Below Cost Legislation – Did it matter and would it really matter today?

This paper traces the emergence, evolution, and demise of below cost legislation in the grocery industry in Ireland. The paper explores retail buyers’ views of the Grocery Order (1987) and the effect, if any, it had on grocery buyer behaviour, competition among retailers, and vertical competition along the food chain until it was repealed in 2006. It addresses the matter of buyers’ likely response to the Order, had it remained in effect, in the current depressed market environment. Views of independent retailers are also provided on the Order. The paper finds that grocery buyer behaviour was determined by the buoyant consumer market and that the Groceries Order acted to depress competitive forces and direct supplier-buyer negotiations to off-invoice variables. Had the Order remained in place, the effect of the rapid decline in the economy, accompanied by the rapid rise of the discounters’ share of the market, the growth in cross border shopping, and the dramatic fall in the value of sterling would have ensured that buyers developed new sourcing models which would have made the legislation redundant. The paper concludes that the legislation did not work to the benefit of shoppers but assisted the imposition of a form of quasiresale price maintenance by suppliers, which suited suppliers and retailers alike in a time of economic buoyancy. The paper endorses the Government’s decision to rescind the order and remove an important constraint in both vertical and horizontal competition.Below cost legislation, Grocery Buyer Behaviour, Political Economy,

Farmers as Producers of Clean Water: Getting Incentive Payments Right and Encouraging Farmer Participation

This research involved a field experiment using watershed payments as an incentive for farmers to address agricultural non-point pollution (ANP). Objectives were to: (1) describe how payments were estimated for a field experiment; (2) explain why a team approach is needed for ANP; (3) discuss the essential elements used for recruitment of farmers into a field experiment setting; and (4) address whether or not farmers were motivated to participate and pursue ANP abatement. One year into the experiment, the results are encouraging. About one-half of farmers who attended meetings are participating. They own or operate approximately 41% of the agricultural land in the watershed. Farmer actions to date have included determining an allocation formula for the payment, requesting watershed wide sampling, and cost sharing of ANP abatement.field experiment, team approach, agricultural non-point pollution, performance-based incentives, Environmental Economics and Policy, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Phosphorus Imbalances in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed: Can Forestland and Manure Processing Facilities Be the Answers?

A mixed-integer linear programming model was formulated to minimize the cost of transport and processing of excess manure in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The results showed that primarily poultry manure was moved out of surplus counties for land application or processing. In the base model, annual cost was more than $350 million, with the bulk of the cost arising from construction of energy facilities for poultry manure. Forestland application of poultry manure had the lowest average cost, and more forestland than agricultural land was used for manure application. The lowest cost scenario was$127 million annually when constraints were removed to expand manure application on agricultural land and allow unlimited construction of composting facilities. Such a low-cost solution could not realistically be implemented without further development of markets for compost.mathematical programming, water quality, animal manure, composting, Environmental Economics and Policy, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Protest Adjustments in the Valuation of Watershed Restoration Using Payment Card Data

When using a willingness-to-pay (WTP) format in contingent valuation (CV) to value water-shed restoration, respondents may protest by questioning why they should pay to clean up a pollution problem that someone else created. Using a sample selection interval data model based on Bhat (1994) and Brox, Kumar, and Stollery (2003), we found that the decision to protest and WTP values were correlated. Protest sample selection bias resulted in a 300 percent overestimate of mean WTP per respondent. Using different ad hoc treatments of protesters, protest bias resulted in moderate effects (-10 percent to +14 percent) after controlling for sample selection bias.contingent valuation, protest bias, watershed restoration, sample selection, grouped Tobit, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

From commitment to compliance: ASEAN's human rights regression?

Whether it is the persecution of the Rohingya, the disappearance of human rights activists, especially in Vietnam and Cambodia, the general limiting of freedom of speech across the region, including in two of the more liberal-minded states (Thailand, Philippines), or the resumption of the arbitrary use of the death penalty, also in one of the more liberal-minded states (Indonesia), Southeast Asia can be said to be facing a human rights crisis. This crisis coincides with regression in the region’s democratic politics. While marked most dramatically by the 2014 military coup in Thailand, in Cambodia the main opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party, was dissolved in November 2017 and more than 100 party members were banned from politics for five years thus leaving the government with no significant competitor ahead of elections in 2018. The populist Philippine President, Rodrigo Duterte, has encouraged extra-judicial killings and intimated that journalists could be assassinated. In Myanmar, where a landslide election victory in 2015 propelled Nobel Peace Prize Laurette Aung San Suu Kyi to a position of leadership, the military remain deeply entrenched in the country’s political institutions and a barely disguised ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya from Rakhine State has unfolded. This human rights crisis is though occurring at a time when ASEAN has never been so interested in human rights. After a lengthy period of time in which ASEAN either ignored, or paid lip service to human rights, the Association has created a human rights body – the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) – and adopted an ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD). These developments have taken place within a broader context of making ASEAN more people-centred as it progresses along its community building project. How then are we to understand this apparent contradiction between an increasing interest in human rights at the regional level and a regression in political freedoms amongst the member states, and, what are the implications for the direction of travel in turning an ASEAN commitment to human rights to compliance with human rights

Rising Stars, Superstars and Dying Stars: Hedonic Explorations of Autograph Prices

Key studies have explored the economics of rising stars, superstars and ‘has beens’, but relatively little economic literature exists on the associated parallel memorabilia markets. Using a random sample of 1151 pieces of autographed artefacts, on sale through a retail and internet outlet, hedonic analysis is undertaken to elicit significant characteristics in price determination. The data principally consists of autographs of past and current cultural icons along with some sporting and historical figures. We explore, inter alia, price differences with respect to ‘dead’ or ‘alive’ signatories, gender, sphere of fame, nationality, the age of the signatory and the nature of the artefact on which the signature is written. Alternative model specifications have been explored and compared. A notable difference emerges between those autographs with photographs and those without. There are also differences in prices according to whether individuals had been famous for their roles in just films, just television, or in both.

The determinants of retailer power within retailer manufacturer relationships evidence from the Irish food manufacturing industry

This research investigates the determinants of retailer power within retailer-manufacturer relationships by specifying and testing three models of retailer power. It is based on a sample of 55 Irish food manufacturers and their experiences of relationships with Irish and British retailers. The study adopts the view that the existing body of research into relationships with retailers is fragmented, and that a more complete understanding of these power relations may be obtained by simultaneously focusing on three sets of factors. The factors are industry specific, firm and product specific, and relationship specific. Much of the existing empirical work investigating power relations implicitly assumes power to be unidimensional through the measures employed. Consequently, the current study investigates retailer power, measured as a unidimensional construct. However, the work proceeds to explicitly acknowledge that power is multidimensional by examining retailers' power over manufacturers' product related and margin related activities. In examining these two dimensions of power, findings ofa more strategic nature are obtained. The analysis draws on the importance French and Raven (1959) attributed to observability as a determinant of power. While neglected throughout the power literature, observability, by introducing monitoring activities, provides a bridge with the transaction cost literature. In this way, specific investments, and the role of retailers' branding strategies, are incorporated into our study of power. The relationship between retailers' monitoring activities and power is specified. Proceeding from monitoring activities, the analysis sheds light on the determinants of inter-firm integration between retailers and food manufacturers. The role of specific investments, symmetric dependency, brand portfolio and retail influence on price are highlighted. The analysis of retailers' product related power supports the role of retail concentration, product shelf-life, manufacturer specific investments and retailers' product monitoring activities. Examining retail margin related power points to the importance of retail concentration, own brand penetration, the importance of economies of scale in manufacturing, product shelf life and manufacturer specific investments. Finally, retail power, measured as a unidimensional construct, is found to be related to own brand market penetration, the importance of economies of scale in manufacturing, manufacturer specific investments and retailers' monitoring activities

Natural and Anthropogenic Disturbance in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica: Iceberg Scours, Human-Derived Pollutants, and their Effects on Benthic Communities

The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of icebergs on infaunal communities in McMurdo Sound, using cores taken from naturally occurring scours, experimental plots simulating iceberg disturbance, and undisturbed reference areas spanning a 24 year time period. Iceberg scours and experimental plots altered infaunal abundances, reduced diversity, and changed species compositions. Abundances were lower at inside scour locations, dominated by a suite of mobile crustaceans. Common sessile space-dominating species were higher at scour edges, suggesting that recolonization of scours occur inward from the edges. When compared to other samples from the McMurdo Sound exposed to varying degrees of anthropogenic disturbance and environmental conditions, iceberg scour samples had high levels of abundance and species richness, with reduced levels of diversity. These results suggest Antarctic benthic communities are resilient to episodic iceberg disturbance, yet lack the ability to cope with high levels of human-derived pollutants

Transportation Oil Demand Consumer Preferences and Asymmetric Price Responses: Some UK Evidence

The aim of this paper is to (i) establish the role of asymmetric price decompositions in UK road transportation fuel demand, (ii) make explicit the impact of the underlying energy demand trend and (iii) disaggregate the estimation for gasoline and diesel demand as separate commodities. Dynamic UK transport oil demand functions are estimated using the Seemingly Unrelated Structural Time Series Model with decomposed prices to allow for asymmetric price responses. The importance of starting with a flexible modelling approach that incorporates both an underlying demand trend and asymmetric price response function is highlighted. Furthermore, these features can lead to different insights and policy implications than might arise from a model without them. As an example, a zero elasticity for a price-cut is found (for both gasoline and diesel) implying that price reductions do not induce demand for road transportation fuel in the UK. The paper illustrates the importance of joint modelling of gasoline and diesel demand incorporating both asymmetric price responses and stochastic underlying energy demand trends.Diesel; Asymmetry; Price; Underlying Energy Demand Trend (UEDT).

TOTAL ECONOMIC VALUATION OF STREAM RESTORATION USING INTERNET AND MAIL SURVEYS

The economic value of restoring Deckers Creek in Monongalia and Preston Counties of West Virginia was determined from mail, internet and personal interview surveys. Multi-attribute, choice experiments were conducted and nested logit models were estimated to derive the economic values of full restoration for three attributes of this creek: aquatic life, swimming, and scenic quality. The relative economic values of attributes were: aquatic life > scenic quality ~ swimming. These economic values imply that respondents had the highest value for aquatic life when fully restoring Deckers Creek to a sustainable fishery rather than "put and take" fishery that can not sustain a fish population (defined as moderate restoration for aquatic life). The consumer surplus estimates for full restoration of all three attributes ranged between $12 and$16 per month per household. Potential stream users (anglers) had the largest consumer surplus gain from restoration while non-angler respondents had the lowest. When the consumer surplus estimates were aggregated up to the entire watershed population, the benefit from restoration of Deckers Creek was estimated to be about $1.9 million annually. This benefit does not account for any economic values from partial stream restoration. Based upon log likelihood tests of the nested logit models, two sub-samples of the survey population (the general population and stream users) were found to be from the same population. Thus, restoration choices by stream users may be representative of the watershed population, although the sample size of stream users was small in this study.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,