近代日本消费需求变动的因素分析

长期影响近代日本消费需求变动的因素主要有四个方面:国民经济的不断增长和国民收入的不断提高是近代日本消费需求逐渐上升的物质基础和前提条件;近代工矿交通事业的发展,使国民收入分配格局朝着有利于劳动的方向转变,这是促进近代日本消费需求不断上升的积极力量;人口规模及其构成的变动是近代日本消费需求不断上升的重要推动力量;消费的示范效应、攀比行为和不可逆行为对消费需求不断上升起着一定的推动作用。     

“创意社群”：我国城市发展的新动力

我国文化创意产业正在成为一项热门行业，对城市经济、社会和文化的发展影响巨大。在今后几年，我国的“创意阶层”将会逐步壮大，形成城市中的“创意社群”，并将透过创造力和对文化艺术生活的要求，确认文化艺术在促进经济社会发展中扮演的重要角色，建立起能充分利用文化、艺术、商业以及社区之间的重要联系。“创意社群”将会不断为城市的发展提供强大的推动力。为我们城市的总体规划和发展模式提供新的思路。     

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Risk-Reduction Strategies for Consumer Chemical Products

Communication about risks offers a voluntary approach to reducing exposure to pollutants. Its adequacy depends on its impact on behavior. Estimating those impacts first requires characterizing current activities and their associated risk levels, and then predicting the effectiveness of risk-reduction strategies. Characterizing the risks from chemical consumer products requires knowledge of both the physical and the behavioral processes that influence exposures. This article presents an integrated approach that combines consumer interviews, users' beliefs and behaviors, and quantitative exposure modeling. This model was demonstrated in the context of consumer exposure to a methylene chloride-based paint stripper, showing how it could be used to evaluate current levels of risk and predict the effectiveness of proposed voluntary risk-reduction strategies.     

Enabling SMEs to take full advantage of e-business

Electronic business is rapidly changing the relationships between supply chain partners. This paper looks at what is needed to allow SMEs to participate fully in supply chain integration. First, current trends in supply chain integration, electronic commerce, and Internet support are examined. Next, the goals and results of a study are presented which addressed SME needs in fast moving consumer goods supply chains. These concepts are then integrated to determine a way forward for SMEs to participate in e-business. It is found that current Virtual Markets (web-sites or on-line communities that facilitate finding a buyer or seller and track orders) address some customer - supplier relationships but need many enhancements before they can support fully integrated supply chains.     

The Quality Adjusted Price Index in the Pure Characteristics Demand Model

This paper computes a quality adjusted price index for the personal computer CPU from 1996 to 2000. The index is based on the pure characteristics demand model. I first compute the quality adjusted price index for the whole market, and show that it is very comparable with the hedonic price index but more sensitive to changes in product quality. Two types of the hedonic index are considered. One is the dummy variable index and the other is the formulation in Pakes (2003). When I group consumers by their willingness to pay for attribute improvement, the index shows consumer groups are differently affected by their product choices.     

A Consumer Cooperative Association Specializing in Services for the Elderly

Summary

Over the past 10 years, a Japanese cooperative association named Fukushi Club Seikyo (FCS) has developed a unique, non-profit business specializing in services for the elderly. It aims to promote a reciprocal support system among neighborhood community members. FCS has successively organized its active members, mainly homemakers, into workers' collectives and successfully provided various life support services at a very small charge. Their human-touch service appears in sharp contrast to bureaucratic public services and profit-making private services. The civil initiative presented by FCS suggests a potential for a community-based social service system that may guarantee quality services without raising taxes and premiums for social insurance.     

Compulsive buying: Does it matter how it’s measured?

The primary purpose of the present study is to compare and contrast the validity and reliability of the Faber and O’Guinn [Faber, R. J., & O’Guinn, T. C. (1992). A clinical screener for compulsive buying. Journal of Consumer Research, 19, 459–469] and Edwards [Edwards, E. A. (1993). Development of a new scale for measuring compulsive buying behavior. Financial Counseling and Planning, 4, 67–84] compulsive buying scales within a nomological network. Although both psychometric scales were designed to measure compulsive buying, the two instruments appear to be distinct in how they conceptualize the compulsive buying phenomenon. The seven-item compulsive buying scale developed by Faber and O’Guinn (1992) is the most commonly used scale for measuring compulsive buying. The Edwards scale in contrast is not as well-known. Empirical results of the present study suggest that the two compulsive buying scales may be capturing either separate constructs, or different dimensions of the same compulsive buying construct. Edwards (1993) compulsive buying scale, for instance, is correlated with materialism but not with attitudes toward money while the Faber and O’Guinn scale is not correlated with materialism but is correlated with attitudes toward money. The present study’s results suggest, among other things, that it does in fact appear to matter how compulsive buying is measured.     

Les transformations du marché du travail : un éclairage à partir de l’analyse des décalages entre offre et demande dans un système productif localisé

This new look at approaches to the labor market emphasizes that changes observed during the past twenty years are related to trends as much in supply as in demand. Analyzing both these sides is shown to be valuable for understanding the impact on labor market trends and shedding light on the tensions and contradictions between supply and demand. The mechanisms that have come into play during this period are analyzed in a local productive system, namely agribusiness in the lower Rhone valley in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Region of France.     

Lightning strikes twice: Lessons learned from two food poisoning incidents in Japan

This case study examines the unique occurrence of two food contamination crises at Snow Brand Milk Products Co., Ltd., the top company in the Japanese milk product industry. The separate incidents of food poisoning occurred in 1955 and 2000; the latter incident, involving more than 10,000 victims, was the worst case of food poisoning in Japanese history.