When to Carry Eccentric Products? Optimal Retail Assortment under Consumer Returns

To understand whether retailers should consider consumer returns when merchandising, we study how the optimal assortment of a retailer is influenced by its return policy. The retailer selects its assortment from an exogenous set of horizontally differentiated products. Consumers make purchase and keep/return decisions in nested multinomial logit fashion. Our main finding is that the optimal assortment has a distinct structure for relatively strict return policies: it is optimal to offer a mix of the most popular and most eccentric products when the refund amount is sufficiently low, which can be viewed as a form of risk sharing between the retailer and consumers. In contrast, if the refund is sufficiently high or when returns are disallowed, the optimal assortment is composed of only the most popular products (a common finding in the literature). We provide preliminary empirical evidence for one of the key drivers of our results: more eccentric products have higher probability of return—conditional on purchase. In light of our analytical findings and managerial insights, we conclude that retailers should take returns into account when merchandising.     

A reassessment of the association between social disorganization and youth violence in rural areas

Objective: To study the association between social disorganization and youth violence rates in rural communities. Method: We employed rural Missouri counties (N = 106) as units of analysis, measured serious violent victimization data via hospital records, and the same measures of social disorganization as Osgood and Chambers (2000). Controlling for spatial autocorrelation, the negative binomial estimator was used to estimate the effects of social disorganization on youth violence rates. Results: Unlike Osgood and Chambers, we found only one of five social disorganization measures, the proportion of female-headed households, to be associated with rural youth violent victimization rates. Conclusion: Although most research on social disorganization theory has been undertaken on urban areas, a highly cited Osgood and Chambers (2000) study appeared to extend the generalize ability of social disorganization as an explanation of the distribution of youth violence to rural areas. Our results suggest otherwise. We provide several methodological and theoretical reasons why it may be too early to draw strong conclusions about the generalize ability of social disorganization to crime rates in rural communities.     

Breaking down ideas and institutions: the politics of tax policy in the USA and the UK

As the existing comparative policy literature suggests, both ideational and institutional analyses have clear analytical value in their own terms but, under many circumstances, it is the combination of the two perspectives that allows for a full understanding of policy trajectories. In this article we suggest that, to improve our understanding of how ideas and institutions interact to produce change, it is important to break down these two overly broad concepts. This is because beyond general arguments about how ‘ideas’ and ‘institutions’ interact, students of public policy should itemize ‘ideas’ and ‘institutions’ into more focused, and empirically traceable, subcategories while recognizing the changing and contingent nature of their interaction, over time. To illustrate this, we turn to the politics of tax policy in the United States of America and the United Kingdom, tracking developments from the rise of the New Right and an aggressive income tax cutting agenda, personified by President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher, through to the revived debate about the legitimacy of increasing taxes on those earning the highest incomes that emerged in the era of austerity that followed the Great Recession of 2008.     

Comments on papers for the special issue onGlobal Report on Student Well-Being

This is an overview and brief response to articles published in this special issue of the journal which deal with follow-up studies based on Multiple Discrepancies Theory (MDT) and myGlobal Report on Studies Well-Being.     

Criminal offenses in gamblers anonymous and hospital treated pathological gamblers

The purpose of this study was to compare the nature and prevalence of gambling and non-gambling related offenses in samples of pathological gamblers seeking behavioural treatment from a hospital-based program and those attending Gamblers Anonymous. A semi-structured interview schedule obtaining demographic data and details of the nature, frequency, and consequent legal action of criminal offenses committed was administered to 152 consecutive hospital treated pathological gamblers, and 154 Gamblers Anonymous attendees who volunteered to participate in the study. Of the total sample, 59% admitted a gambling-related offense, and 23% to a conviction. There was no difference in the proportion of hospital treated and Gamblers Anonymous subjects who offended. The most common gambling-related offenses were larceny, embezzlement and misappropriation. Gamblers committed a median of ten offenses over an average ten year period of pathological gambling with a median value of $ A 300¹ per offense. The median value for each non-gambling-related offense was $ A 130. Except for the significantly older mean age of Gamblers Anonymous subjects, hospital treated gamblers did not differ from Gamblers Anonymous attenders on relevant demographic features or parameters of gambling behaviour. Findings were interpreted to suggest a possible causal link between pathological gambling and the commission of non-violent property offenses.This study was supported by a grant from the Criminology Research Council. The views expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Council. The contribution of Anna Frankova, Research Assistant, is gratefully acknowledged.     

ECONOMIC AND OTHER SOCIETAL DETERMINANTS OF THE PREVALENCE OF HIV: A Test of Competing Hypotheses

The spread of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is believed to result from HIV-infected individuals who are unaware of their infection and, thus, the possible consequences of their sexual behavior for others. However, differential rates of HIV infection between countries may reflect a different set of circumstances. We obtained data from the World Bank and several other sources to test eight alternative explanations for the global differences in prevalence of HIV infection: (1) economic underdevelopment, (2) inadequate public health care, (3) insufficient media, (4) political instability, (5) overurbanization, (6) social inequity, (7) religion, and (8) region. Our regression findings showed that income inequality and political instability had statistically significant positive effects on HIV/AIDS prevalence and that gender equality had a negative effect on HIV/AIDS prevalence. Religion and region were also important predictors, as countries that were predominately Muslim and Christian Orthodox generally had lower prevalence of HIV/AIDS, whereas West Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa had a higher prevalence of HIV/AIDS. None of the public health and media indicators were statistically relevant.