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Final Consumers (final + consumer)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting85%

Selected Abstracts

Gender and Ethnic Diversity Among UK Corporate Boards

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE, Issue 2 2007
Stephen Brammer
This paper investigates the ethnic and gender diversity of the corporate board of UK companies, placing particular emphasis on links to board size and industry characteristics. We employ a novel dataset that covers a large sample of UK PLCs and describes a director's gender, ethnicity and position held. We find both ethnic and gender diversity to be very limited, and that diversity is somewhat less pronounced among executive positions. We find significant cross-sector variation in gender diversity, with an above average prevalence of women in Retail, Utilities, Media and Banking, while such variation in ethnic diversity is considerably less pronounced. Our evidence suggests that a close proximity to final consumers plays a more significant role in shaping board diversity than does the female presence among the industry's workforce. We argue that this shows that board diversity is influenced by a firm's external business environment and particularly an imperative to reflect corresponding diversity among its customers. [source]

Willingness to consume and produce transgenic bananas in Costa Rica

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSUMER STUDIES, Issue 6 2006
Francisco X. Aguilar
Abstract An exploratory study of the willingness to produce and consume transgenic bananas was carried out in Costa Rica. Transgenic crops are plants with novel genes incorporated into their genome through the use of genetic engineering techniques. Farm managers' opinions were gathered using faxed questionnaires while final consumers' opinions were obtained through personal intercept interviews. Consumers expressed a lack of knowledge about transgenic crops and had received non-favour but also non-negative information through the media about their adoption. The results of a probit regression model show that, other things being equal, younger, wealthier consumers, with higher levels of education, with smaller households are more likely to consume transgenic bananas. All producers included in the study consider they would adopt a new transgenic variety. Producers' willingness to pay for such a variety would depend on its capacity to reduce pest management costs and is estimated to range between $500 and $999 per hectare. This study stresses the potential for development and adoption of a new transgenic variety that would alleviate the current issues faced by banana farmers. On the other hand, final consumers should be better informed on the nature of such products, their benefits and risks. [source]

,Consumer' versus ,Customer': The Devil in the Detail

JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY, Issue 2 2010
Pinar Akman
According to the European Commission, the objective of EU competition rules is enhancing ,consumer welfare'. In EU competition law, however, ,consumer' means ,customer' and encompasses intermediate customers as well as final consumers. Under Article 102TFEU, harming intermediate ,customers' is generally presumed to harm ,consumers' and where intermediate customers are not competitors of the dominant undertaking, there is no requisite to assess the effects of conduct on users further downstream. Using advances in economics of vertical restraints and, in particular, non-linear pricing, this article shows that there are instances where the effect on ,customer welfare' does not coincide with the effect on ,consumer welfare' and the presumption can potentially lead to decisional errors. Thus, if the law is to serve the interests of ,consumers', the Commission should reconsider this presumption and its interpretation of the ,consumer' in ,consumer welfare'; otherwise, it remains questionable whose interests EU competition law serves. [source]

Gazprom's export strategies under the institutional constraint of the Russian gas market

OPEC ENERGY REVIEW, Issue 3 2008
Catherine Locatelli
The strategy of the Russian gas company Gazprom is today at the centre of the debate surrounding the security of the European gas supply. The European gas market liberalisation is changing the industrial and commercial (that is to say, contractual) strategies of Gazprom in order to deal with the institutional changes in its main export market. In this context, to secure its market shares Gazprom try to acquire a presence downstream, which will give it access to final consumers. However, exports to Europe are affected by conditions in the Russian domestic market, not only in terms of supply and demand, but also in terms of prices. Russia's internal market can hardly be viewed as a genuine market where supply and demand are regulated by price fluctuations. [source]

An introduction to the economics of natural gas

OPEC ENERGY REVIEW, Issue 1 2003
Ferdinand E. Banks
This paper is an up,to,date, but only moderately technical survey of the natural gas market. Supply, demand and pricing are discussed, and, in the light of the electricity deregulation experiment in California, where the expression "dangerous failure" has been repeatedly used to describe the extensive losses suffered by final consumers and utilities (or retailers), a modicum of attention is paid to the prospects for deregulating natural gas. Some microeconomics of the natural gas market is presented at a more elementary level than in my energy economics textbook (2000) or my book "The Political Economy of Natural Gas" (1987), and I make a studied attempt to avoid bringing the misleading Hotelling model (of exhaustible resource depletion) into the exposition. Finally, some comments on risk management with futures contracts are provided, and there is a brief mathematical appendix on futures, options and two,part pricing. [source]

Retail Mergers, Buyer Power and Product Variety,

THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL, Issue 516 2007
Roman Inderst
This article analyses the impact of retail mergers on product variety. We show that, following a merger, a retailer may want to enhance its buyer power by committing to a ,single-sourcing' purchasing strategy. Anticipating further concentration in the retail industry, suppliers will strategically choose to produce less differentiated products, which further reduces product variety. If negotiations are efficient, the overall loss in product variety may reduce consumer surplus and total welfare. With linear tariffs, however, there may be a countervailing effect as the more powerful retailer passes on lower prices to final consumers. [source]

Corporate Reputation and Women on the Board

BRITISH JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2009
Stephen Brammer
In this paper, we investigate the determinants of corporate reputation, derived from the assessments of managers and market analysts, of a sample of large UK firms. Along with the influences of a variety of firm attributes, we find a reputational effect associated with a female presence at board level. This effect varies across sectors and demonstrates the influence of a firm's stakeholder environment in determining whether a female presence on the board enhances or harms the reputation of the firm. The pattern that emerges indicates that the presence of women on the board is favourably viewed in only those sectors that operate close to final consumers. We argue that the nature of this effect reflects an imperative for equality of representation that highlights the need to reflect gender diversity among customers. [source]