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Market Areas (market + area)
Selected AbstractsA Note on the Geographic Interdependencies of Retail Market AreasJOURNAL OF REGIONAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2002David Mushinski Central place theory describes an orderly hierarchy of places, with particular retail services developing for lower-ordered places as they reach a threshold. Yet it is likely that nearby areas could serve simultaneously as a source of demand and a source of competing supply for retail stores in a place. This paper contributes to the understanding of local economic development by modeling and estimating the geographic interdependence between a place and its neighboring areas. The simultaneous equation Tobit results suggest that such geographical interdependence exists for most retail industries, with spatial competition on the supply side being particularly important. [source] Price Relationships in Processors' Input Market Areas: Testing Theories for Corn Prices Near Ethanol PlantsCANADIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 2-3 2005Paul Gallagher This study examines corn pricing in the vicinity of processing plants. We develop and test several price-distance models for cargo, insurance and freight (CIF) plant pricing in the presence of varying degrees of exporter competition, and for discriminatory free-on-board (FOB) pricing at the farm. The price-distance functions describing spatial prices near processing plants all depend on local transport costs. But the pricing system (CIF or FOB) and the extent of local competition define the level and spatial rate of change in prices.Estimations of an empirical price-location function for Iowa during the spring of 2003 suggest that prices near the plants of four conventional businesses conform to the CIF pricing model. But prices near producer-owned firms or farmer cooperatives failed to show any statistically significant effect on nearby prices. One plant had a price-distance function that resembled FOB pricing. Cet article étudie la tarification du maïs aux environs des usines agro-alimentaire utilisant cette céréale. Nous développons et testons plusieurs modèles de tarification CIF en présence de different niveaux de pressions compétitive à l'exportation. Nous testons aussi l'existence d'une tarification discriminatoire FOB au niveau de l'exploitation agricole. Les fonctions distance-prix décrivant les distributions spatiales des prix aux environs des usines agro-alimentaire dépendent toutes des coûts de transport local. Cependant le système de tarification (CIF ou FOB) et l'intensité de la compétition locale définissent le niveau et la sensibilité des prix en fonction de la distance.Les estimations des fonctions empiriques prix-situation geographique dans l'Iowa durant le printemps 2003 suggèrent que les prix aux alentours de quatre producteurs agro-alimentaire sont conformes à un modèle de tarification CIF. En revanche, les prix pratiques près des cooperatives ou des usines possedées par les exploitants agricole ne semblent pas affectés par des tarifications particulières. Un plan possède cependant une fonction prix-distance dont la forme à une tarification FOB. [source] Nonfinancial Performance Measures and Promotion-Based IncentivesJOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 2 2008DENNIS CAMPBELL ABSTRACT In this paper, I examine the sensitivity of promotion and demotion decisions for lower-level managers to financial and nonfinancial measures of their performance and investigate the extent to which the behavior of lower-level managers reflects promotion-based incentives. Additionally, I test for learning versus effort-allocation effects of promotion-based incentives. I find that promotion and demotion decisions for store managers of a major U.S.-based fast-food retailer (QSR) are sensitive to nonfinancial performance measures of service quality and employee retention after controlling for financial performance. The likelihood of demotion in this organization is also sensitive to nonfinancial performance on the dimension of service quality, while the probability of exit is primarily sensitive to financial performance measures rather than nonfinancial performance measures. I also find evidence that the behavior of lower-level managers is consistent with the incentives created by the weighting of nonfinancial performance measures in promotion decisions. Managers in locations where there is a higher ex ante probability of promotion and a higher potential reward upon promotion demonstrate significantly higher levels and rates of performance improvement in service quality. Finally, consistent with promotion-based incentives inducing both effort-allocation and learning effects, I find that performance-improvement rates for service quality: (1) are higher in prepromotion periods in markets where promotions occur, (2) decrease immediately after the occurrence of a promotion in the same market area, and (3) remain higher than in markets where promotions do not occur. These findings provide some of the first empirical evidence on an alternative to the explicit weighting of nonfinancial metrics in compensation contracts as a mechanism for generating improvements in nonfinancial dimensions of performance. [source] Algorithmic challenges and current problems in market coupling regimesEUROPEAN TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRICAL POWER, Issue 4 2009Bernd Tersteegen Abstract Increasing cross-border trade at European borders has lead to the necessity of an efficient allocation of scarce cross-border capacities. Explicit auctions used to be the commonly applied auction method in the past at most borders, but due to the separation of the trade of electrical energy and the allocation of cross-border capacity, market inefficiencies arise. As a consequence, a trend toward a market coupling, which combines the trade of electrical energy with the allocation of cross-border capacity, can be observed across Europe. The most convincing approach to solve the complex optimization task associated with market couplings solves the problem by a maximization of the system-wide welfare based on a closed-form optimization. Practical experience shows that problems remain with such an approach. This paper thoroughly analyzes problems that may occur in market coupling regimes with a closed-form optimization. In this paper an extension of formerly presented formulations of the optimization problem is presented, which avoids the described problems. The extended formulation still assures practically feasible calculation times of far less than 10 minutes even for systems with up to 12 market areas. Further, a fair and transparent approach to determine feasible market clearing prices not neglecting the time and market coupling relationship between prices is shown in this paper and it is demonstrated that this approach does not lead to practically infeasible calculation times. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Characterizing and Reaching High-Risk Drinkers Using Audience SegmentationALCOHOLISM, Issue 8 2009Howard B. Moss Background:, Market or audience segmentation is widely used in social marketing efforts to help planners identify segments of a population to target for tailored program interventions. Market-based segments are typically defined by behaviors, attitudes, knowledge, opinions, or lifestyles. They are more helpful to health communication and marketing planning than epidemiologically defined groups because market-based segments are similar in respect to how they behave or might react to marketing and communication efforts. However, market segmentation has rarely been used in alcohol research. As an illustration of its utility, we employed commercial data that describes the sociodemographic characteristics of high-risk drinkers as an audience segment, including where they tend to live, lifestyles, interests, consumer behaviors, alcohol consumption behaviors, other health-related behaviors, and cultural values. Such information can be extremely valuable in targeting and planning public health campaigns, targeted mailings, prevention interventions, and research efforts. Methods:, We described the results of a segmentation analysis of those individuals who self-reported to consume 5 or more drinks per drinking episode at least twice in the last 30 days. The study used the proprietary PRIZMÔ (Claritas, Inc., San Diego, CA) audience segmentation database merged with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) database. The top 10 of the 66 PRIZMÔ audience segments for this risky drinking pattern are described. For five of these segments we provided additional in-depth details about consumer behavior and the estimates of the market areas where these risky drinkers resided. Results:, The top 10 audience segments (PRIZM clusters) most likely to engage in high-risk drinking are described. The cluster with the highest concentration of binge-drinking behavior is referred to as the "Cyber Millenials." This cluster is characterized as "the nation's tech-savvy singles and couples living in fashionable neighborhoods on the urban fringe." Almost 65% of Cyber Millenials households are found in the Pacific and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. Additional consumer behaviors of the Cyber Millenials and other segments are also described. Conclusions:, Audience segmentation can assist in identifying and describing target audience segments, as well as identifying places where segments congregate on- or offline. This information can be helpful for recruiting subjects for alcohol prevention research as well as planning health promotion campaigns. Through commercial data about high-risk drinkers as "consumers," planners can develop interventions that have heightened salience in terms of opportunities, perceptions, and motivations, and have better media channel identification. [source] Labour Market in Motion: Analysing Regional Flows in a Multi-accounting SystemLABOUR, Issue 4-5 2007Anette Haas We develop a flexible flow approach system , a multi-accounting system (MAS) , dealing with flows and stocks on regional labour markets. Combining administrative data at the micro level with various macro data, the MAS describes the dynamic transition process of the 180 local labour market areas in Germany. We use a new algorithm, related to entropy optimization, to estimate unknown transitions. Compared with conventional methods, the main advantage of our proceeding is that additional information from different data sources can be included that is of an inherently fuzzy character. [source] | ||||||||||