Private Labels: Facilitators or Impediments to Supply Chain Coordination

We consider a retailer’s decision of whether to develop an internally produced, private label version of a national brand and the role that this decision plays in coordinating the supply chain. Our model assumes that the perceived quality of the private label is lower than that of the national brand, and we allow for the two products to have different marginal costs. We further allow for a fixed development cost that the retailer must incur to develop private label capability, and distinguish two types of private labels depending upon whether they would or would not be developed as product line extensions by a vertically integrated supply chain. We refer to these two types as first‐best (FB) and non‐first‐best (NFB) product line extensions, respectively. When the private label can be characterized as a NFB product line extension, its development creates adverse cannibalization effects, yet it also helps to mitigate the effects of double marginalization with respect to the national brand. We characterize the conditions under which the retailer will develop private label capability, and distinguish among the conditions under which this is either beneficial or detrimental to the overall performance of the supply chain.     

THE PROFESSIONAL FARMER

The Australian farmer faces important and interconnected management challenges on both the economic and ecological fronts. To confront these challenges effectively, farmers would be well advised to constitute themselves as a professional body along the lines of the Bar Association. Making farming a professional activity in this sense would provide a number of important benefits and advantages. It would facilitate the provision and delivery of the needed educational resources for economic and ecological land management, and help farmers avoid the pressures of heavy‐handed government centralism. At the same time, such professionalism would encourage more efficient use of sector resources by minimising the need for direct political lobbying and intra‐farm group competition for membership. As a professional body, farmers could hope for increased public standing and the economic clout that would come from having control over the supply of skilled land managers.     

The mourning after Hillsborough

There are continuing claims that in our society death is a taboo subject, and that bereaved people have lost touch with mourning rituals. This view seems to be challenged by the extensive mourning rituals on Merseyside in the fortnight in April 1989 following the Hillsborough tragedy, and by the simultaneous media debates about what would constitute appropriate mourning. The article analyses both the media debates and the rituals in order to ascertain whether these contradict the ‘taboo’ thesis, or whether they were unique to Merseyside and/or to a particular disaster.     

PUBLIC WEALTH,PUBLIC HEALTH,AND PRIVATE STEALTH: EXAMINING THE BLACK MARKET IN CIGARETTES IN AUSTRALIA

Taxes on tobacco provide a significant income for the Australian government — $5.1 billion in 2001. At the same time, health officials are making strenuous efforts to reduce smoking, particularly among teenagers. Some economists suggest that raising taxes on tobacco will produce more revenue while at the same time lowering smoking rates, particularly among youths who have less discretionary spending power than adults. But a by‐product of excise tax in Australia has been the emerging market in “chop‐chop,” tobacco diverted from legal channels by growers who receive considerably higher prices for a part of their yield than they can obtain from legal manufacturers. The article details this situation and suggests that only bold solutions may be able to reduce tensions in tax policies, smoking rates and the “chop‐chop” black market.     

1984 and beyond: Divergent Directions and Extra Depth*

It is time family therapy looked wider than the therapy session. Problems presenting also need to be viewed within a societal context. The complexity and fluid nature of issues affecting the family today needs to be recognised. To highlight this, 3 divergent areas are discussed; family structure, culture, and the nuclear threat. The myth of homogeneity is exposed and the pluralistic nature of Australian society is discussed. It is argued that family therapists have a responsibility to be aware of, and to comment on, family policy issues if the approach is to continue to develop divergent directions and extra depths.