour review of economic studies 51 99 110 1983 and is violated in the case of most european countries suggesting that the hypothesis of zero currency substitution which forms the basis of national monetary aggregation should be rejected the results do however validate the use of monetary aggregates for the ems as a whole and i use a standard parametric demand for money approach to compare the performance of an ems divisia index with that of simple sum aggregates during the 1980s and 1990s

risky monetary aggregates for the uk and us abstract we extend the scope of monetary aggregation beyond capital certain assets that make up central bank data sets and identify groups of assets that form monetary aggregates composed of both capital certain and risky capital uncertain assets we construct monetary aggregates for the us and uk using a superlative index and relax a key assumption of the consumption capital asset pricing model ccapm a one year planning horizon by using forecasted returns on risky assets our new risky monetary aggregates perform well in var tests we recommended exploring risky assets as providers of liquidity services in future research on this topic

tests of microeconomic foundations of a north american common currency area the movement of some members of the european union towards a common currency area is likely to spark interest in other possible common currency areas one such area of interest is a north american common currency area in this paper some results from tests of microeconomic foundations of a north american common currency area are presented these results can be viewed as favourable for the formation of a north american common currency area jel classification f33 f36 tests des fondements micro economiques d une union monetaire en amerique du nord le deplacement de certains membres de l union europeenne vers une monnaie commune va vraisemblablement susciter de l interet pour ce genre d arrangement dans d autres parties du monde un de ces autres lieux ou il y a un interet pour une union monetaire est l amerique du nord dans ce texte on presente certains resultats de tests des fondements micro economiques d une zone monetaire commune en amerique du nord ces resultats peuvent etre consideres comme favorables a la formation d une union monetaire nord americaine

circular futures what will they look like abstract the circular economy is argued to hold great promise for achieving sustainability yet there is a dearth of research about what a circular future may look like to address this gap this paper proposes different plausible scenarios for a circular future using a 2 2 scenario matrix method developed through a thought experiment and a focus group key drivers of change in this matrix are the nature of technologies deployed high tech or low tech innovations and the configuration of the governance regime centralized or decentralized from this our paper builds four scenario narratives for the future of a circular economy planned circularity bottom up sufficiency circular modernism and peer to peer circularity it delineates the core characteristics and the upsides and downsides of each scenario it shows that a circular economy can be organized in very contrasting ways by generating insights about alternative circular futures these scenarios may provide a clearer directionality to policy makers and businesses helping them both anticipate and understand the consequences of a paradigm shift towards a circular economy and shape policies and strategies especially in the context of so called mission oriented innovation policies they may also provide a sound basis for quantitatively modelling the impacts of a circular economy

understanding collaborative consumption an extension of the theory of planned behavior with value based personal norms collaborative consumption is proposed as a potential step beyond unsustainable linear consumption patterns toward more sustainable consumption practices despite mounting interest in the topic little is known about the determinants of this consumer behavior we use an extended theory of planned behavior to examine the relative influence of consumers personal norms and the theory s basic sociopsychological variables attitudes subjective norms and perceived behavioral control on collaborative consumption moreover we use this framework to examine consumers underlying value and belief structure regarding collaborative consumption we measure these aspects for 224 consumers in a survey and then assess their self reported collaborative consumption behavior in a second survey our structural model fits the data well collaborative consumption is more strongly through intentions influenced by personal norms and attitudes than by subjective norms personal norms to consume collaboratively are determined by consumers altruistic biospheric and egoistic value orientations cost savings efficient use of resources and community with others are found to be consumers attitudinal beliefs underlying collaborative consumption we conclude that collaborative consumption can be pin pointed neither as a mere form of economic exchange nor as a primarily normative form of sharing resources instead collaborative consumption is determined by economic egoistic e g cost savings and normative e g altruistic and biospheric value orientations motives implications for collaborative consumption research the theory of planned behavior and practitioners are discussed

bricks and mortar vs clicks and mortar an equilibrium analysis abstract the internet has provided traditional retailers a new means with which to serve customers consequently many bricks and mortar retailers have transformed to clicks and mortar by incorporating internet sales examples of companies making such a transition include best buy wal mart barnes noble etc despite the increasing prevalence of this practice several fundamental questions remain 1 does it pay off to go online 2 which is the equilibrium industry structure 3 what is the implication of this business model for consumers we study these issues in an oligopoly setting and show that clicks and mortar arises as the equilibrium channel structure however we find that this equilibrium does not necessarily imply higher profits for the firms in some cases rather it emerges as a strategic necessity consumers are generally better off with clicks and mortar retailers if firms align with pure e tailers to reach the online market we show that a prisoner s dilemma type equilibrium may arise

the effects of business to business e commerce on transaction costs this paper studies transaction costs changes arising from the introduction of the internet in transactions between firms we divide transaction costs into coordination costs and motivation costs we classify coordination efficiencies into three categories process improvements marketplace benefits and indirect improvements for motivation costs we focus on informational asymmetries we apply this framework to internal data from an internet based firm to measure process improvements marketplace benefits and motivation costs our results suggest potentially large process improvements and marketplace benefits we find little evidence that informational asymmetries are more important in the electronic marketplace than in the existing physical ones

non parametric tests of consumer behaviour the neoclassical model of consumer behaviour postulates that a consumer s choice behaviour can be described as deriving from utility maximization subject to a budget constraint one is then naturally led to ask what this model implies about observed behaviour this question has been addressed from two quite distinct approaches the first approach originating in the work of slutsky 1915 and antonelli 1886 derives necessary and sufficient conditions involving the derivatives of the demand functions the second approach originating in the work of samuelson 1938 1947 1948 derives algebraic conditions on the demand functions implied by maximizing behaviour

understanding food sharing models to tackle sustainability challenges abstract the current global scene is characterized by a huge paradox on one side there is the scourge of poverty on the other 1 3 billion tonnes of food is wasted around the world every year to address these problems alternative distribution formats aimed at reducing food waste and generating a positive social impact are emerging particularly food banks and social supermarkets recently opportunities created by digital technology and the phenomenon of the sharing economy have boosted the increasing number of web platforms and food sharing apps that are being developed by existing organizations or by new entities that work exclusively online the main aim of this research is to highlight following an overview of existing food sharing models how alternative distribution systems change in response to digitalization and how the value propositions they claim change in the online context a hierarchical cluster analysis based on a sample of 52 food sharing cases was carried out three categories of models have emerged the sharing for money model which is primarily a b2c for profit model to reduce waste and at the same time generate revenue the sharing for charity model in which food is collected and given to non profit organizations the sharing for the community model which is a p2p model where food is shared amongst consumers by way of conclusion we suggest that food bank seems to be replicated online in the same way in the online context the sharing for charity model however the model of the social supermarket does not seems to be replicated in the same way in the digital context but changes towards a more profit oriented approach the sharing for money model additionally in the digital scenario a new model emerges the sharing for the community finally the study highlights some preliminary evidences on the effects of the new forms of sharing on social inequality

understanding the link between collaborative economy and sustainable behaviour an empirical investigation abstract the collaborative economy is growing at an exponential rate and the accommodation sector is especially affected the relevance of the phenomenon is linked with sustainable consumption that encourages resource efficiency waste reduction development of better products and surplus reutilization due to overproduction and overconsumption this paper aims at investigating the relationship between collaborative consumption and the adoption of sustainable practices from the users perspective after identifying the gaps existing in the literature different research approaches were integrated at first 4 focus groups were conducted to detect the main attributes and benefits attached to collaborative economy in tourism the personal values instrumental and terminal values relevant to p2p accommodation renting were identified through laddering technique as the propensity to put in place sustainable behaviour thereafter a structural model based on the framework of the theory of planned behaviour tpb constructs was set and tested to understand its consistency with the above values an ad hoc questionnaire was projected and administered online based on a sample of 384 respondents quantitative data were analysed through statistical and structural equation modeling software from an academic perspective the paper enhances the current knowledge in identifying the desired end states that users want to achieve by renting a p2p accommodation moreover it exploits and adapts the tpb to an emerging consumption model such as collaborative economy thus disclosing the relation between collaborative consumption and sustainable behaviour moreover the adaptation of tpb model to the newest context of collaborative economy expands the knowledge related to sustainable consumption from a managerial perspective it is necessary to emphasize the importance of defining a new business paradigm considering collaborative consumption to support environmental policy and encouraging sustainable behaviour

the sharing economy a pathway to sustainability or a nightmarish form of neoliberal capitalism the sharing economy seemingly encompasses online peer to peer economic activities as diverse as rental airbnb for profit service provision uber and gifting freecycle the silicon valley success stories of airbnb and uber have catalysed a vibrant sharing economy discourse participated in by the media incumbent industries entrepreneurs and grassroots activists within this discourse the sharing economy is framed in contradictory ways ranging from a potential pathway to sustainability to a nightmarish form of neoliberalism however these framings share a common vision of the sharing economy a niche of innovation decentralising and disrupting established socio technical and economic structures regimes here i present an analysis of the online sharing economy discourse identifying that the sharing economy is framed as 1 an economic opportunity 2 a more sustainable form of consumption 3 a pathway to a decentralised equitable and sustainable economy 4 creating unregulated marketplaces 5 reinforcing the neoliberal paradigm and 6 an incoherent field of innovation although a critique of hyper consumption was central to emergence of the sharing economy niche 2 it has been successfully reframed by regime actors as purely an economic opportunity 1 if the sharing economy follows this pathway of corporate co option it appears unlikely to drive a transition to sustainability

mail versus mall a strategic analysis of competition between direct marketers and conventional retailers consumers now purchase several offerings from direct sellers including catalog and internet marketers these direct channels exist in parallel with the conventional retail stores the availability of multiple channels has significant implications for the performance of consumer markets the literature in marketing and economics has however been dominated by a focus on the conventional retail sector this paper is an effort toward modeling competition in the multiple channel environment from a strategic viewpoint at the outset a parsimonious model that accommodates the following consumer and market characteristics is introduced first the relative attractiveness of retail shopping varies across consumers second the fit with the direct channel varies across product categories third the strength of existing retail presence in local markets moderates competition fourth in contrast with the fixed location of the retail store that anchors its localized market power the location of the direct marketer is irrelevant to the competitive outcome the model is first applied in a setting where consumers have complete knowledge of product availability and prices in all channels in the resulting equilibrium the direct marketer acts as a competitive wedge between retail stores the direct presence is so strong that each retailer competes against the remotely located direct marketer rather than against neighboring retailers this outcome has implications for the marketing mix of retailers which has traditionally been tuned to attract consumers choosing between retail stores in the context of market entry conditions under which a direct channel can access a local market in retail entry equilibrium are derived our analysis suggests that the traditional focus on retail entry equilibria may not yield informative or relevant findings when direct channels are a strong presence next the role of information in multiple channel markets is modeled this issue is particularly relevant in the context of direct marketing where the seller can typically control the level of information in the marketplace sometimes on a customer by customer basis e g by deciding on the mailing list for a catalog campaign when a certain fraction of consumers does not receive information from the direct marketer the retailers compete with each other for that fraction of the market the retailer s marketing mix has to be tuned in this case to jointly address direct and neighboring retail competition the level of information disseminated by the direct marketer is shown to have strategic implications and the use of market coverage as a lever to control competition is described even with zero information costs providing information to all consumers may not be optimal under some circumstances in particular when the product is not well adapted to the direct channel the level of market information about the direct option should ideally be lowered the only way to compete with retailers on a larger scale with a poorly adapted product is by lowering direct prices which lowers profits lowering market information levels and allowing retailers to compete more with each other facilitates a higher equilibrium retail price in turn this allows a higher direct price to be charged and improves overall direct profit on the other hand when the product is well adapted increasing direct market presence and engaging in greater competition with the retail sector yields higher returns the finding that high market coverage may depress profits raises some issues for further exploration first implementing the optimal coverage is straightforward when the seller controls the information mechanism as in the case of catalog marketing the internet in contrast is an efficient mechanism to transmit information but does not provide the sellers with such control over the level of market information a key reason is that the initiative to gather information on the internet lies largely with consumers the design and implementation of mechanisms to control aggregate information levels in electronic markets can therefore be an important theme for research and managerial interest second direct marketers have traditionally relied on the statistical analysis of customer records to decide on contact policies the analysis in this paper reveals that these policies can have significant strategic implications as well research that integrates the statistical and strategic aspects could make a valuable contribution the paper concludes with a discussion of issues for future research in multiple channel markets including avenues to model competition in settings with multiple direct marketers

bounding an economic monetary aggregate under nonhomothetic preferences we construct nonparametric bounds on true quantity indexes for the realistic case of nonhomothetic preferences these bounds do not require assumptions about the form of the underlying aggregator function we construct these bounds using monetary assets that meet necessary conditions for the existence of an aggregate we find that a tornqvist index of these monetary assets falls within the nonparametric bounds on true quantity indexes almost all of the time whereas a simple sum of these monetary assets falls outside these bounds more than one third of the time

effect of partial cross ownership on supply chain performance abstract partial cross ownership pco in a dyad supply chain refers to a situation where each firm holds a portion of its partner s shares we study this topic in push and pull supply chains and prove that neither the supply chain s nor any member s profit changes with the percentage of the leader s shares the follower holds however while the profits of the chain and the leader increase with the percentage of the follower s shares held by the leader the follower s profit does not necessarily increase or decrease as a result both partners can always achieve a win win by setting a proper price for transferring the follower s shares to the leader moreover the equilibrium wholesale price may be greater than the retail price in the push chain but less than the marginal production cost in the pull chain contradicting the usual results found in the literature we also derive a necessary and sufficient condition on the structure of pco allowing a pull chain to perform better than a push one this extends cachon 2004 s result that a pull chain always performs better than a push one without pco finally pco can coordinate a chain if and only if each one holds half of the other s shares

product customization and price competition on the internet the internet provides an unprecedented capability for sellers to learn about their customers and offer custom products at special prices in addition customization is more feasible today because of advances in manufacturing technologies that have improved sellers manufacturing flexibility we first develop a model of product customization and flexible pricing to incorporate the salient roles of the internet and flexible manufacturing technologies in reducing the costs of designing and producing tailored consumer goods we show how a monopoly seller may earn the highest profits by producing both standard and custom products and can raise prices for both types of products as customization and information collection technologies improve simultaneous adoption of customization in a duopoly reduces the differentiation between their standard products but does not intensify price competition compared with a two facility monopolist the duopoly may underinvest in customization consumer surplus improves after sellers adopt customization but does not monotonically increase as customization technologies advance when firms face a fixed entry cost and adopt customization sequentially the first entrant always achieves an advantage and may be able to deter subsequent entry by choosing its customization scope strategically

nonparametric demand analysis of u k personal sector decisions on consumption leisure and monetary assets a reappraisal this paper utilizes a new data set to test for utility maximizing behavior and weakly separable subutility functions in the context of a utility function comprising durables nondurables services leisure and monetary asset holdings for the u k personal sector all the data sets analyzed demonstrated consistency with respect to utility maximizing behavior the weak separability results prove to be relatively invariant to the degree of aggregation over goods but highly sensitive to the assump tion made regarding the representative consumer per household scaling of the data produced a utility function that is weakly separable in goods services and leisure and in monetary assets

when and how is the internet likely to decrease price competition conventional wisdom seems to claim that by lowering the cost of distribution and by making search easier for consumer the introduction of the internet is likely to intensify price competition this paper intends to challenge this view by asking when and how is the internet likely to decrease the level of price competition between firms to answer this question we develop an analytic model with the following characteristics on the demand side consumers need to gather information on two types of product attributes digital attributes which can be communicated on the web at very low cost and nondigital attributes for which physical inspection of the product is necessary consumers choose between two brands but are familiar with the nondigital attributes of only the brand purchased on the last purchase occasion on the supply side firms use traditional stores and the internet to inform consumers about their products attributes and to sell their products in this setup we show that the impact of the internet on competition will be radically different depending on the relative importance of parameters describing the relevant shopping and distribution context specifically we find that the introduction of the internet might lead to monopoly pricing when 1 the proportion of internet users is high enough 2 when nondigital attributes are relevant but not overwhelming 3 when consumers have a more favorable prior about the brand they currently own and 4 when the purchase situation can be characterized by destination shopping more surprising we also show that in such cases the use of the internet not only leads to higher prices but can also discourage consumers from engaging in search as such an important message of the paper is that under some conditions the internet might represent an opportunity for firms to leverage their brand loyalty and increase their profits the intuition behind our results is the following the internet allows consumers to evaluate digital attributes easily i e without visiting the stores however nondigital attributes can only be evaluated through physical presence as such for goods where both types of attributes are important the introduction of the net changes the effective cost of search for consumers without the internet the cost of search is the cost of visiting more than one store with the introduction of the net however nonsearching consumers do not have to undertake the shopping trip at all because they can order products on the net thus in the presence of the internet the cost of search is related to the cost of undertaking the entire shopping trip in the case of destination shopping i e when the fixed cost of undertaking the shopping trip is higher than the cost of visiting an additional store the presence of the internet creates higher effective search costs for consumers given this shift of paradigm in search costs due to the internet consumers may not take the risk of searching for products with better nondigital attributes but instead remain with the product they are familiar with this results in increased consumer loyalty which induces firms to increase their prices our results have important managerial implications first they provide guidelines for firms on when i e for which product categories they should consider expanding their distribution network to the internet in this respect an important additional insight of the paper is that the internet can lower price competition and lead to reduced consumer search even if it is more expensive than the traditional distribution channel this can easily be the case if distribution through the internet represents additional costs such as the costs associated with shipping and handling and return policies second the paper also provides guidelines on how to plan the firm s internet strategy interestingly the results suggest that with the general availability of the internet the role of stores might actually become more important while we do not explicitly model a dynamic market our findings together with klemperer s 1987 results suggest that stores might have a key role in consumer acquisition while the internet can help leverage the acquired customer base through demand fulfillment this might imply that for certain product categories firms should actually allocate additional resources to improve their in store environment when considering the internet as a complementary distribution channel

sharing sustainability how values and ethics matter in consumers adoption of public bicycle sharing scheme this study investigates the antecedents and mechanisms of consumers adoption of a public bicycle sharing scheme pbss as a form of shared sustainable consumption drawing on marketing ethics and sustainability literature it argues that cultural and consumption values drive or deter the adoption of pbss through the mediating mechanism of ethical evaluation this study tests its hypotheses using a sample of 755 consumers from one of the largest pbss programs in china the results confirm the significance of collectivism man nature orientation materialism and face consciousness as key determinants of the adoption of pbss interestingly these values play mixed roles in influencing pbss adoption it also finds that such values and beliefs need to be effectively translated into ethical evaluations of pbss adoption and need to be addressed in the specific social context thus ethical evaluation constitutes a cognitive strategy that allows consumers to justify and defend their adoption of sustainability practices the results suggest that a desirable sustainability program needs to not only cater to the cultural and psychological motivations of consumers but also reflect the social norms and social context in which the sustainability practices and consumers are embedded

food losses in food service institutions examples from sweden lowering food losses is a potential measure to overcome hunger and reduce the ecological side effects from the food system however few observations of food losses have been reported in the liter

the choice among monetary aggregates as targets and guides for monetary policy difficulties in meeting its monetary targets led the federal reserve in october 1979 to adopt a new operating procedure to achieve firmer control over monetary aggregates yet the inflationary environment has fostered financial developments that affect the behavior of the traditional monetary aggregates and that raise questions whether different aggregates may not be better this paper compares the various monetary aggregates for their usefulness as guides for monetary policy in the light of recent financial developments the criterion of usefulness is the ability to influence and predict gnp growth this ability is tested in two ways first by the stability of the velocities of the monetary aggregates and second by the advance information they provide of gnp growth it is presumed that the aggregates with the most stable velocities make the best targets for monetray policy and that those containing the most advance information make the best guides for policy the paper has three main sections the first discusses the criteria for using monetary aggregates as targets and guides the second two sections describe and report tests of the various monetary aggregates as targets and guides a summary of findings is presented as a final section

a non parametric analysis of personal sector decisions on consumption liquid assets and leisure this paper uses the non parametric techniques developed by varian i982 i983 and afriat i967 1973 from the theory of revealed preference see samuelson 1947 to address a number of questions of interest to those who model the determination of consumption liquid assets and leisure hours 1 the primary assumption underlying much work in this area whether it deals with highly aggregated categories such as the consumption of non durables or relatively disaggregated categories such as the consumption of energy products or food is that demand functions for consumer goods are consistent with the hypothesis that they are derived from the maximisation of a well behaved utility function subject to a relevant budget constraint the absence of liquid assets or leisure from such studies involves the implicit assumption of weak separability between consumption goods and these other goods the parametric approach then assumes a particular functional form for either the utility function indirect utility function or cost function and estimates the parameters that best describe the data however as varian i983 points out when it comes to testing hypotheses in such a framework it is always a joint hypothesis comprising both the restrictions and the choice of functional form which is being tested 2 to avoid this problem varian developed the nonparametric revealed preference approach to provide algebraic conditions which are imposed by maximising behaviour on a set of data with a finite number of observations this non parametric approach is exploited here in several ways there have been a number of studies using a parametric approach at a fairly disaggregated level to the determinants of consumers expenditure see for example deaton i974 anderson and blundell i982 and ray i984 for applications using

how revealing is revealed preference this lecture address the following two key criticisms of the empirical application of revealed preference theory when the rp conditions do not reject they do not provide precise predictions and when they do reject they do not help characterize the nature of irrationality or the degree direction of changing tastes recent developments in the application of rp theory are shown to have rendered these criticisms unfounded a powerful test of rationality is available that also provides a natural characterization of changing tastes tight bounds on demand responses and on the welfare costs of relative price and tax changes are also available and are shown to work well in practice

direct marketing indirect profits a strategic analysis of dual channel supply chain design the advent of e commerce has prompted many manufacturers to redesign their traditional channel structures by engaging in direct sales the model conceptualizes the impact of customer acceptance of a direct channel the degree to which customers accept a direct channel as a substitute for shopping at a traditional store on supply chain design the customer acceptance of a direct channel can be strong enough that an indepent manufacturer would open a direct channel to compete with its own retailers here direct marketing is used for strategic channel control purposes even though it is inefficient on its own and surprisingly it can profit the manufacturer even when so direct sales occur specifically we construct a price setting game between a manufacturer and its independent retailer direct marketing which indirectly increases the flow of profits through the retail channel helps the manufacturer improve overall profitability by reducing the degree of inefficient price double marginalization while operated by the manufacturer to constrain the retailer s pricing behavior the direct channel may not always be detrimental to the retailer because it will be accompanied by a wholesale price reduction this combination of manufacturer pull and push can benefit the retailer in equilibrium finally we show that the mere threat of introducing the direct channel can increase the manufacturer s negotiated share of cooperative profits even if price efficiency is obtained by using other business practices

when should a manufacturer set its direct price and wholesale price in dual channel supply chains abstract applying an observable delay game framework developed in noncooperative game theory we investigate the timing problem concerning when a manufacturer managing dual channel supply chains consisting of a retail channel and a direct channel should post its wholesale price and direct price conventionally operational research models describing dual channel supply chains examine price competition where the retailer and the manufacturer simultaneously determine the retail and direct prices respectively in contrast to this conventional setting our model demonstrates that such simultaneous price competition never arises if the manufacturer and retailer can choose not only the level of the price but also the timing of pricing if the manufacturer sets the direct price after setting the wholesale price to the retailer the retailer accelerates the timing of retail pricing prior to the direct price setting by the manufacturer our findings suggest that the manufacturer should post the direct price before or upon but not after setting the wholesale price for the retailer this upfront posting of the direct price not only constitutes the subgame perfect nash equilibrium of the noncooperative game between channel members but also maximizes the profits for a manufacturer employing multichannel sales strategies

do the asean countries and taiwan form a common currency area abstract common currency areas and asian common currency areas in particular are highly topical and somewhat controversial areas for research we explore the hypothesis that the members of the association of southeast asian nations meet necessary conditions for forming a common currency area and whether taiwan appears a natural member of such an area we test data on the asean countries and taiwan for consistency with a common currency area we produce the first evidence that these five asean countries and the asean countries plus taiwan meet the microeconomic criteria to form a common currency area

inferring shortfall costs and integrating environmental costs into optimal production levels for an all you care to eat food service operation abstract this study examines how optimal food production policies at an all you care to eat aycte facility would change were life cycle cost estimates of embodied co2 included in the disposal costs associated with overproduction in an aim to study production planning possibilities in a situation that places increased emphasis on the environmental impacts of overproduction aycte operations exhibit a lack of revenue associated with each item served since there is no per item lost sales value incurred when demand exceeds supply accordingly the second objective of this research is to present a novel method for estimating shortfall costs in a setting with no marginal revenue per satisfied unit of demand we examine empirical data from aycte operations at the university of missouri s campus dining services cds to infer the per item shortfall costs that are implied by cds management s historical production decisions consistent with cds management s stated aversion to shortfalls we estimate shortfall values which are between 1 6 and 2 7 times larger than the procurement cost and between 30 and over 100 times larger than the disposal cost utilizing published estimates of life cycle co2 and the social cost of carbon we identify a per portion environmental cost we incorporate the environmental costs associated with wasted overproduction and the inferred shortfall cost estimates into a newsvendor model formulation to identify new optimal production levels illustrating this approach with application to a set of food items served by cds we find that optimal production levels are decreased significantly 18 25 for food items with high environmental impacts such as beef and reduced less for foods with less embodied co2

consumer heterogeneity and strategic quality decisions though recent studies show that quality differentiation is an equilibrium outcome products of similar qualities frequently are observed in the marketplace this inconsistency may be explained by incorporating consumer heterogeneity along unobservable attributes into a model of competition in this paper consumers not only take into account the quality and price of a product but also their heterogeneous tastes along other attributes which are unobservable to firms we investigate the effect of heterogeneity along the unobservable attributes on both quality and price equilibrium in a two stage game framework we show that when consumers are sufficiently heterogeneous along the unobservable attributes the firms offer products of identical qualities in equilibrium under low levels of heterogeneity along the unobservable attributes however our results are consistent with past research which argues for quality differentiation

total and per capita value of food loss in the united states there are few peer reviewed or major published studies that estimate the total amount of food loss in developed countries and even fewer attempt to estimate the monetary value we compiled estimates of the amount and value of food loss for more than 200 individual foods in the united states using the us department of agriculture s economic research service s loss adjusted food availability data and then aggregated these values to estimate the total value of food loss and the value by food group the results indicate that in 2008 the estimated total value of food loss at the retail and consumer levels in the united states as purchased at retail prices was 165 6 billion the top three food groups in terms of the value of food loss at these levels are meat poultry and fish 41 vegetables 17 and dairy products 14 looking more closely at the estimates for the consumer level this level of loss translates into almost 124 kg 273 lb of food lost from human consumption per capita in 2008 at an estimated retail price of 390 capita year food loss represents a significant share of household food expenditures our estimates suggest that the annual value of food loss is almost 10 of the average amount spent on food per consumer in 2008 and over 1 of the average disposable income this consumer level loss translates into over 3 kg 0 7 lb of food per capita per day valued at 1 07 day our estimates of the total value of food loss in the united states and loss estimates by food group are useful in that they can generate awareness of the issue among the food industry members governments and consumers potential large scale approaches and economic incentives to mitigate food loss in developed countries are also discussed

democratising platform governance in the sharing economy an analytical framework and initial empirical insights the growing controversy around the adverse impacts of sharing economy platforms including airbnb and uber has led to calls for more democratic models of platform governance advocates of democratic governance models claim that these could help to create a more sustainable sharing economy by ensuring that platforms promote social and environmental values alongside the instrumental values of the capitalist economy exploring this claim we bring together theories of platform governance democratic organisational governance and the enactment of values in socio technical systems offering a conceptual framework for analysing emerging democratic models of platform governance applying this framework we present a mixed methods case study focused on freegle a platform that enables people to gift unwanted consumer goods locally and one of very few platforms to have sustained a democratic governance model at scale in particular we explore the extent to which the social environmental and instrumental values of platform users and owners have been accommodated in the governance of freegle our findings are broadly supportive of the claims made by advocates of democratic platform governance although in freegle s case social and environmental values are rather better accommodated than instrumental values while we are cautiously optimistic about the potential from a sustainability perspective of democratic platform governance models we emphasise that major challenges are likely to be faced by those implementing these and that such models should be complemented by government regulation of the sharing economy

temporal aggregation the data interval bias and empirical estimation of bimonthly relations from annual data in an important study reviewing the literature on econometric studies of the relationship between advertising and sales clarke clarke darral g 1976 econometric measurement of the duration of advertising effects on sales j marketing res 13 november 345 357 concluded that the implied duration interval of the effects of advertising on sales were too long when the studies used annual data a theoretical explanation is provided here for the observation of parameter estimates which vary with the data interval employed in the analysis parameter estimates are developed on the basis of data aggregated at various levels of temporal aggregation and compared with theoretical values it is demonstrated that it is possible to recover bimonthly parameters when only annual data are available

inventory competition under dynamic consumer choice we analyze a model of inventory competition among n firms that provide competing substitutable goods each firm chooses initial inventory levels for their good in a single period newsboy like inventory model customers choose dynamically based on current availability so the inventory levels at one firm affect the demand of all competingfirms this creates a strategic interaction amongthe firms inventory decisions our work extends earlier work on variations of this problem by karjalainen 1992 lippman and mccardle 1997 and parlar 1988 specifically we model demand in a more realistic way as a stochastic sequence of heterogeneous consumers who choose dynamically from amongthe available goods or choose not to purchase based on a utility maximization criterion we also use a sample path analysis so minimal assumptions are imposed on this demand process we characterize the nash equilibrium of the resulting stocking game and prove it is unique in the symmetric case we show there is a bias toward overstocking caused by competition specifically reducing the quantity stocked at any equilibrium of the game increases total system profits and at any joint optimal set of stocking levels each firm has an individual incentive to increase its own stock for the symmetric case we show that as the number of competing firms increases the overstockingbecomes so severe that total system and individual firm profits approach zero finally we propose a stochastic gradient algorithm for computing equilibria and provide several numerical examples

pricing and rebate strategies for an e shop with a cashback website abstract a cashback website cw is a type of reward website that pays its members a rebate when they purchase goods via affiliate links the website receives a commission from an e shop when a customer makes a purchase by following a link instead of visiting the e shop directly with the rapid rise in e shops cws are becoming increasingly popular however these cws value to e shops is still somewhat unclear in both theory and practice to clarify the process we consider a system in which an e shop sells a product to consumers and a cw provides the link to the e shop based on consumers utility we develop a model to study the value of the cw to the e shop in both centralized and decentralized settings and demonstrate and compare the two parties optimal strategies and their corresponding profits in both settings our main findings are as follows 1 the cw can always bring the e shop more profits whether the setting is centralized or decentralized by playing the role of price discrimination 2 in contrast to the centralized setting the decentralized setting does not lead to a higher sales price in many cases it offers a lower sales price which is opposite of the case typically seen in traditional supply chain literature 3 compared with the decentralized setting the centralized setting does not allow all consumers to have more consumer surplus which again differs from traditional supply chain literature but rather yields more total profit to the system which implies that it is better for the e shop to have its own cw than to use a third party cw 4 the degree of decrease in utility for consumers who buy via the cw significantly influences both parties pricing strategies more interesting is that a smaller degree of decrease in utility for consumers who buy via the cw is always beneficial to the e shop but may be detrimental to the cw

optimal production planning utilizing leftovers for an all you care to eat food service operation abstract food service operations in an all you care to eat environment need to consider two conflicting objectives a desire to reduce overproduction food waste and its corresponding environmental impacts and an aversion to shortfalls in which some customer demands go unsatisfied a particular challenge in such buffet style operations is the absence of any lost marginal revenue associated with lost sales that can be used to measure the shortfall cost complicating any attempt to determine a minimum cost solution this research presents a multi criteria optimization approach to identify the efficient frontier of points lying between the minimum waste and minimum shortfall solutions in particular we identify optimal production adjustments relative to demand forecasts demand thresholds for utilization of leftovers and percentages of demand to be satisfied by leftovers considering two alternative metrics for overproduction waste mass and greenhouse gas emissions to account for the embodied chemical usage during farming transportation and landfill decomposing of overproduced food waste a statistical analysis of the changes in decision variable values across each of the efficient frontiers can then be performed to identify the key variables that could be modified to reduce the amount of wasted food at minimal increase in shortfalls or alternatively to reduce the amount of shortfalls at minimal increase in waste we illustrate our approach with an application to empirical data from campus dining services operations at the university of missouri our analysis suggests that targeted production level modifications rather than blanket increases or decreases can allow food service providers to reduce overproduction food waste without significant increases in demand shortfalls

a policy agenda for changing our relationship with consumption in this government initiatives contribution we present policy recommendations made available to the scottish government on how to change scottish consumers relationships with material goods and so contribute to its greenhouse gas emissions targets rather than focusing on the individual actions of consumers we discuss how the underlying neoliberal political narrative must be addressed as it creates the conditions in which invidious materialism can occur we then propose an alternative conceptualization of marketing that would harness marketing tools and concepts to help build connections between people and stimulate demand for pro environmental prosocial consumption this function stands in contrast to marketing acting in a way that contributes to the fragmentation of society and degradation of our planet a series of controls on marketing are then outlined which seek to facilitate changes to current dominant consumption narratives including using material input labelling as a mechanism to restrict unethical marketing practices overall these ideas represent a more interventionist perspective but one that we deem necessary when considered against the scale of the task now facing humanity in avoiding catastrophic climate change

nonparametric tests of utility maximization and weak separability for consumption leisure and money some of the most fundamental assumptions of economics are utility maximization and weak separability of the arguments in the represen tative consumer s utility function this paper contains results from nonparametric tests of these assumptions about consumer behavior the authors find that quarterly per capita data on consumption goods le isure and monetary assets are consistent with utility maximization further consumption goods and leisure meet necessary and sufficient conditions for weak separability additionally one grouping of relat ively liquid monetary assets meets the necessary conditions for weak separability they also test and find no evidence of homothetic prefe rences copyright 1987 by mit press

the paradox of growth critique narrative analysis of the finnish sustainable consumption and production debate abstract academic discussion on economic growth and the environment has made a comeback under the auspices of the degrowth debate to date however literature on the topic has been mainly theoretical and empirical studies of actual policy discussions have received less attention this article contributes to the debate with a narrative policy analysis of interviews with members of finland s committee on sustainable consumption and production narrative policy analysis is suitable for complex policy cases by tracing and comparing the different stories non stories and counterstories in the debate the analysis clarifies the issue and paves the way for solutions we found that it is common even among business and ministry representatives to criticize the current growth bound economic system from the perspective of narrative policy analysis however this critique only increases uncertainty and complexity in the policy field which paradoxically leads to a strengthening of the dominant growth stories we suggest that constructing a complete degrowth story is essential for supporting democratic deliberation on sustainability robust institutional support for degrowth work together with research and experimentation are important milestones on the way

rivalry between strategic alliances abstract rivalry between strategic alliances is investigated in a model where each alliance member maximizes its own profit and some share of its partner s profit a complementary alliance confers a strategic advantage by allowing the partners to credibly commit to greater output owing to both within alliance complementarities and cross alliance substitutabilities although rivalry between different alliances can sometimes lead to a prisoners dilemma for firms it tends to improve economic welfare on the other hand an alliance that arises due purely to the threat of entry may reduce welfare

implications of reduced search cost and free riding in e commerce this paper examines a market where the provision of information service is costly but information service has the characteristics of a public good consumers on the other hand can use the information service to make an informed purchase decision and derive higher utility from consuming their ideal product however after receiving the information service from an information service provider consumers can easily free ride by purchasing at low price sellers who do not provide any information service the paper examines the competition where sellers compete by providing information service for horizontally differentiated products and where technology reduces consumers search cost it is found that in this market a seller needs to establish itself as an information service provider in order to make positive profits even when there is free riding a seller however cannot make positive profits by free riding all the time also with an increase in competition in the information service market sellers have reduced incentives to provide information service it is also found that in this market a decrease in search cost may increase or decrease social welfare

assessment of energy intake estimates of food supply v measurement of food consumption abstract national consumption indicators are frequently compiled using food supply estimates in the absence of reliable household or individual intake data the authors examine the relationship between these three levels of information and in particular the potential losses of energy in the food system comparing data from different countries and over time they demonstrate the unreliability of supply estimates as proxy indicators of consumption and question their current usage in statements about global hunger and the links between health and food intake

the food waste hierarchy as a framework for the management of food surplus and food waste the unprecedented scale of food waste in global food supply chains is attracting increasing attention due to its environmental social and economic impacts drawing on interviews with food waste specialists this study construes the boundaries between food surplus and food waste avoidable and unavoidable food waste and between waste prevention and waste management this study suggests that the first step towards a more sustainable resolution of the food waste issue is to adopt a sustainable production and consumption approach and tackle food surplus and waste throughout the global food supply chain the authors examine the factors that give rise to food waste throughout the food supply chain and propose a framework to identify and prioritize the most appropriate options for prevention and management of food waste the proposed framework interprets and applies the waste hierarchy in the context of food waste it considers the three dimensions of sustainability environmental economic and social offering a more holistic approach in addressing food waste additionally it considers the materiality and temporality of food the food waste hierarchy posits that prevention through minimization of food surplus and avoidable food waste is the most attractive option the second most attractive option involves the distribution of food surplus to groups affected by food poverty followed by the option of converting food waste to animal feed although the proposed food waste hierarchy requires a fundamental re think of the current practices and systems in place it has the potential to deliver substantial environmental social and economic benefits

credit cards as lifestyle facilitators credit cards are an increasingly essential technology but they carry with them the paradoxical capacity to propel consumers along lifestyle trajectories of marketplace freedom or constraint we analyze accounts provided by consumers credit counselors and participants in a credit counseling seminar in order to develop a differentiated theory of lifestyle facilitation through credit card practice the skills and tastes expressed by credit card practice help distinguish between the lifestyles of those with higher cultural capital relative to those with lower cultural capital differences in lifestyle regulation practice are posited to originate in cultural discourses related to entitlement and frugality

selling sharing and everything in between the hybrid economies of collaborative networks recent consumer research has examined contexts where market based exchange gift giving sharing and other modes of exchange occur simultaneously and obey several intersecting logics but consumer research has not conceptualized these so called hybrid economic forms nor explained how these hybrids are shaped and sustained using ethnographic and netnographic data from the collaborative network of geocaching this study explains the emergence of hybrid economies performativity theory is mobilized to demonstrate that the hybrid status of these economies is constantly under threat of destabilization by the struggle between competing performativities of market and nonmarket modes of exchange despite latent tension between competing performativities the hybrid economy is sustained through consumer producer engagements in collaborative consumption and production the creation of zones of indeterminacy and the enactment of tournaments of value that dissipate controversies around hybrid transactions implications are drawn for consumer research on the interplay between market and nonmarket economies

world population and food supply abstract criteria for assessing the adequacy of a national average diet are proposed and the global average cereal production per capita needed to provide an adequate average diet is calculated the technical feasibility of maintaining global food production per capita up to the year 2050 is assessed the required input of nitrogen fertilizer is estimated and the water supply in relation to crop evapotranspiration is discussed it is shown that maintenance of the present global cereal production per capita would be accompanied by a moderate increase in grain consumption per capita in the less developed countries but that this will involve a major increase in the net import of grain from the more developed countries achievement of a satisfactory average diet in the less developed countries as a whole cannot be achieved until the population of this group of countries has declined to a level substantially below its future peak

are risky assets substitutes for monetary assets i introduction financial innovation over the past couple of decades has enhanced the liquidity of many financial assets particularly noncapital certain risky assets further financial assets previously not regarded as monetary assets such as mutual funds and particularly money market mutual funds now provide monetary services such as liquidity and transactions services l given the increased liquidity of such funds the question arises as to whether risky assets are substitutes for capital certain monetary assets if noncapital certain assets are indeed substitutes for capital certain assets and are also being used for transactions purposes then agents may be treating risky assets as money although this issue has been addressed in the united states in the context of the addition of bond funds to m2 by for example duca 1995 no such research has yet been conducted in the united kingdom including risky assets in the analysis contradicts the work of ando and shell 1975 spencer 1986 appendix i pp 184 93 and spencer 1994 broadly they argue that since some nonrisky assets provide monetary services and probability also liquidity individuals would not hold risky assets for these purposes 2 in contrast hicks 1935 states that falling transaction costs and rising wealth encourages individuals to increase the proportion of risky assets in portfolio holdings most studies generally assume that risky assets fail to provide significant monetary services and for example have been excluded from the asset demand analysis of barr and cuthbertson 1991a drake fleissig and swofford 1997 and money demand studies such as taylor 1987 belongia and chrystal 1991 drake and chrystal 1994 and drake 1996 alternatively barr and cuthbertson 1991b use only risky assets in their asset demand system analysis the degree of substitution between risky assets and capital certain assets is an empirical issue while noncapital certain risky assets mutual funds and other financial assets may well be becoming closer substitutes for what people are using as money they are in no way perfect substitutes for the highly liquid cash assets to evaluate the role of noncapital certain assets we construct a noncapital certain risky divisia aggregate consisting of equities government bonds and unit trusts the divisia index allows for less than perfect substitution between assets and weights component assets according to their differing degrees of moneyness which may vary over time due to many factors for example financial innovation see barnett 1980 this methodology has been widely applied to monetary aggregation and money demand studies in a number of countries as in belongia 1996 drake 1996 drake and chrystal 1997 and anderson jones and nesmith 1997 to determine whether risky assets are substitutes for capital certain assets we use two other divisia aggregates constructed from traditional measures of money the first of these is an aggregate of highly liquid zero yield cash assets given that the component assets all have zero own rates of return however divisia aggregation is equivalent in this case to simple summation the second aggregate is a divisia aggregate of interest bearing capital certain assets including risky assets complicates the analysis because the degree of risk aversion will affect the estimates of substitution between capital certain and noncapital certain assets thus we also analyze how different degrees of risk aversion affect the results the substitution relationship between assets is estimated from an asymptotically ideal model aim the choice of an aim is in line with the recommendation of barnett fisher and serletis 1992 that flexible systems of demand equations should be used that allow for nonlinear optimizing behavior by economic agents furthermore this paper can be seen as an extension of the recent application of this model to u

relative prices in the uk personal sector money demand function nonparametric demand analysis is used in order to establish admissible monetary aggregates and also to establish a potential role for relative prices in the money demand function a conventional money demand specification is then contrasted with a money demand function which contains the relative prices of durables nondurables and services as additional regressors evidence from long run cointegration analysis short run error correction models and nonnested testing all confirm a role for relative prices in the u k personal sector s money demand function copyright 1996 by royal economic society