Demographic Imperatives and Religious Markets: Considering the Individual and Interactive Roles of Fertility and Switching in Group Growth

Two models seeking to explain the growth and decline of religious groups are prevalent in the literature. The religious market approach emphasizes the role of intergroup competition and in doing so focuses on religious switching. Another perspective emphasizes demographic mechanisms, particularly fertility. Research to date has not considered how switching and fertility interact as mechanisms of growth. Switching and fertility share a significant role in the growth trajectory of a religious group. Early success in gaining members through switching has an important long-term impact which fertility alone cannot produce. The age of those switching into a group can also have significant consequences for the effects of fertility.     

市场、价值取向、政府之于医疗卫生

分析了现代医疗卫生服务的消费品属性并将其划分为3大部分,由此形成的不同供给渠道,决定了医疗卫生服务的市场运作方式的必然性,但必须坚持始终如一的正确的价值取向——社会公众利益最大化的医疗卫生服务的基本目标。强势的政府主导是医疗卫生改革与发展的关键,提出了当前政府主导作用的具体意见和建议。     

Discrimination based on gender and ethnicity in English and Polish housing markets

Discrimination in the housing market is associated with decreased social integration and is costly at both social and individual levels. Here, we studied discrimination in English and Polish housing markets. In line with previous research, we expected ethnic‐ and gender‐based discrimination to occur in both housing markets. Conducting a preregistered field experiment of discrimination in the housing market, we sent e‐mails with inquiries about advertisements for 960 rentals in England and Poland. Inquiries were signed with Arabic‐, English‐, or Polish‐sounding male and female names. As a measure of discrimination, we calculated the proportion of answers that we received. In the English housing market, there was no statistically significant difference between the proportions of responses received for inquiries signed with Arabic, English, or Polish male or female names. In the Polish housing market, we received fewer responses to inquiries signed with Arabic male names than inquiries signed with any other names. The study shows discrimination against Arabic men in the Polish housing market, but there was no evidence of ethnic‐ or gender‐based discrimination in the English housing market. The results are discussed against the subordinate male target hypothesis as well as the current social and political situations in both countries.     

Are Religions for Sale? Evidence from the Swedish Church Revolt Over Same‐Sex Marriage

Religious leaders sometimes condemn progressive social norms. This article revisits David Hume's hypothesis that secular states can “bribe” churches into adopting less strict religious doctrines. The hypothesis is difficult to test due to reverse causality: more liberal theologies may attract more political support in the first place. The empirical strategy used to circumvent this problem focuses on a theological conflict over same‐sex marriage within the Church of Sweden and takes advantage of political regulations that effectively make some parishes shareholders of the church's state‐protected property. The shares used for statistical identification are tied to property rights assigned more than 300 years ago, and they cannot be sold, traded, or amended by the individual parishes. The results show that priests in shareholding parishes are less likely to publicly oppose same‐sex marriage. The impact of political protection is stronger in parishes with more conservative members. The results are consistent with a model of clerical opportunism, in which income protection makes priests less likely to pander to the stricter followers.     

Selling Yourself: Titmuss's Argument Against a Market in Blood

This article defends Richard Titmuss's argument, and PeterSinger's sympathetic support for it, against orthodoxphilosophical criticism. The article specifies thesense in which a market in blood is ``dehumanising' ashaving to do with a loss of ``imagined community' orsocial ``integration', and not with a loss of valued or``deeper' liberty. It separates two ``domino arguments'– the ``contamination of meaning' argument and the``erosion of motivation' argument which support, indifferent but interrelated ways, the claim that amarket in blood is ``imperialistic.' Concentrating onthe first domino argument the article considers theview that monetary and non-monetary meanings of thesame good can co-exist given the robustness of certainkinds of relationship and joint undertakings withinwhich gifts can figure. It argues that societalrelationships are vulnerable or permeable to theeffects of the market in a way that those constitutiveof the personal sphere are not.General, more broadly political questions remainunanswered but the core of Titmuss's original andchallenging argument remains and can be presented ina defensible form.     

How the Market Became Divine

We have moved beyond a “market economy” to what some have called a “market society,” one in which everything seems to be for sale. We also now see the advent of a “market religion,” in which the values and life meanings of consumer culture have become dominant. This new religion has its own doctrines, rituals, priesthood, and mission to “go into all the world.” It has its own narratives of creation, fall, and redemption, and its own saints and heroes. But because its underlying thrust is endless growth, and we live on a finite planet, it is carrying us toward destruction. Some parts of Christianity are opposing what Pope Francis has called “idolatry,” but unfortunately most parts are being swept into its new dispensation.     

Seeking attention: an investigation of salesperson influence strategies used while selling to small retailers

The use of influence strategies is an integral component of the salesperson's role, while selling to retailers. However, it remains a chronically under-researched area, particularly so in emerging markets, which are distinct in terms of retail formats and salesperson challenges. In this study, we investigate influence strategies used by salespersons for selling to retailers in the dominant small retail format in India. Using a combination of observation techniques and in-depth interviews, we allow salesperson influence strategies at play to emerge. In comparison to extant literature, we find evidence for both universality and specificity in the types of influence strategies used at small retail. We identify ‘share of counter’ as a unique small retail phenomenon, potentially requiring a specific set of salesperson influence strategies to succeed. Based on this, a modified typology of salesperson influence strategies, specific to small retail, is proposed. We conclude with a discussion of theoretical and managerial implications for emerging markets, and offer suggestions for future research.     

Do Preschoolers Recognize The Emotional Expressiveness of Colors in Realistic and Abstract Art Paintings?

The present study was designed to examine preschoolers' ability to recognize the emotional expressiveness of an art painting, through its colors. To attain this aim 78 children, 3–5 years old were presented with realistic and abstract paintings conveying either happiness or sadness and were asked to choose those which matched the appropriate emotion. In total 16 paintings were used, which varied in color, while their subject matter was held as constant as possible after they had been previously rated by a group of adults to ensure that they conveyed the two emotions under investigation. Results showed that children's ability to recognize the emotional expressiveness of a painting through its colors appears at 3 years old and increases significantly at 4 and 5 years old. It was also found that the mood of happiness was more easily recognized than that of sadness, while the style of art paintings (realistic vs. abstract) did not affect children's ability to recognize emotions.     

Do consumers ever learn? Analysis of segment behavior in experimental markets

Economists argue that, despite cognitive limitations, economic agents arrive at optimal choice rules by learning. The assumption is that consumers, for example, are adaptively rational. Adaptive rationality raises a host of issues. We address three of these in the context of experimental markets: do consumers differ on the basis of learning; how do these differences, when aggregated, affect market efficiency; and how do consumers learn? Analysis of our experimental data reveals the following. First, multiple segments of consumers exist on the basis of learning. Second, the largest segment consists of subjects who do not learn despite timely feedback and motivation. Third, although some consumers do learn to make optimal choices, the effect of this segment on market efficiency is cancelled by an equal number of subjects who ‘learn' false relations. Finally, although subjects do not learn strict rationality even with experience, they are in the aggregate not so irrational as to allow highly suboptimal brands to survive. Further analysis of how consumers learn, specifically on the cues (signals) and the rules consumers employ in making choices over time leads to the following two conclusions. First, some signals make learning more easy than others: for example, providing market share information improves learning but not as much as providing quality information does. Second, people employ different rules depending upon the type of information they have. For example, consumers making decisions based only on price information are more likely to use a heuristic like ‘buy a medium‐priced product provided it has not failed in the past'. Consumers making decisions based on price and quality information may employ a heuristic such as ‘buy top quality products regardless of price'. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory and practice. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Ethical Criticism of Art: A New Mapping of the Territory

The goal of this paper is methodological. It offers a comprehensive mapping of the theoretical positions on the ethical criticism of art, correcting omissions and inadequacies in the conceptual framework adopted in the current debate. Three principles are recommended as general guidelines: ethical amenability, basic value pluralism, and relativity to ethical dimension. Hence a taxonomy distinguishing between different versions of autonomism, moralism, and immoralism is established, by reference to criteria that are different from what emerging in the current literature. The mapping is then proved capable of (1) locating the various theories that have been proposed so far and clarifying such theories’ real commitments, (2) having the correct relationship with actual art making and art criticism practices, and (3) showing the real weight of the alleged counter-example to a moralist position of a work that succeeds artistically because of its immorality.