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on Marketing |
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Issue of 2007‒12‒19
four papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao University of the Beira Interior |
| By: | Hakenes, Hendrik; Peitz, Martin |
| Abstract: | In a market environment with random detection of product quality, a firm can employ umbrella branding as a strategy to convince consumers of the high quality of its products. Alternatively, a firm can rely on external certification of the quality of one or both of its products. We characterize equilibria in which umbrella branding fully or partially substitutes for external certification. We also show that the potential to signal quality is improved if consumers condition their beliefs on the source of information, namely whether information comes from external certification or from random detection. |
| Keywords: | certification; signalling; umbrella branding |
| JEL: | D82 L14 L15 M37 |
| Date: | 2007–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6601&r=mkt |
| By: | Ingrid Fromm (the Small Enterprise Promotion and Training Program, University of Leipzig) |
| Abstract: | Local producers, in their interaction with local processors or exporters and international retailers have the possibility to acquire new skills and knowledge. The type of trust relationship and coordination pattern can determine how information flows and how firms upgrade. In addition, the implementation and compliance with standards provides opportunities for learning and acquiring skills and knowledge. Focusing on this kind of interactions, the study explains how local producers in Honduras engage in upgrading and whether this had an impact on the sales of those firms. The majority of the producers in the sample upgraded their products and internal processes. A limited number of producers engaged in functional upgrading. Most of the producers were aware of the important role of standards. They affirmed that in the process of implementing and complying with standards, they have gained new knowledge and were convinced that they succeeded in securing at better position in the value chain. |
| Keywords: | Coordination, governance, standards, upgrading, value chain analysis, Honduras |
| Date: | 2007–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gig:wpaper:64&r=mkt |
| By: | Swantje Renfordt |
| Abstract: | By comparing European and US newspaper debates on the 2003 Iraq War, this working paper empirically tests whether a European public sphere exists regarding the contested issue of war and peace. This component of foreign and security policy represents a hard case for the evolution of European communication and looking for it empirically leads into nearly uncharted territory, as most studies have not yet addressed this particular policy field. The data set includes more than 400 articles from six respected newspapers in Germany, Great Britain, and the US, which serve in this case as a non-European control group. One interesting finding of the frame analysis is the fact that one can identify a European community of communication that relates to the legal dimension of the Iraq-debate and to discourses in two European countries. Opinions related to the question whether or not the use of military force complies with international law vary widely in all three countries. However, in contrast to the discourse prevalent in the US, both the German and the British discourses show a strong preference for upholding the rule of international law. |
| Keywords: | European identity; institutions; media |
| Date: | 2007–12–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:erp:reconx:p0017&r=mkt |
| By: | Javier Jareño (Banco de España) |
| Abstract: | Opinion-based surveys, or quantitative surveys, are potentially very powerful tools for conjunctural analysis in view of their rapid availability and nature. This paper addresses the usefulness of these surveys for monitoring the Spanish economy. To do this it analyses the two most important opinion-based surveys, namely the European Commission's Business and Consumer Survey and the NTC-Research Purchasing Managers’ Indices, and their relationship to the Quarterly National Accounts macroeconomic data and to the Spanish economy's key conjunctural indicators. The results show that opinion-based surveys are generally useful tools for the conjunctural analysis of the Spanish economy, although they should be used with caution. Their usefulness is apparent in all the areas analysed: as indicators of economic developments, as pointers to changes in the trend of the economy and as tools for predicting the economic situation. |
| Keywords: | opinion survey, short-term analysis, Spain |
| JEL: | E20 |
| Date: | 2007–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bde:opaper:0706&r=mkt |