...A. INC., VISA INTERNATIONAL CORP., AND MASTERCARD INTERNATIONAL INCORPORATED In 1998 USA filed a complaint against Visa and MasterCard re their dual governance and exclusionary rules of combinations and conspiracy in restraint of trade. (DOJ, 1998) Essay Plan My motivation for choosing the abovementioned case comes from my interest in the financial services market, its regulations and their implications on consumers. This case is attention-grabbing, not solely due to the remedy, but also due to the implications it has on domestic and international markets. It also gives the opportunity to analyse the controversy of vertical exclusionary restraints (Whinston, 2006). When analysing the Visa-MasterCard case, there are two main ‘economic-schools-of-thought’ to be considered. Chicago School(CS) dismisses vertical exclusionary contracts as an anti-competitive tool. While, Post-Chicago School(PCS) offers an opposing explanation by suggesting different models to rationalise anti-competitive behaviour using vertical restrictions. Both schools build their models under the assumption of first-mover advantage and the monopoly power of an incumbent firm. (Motta, 2004) Using the CS in this case, we could assume that Visa and MasterCard are the combined incumbent on the market, due to their cooperative actions. The banks are the buyers and AmericanExpress is the potential new entrant. It could be assumed that AmericanExpress is a new entrant for the market of issuing cards through...
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...Distribution…………………………………………………….4 3.2 External Environment 3.2.1 Market …………………………………………………….......5 3.2.2 Competitive Environment……………………………………..5 3.2.3 Political-Legal Environment…………………………………..5 3.2.4 Economic Environment………………………………………..6 3.2.5 Social and Cultural Environment………………………………6 3.2.6 Technological Environment……………………………………6 3.2.7 Demographic Environment…………………………………….6 4.0 SWOT Analysis…………………………………………………………………..7 5.0 References……………………………………………………………………….8-9 1.0 Introduction iiNet Limited is an Australian public company headquartered in Subiaco, Western Australia that iiNet has a broad product portfolio related to internet and telecommunications solution, encompassing internet access, phone, IPTV service, hardware & software, and domain & web hosting (iiNet, 2011). Besides, it has 2000 employees across several countries including Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. In 2011, the company generated total income of $700,613,000 including sales and other revenue. Through several strategic merger and acquisition (M&A) activities, iiNet has become second largest DSL Internet Service Provider (ISP) and leading challenger in telecommunication market (IBISWorld, 2011). 2.0 Strategic Business Unit (SBU) Internet Service Provider (ISP) SBU can be placed in Question Marks category as it has...
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..."Naked Economics" Study Guide Your quiz on NE will focus on these areas, however I reserve the right to ask questions that may not be specifically taken from a page listed below. There is not substitute for reading the assigned chapters!!! Chapter 1- The Power of Markets Market allocation 3 Assume rational utility-maximizers 6 Opportunity costs 9 Profit max 11 Prices allocate resources 12 Barriers to entry 14 Market price, pricing decision & price discrimination 15 Lessons of markets 18 Chapter 2 – Incentives Matter Wrong incentives lead to undesirable outcomes 23 Principal-agent problem 30 Prisoners dilemma 34 Creative destruction 36 Tax & govt program disincentives 38 Chapter 3 – Government and the Economy Externalities 43 Govt solutions to externalities 48 Govt makes market economy possible – rights, laws, regulations 51 Public goods 57 Redistribution 59 Chapter 4 – Government and the Economy II Govt inefficiency 63 Govt allocation vs private allocation 67 Effects of regulation 69 Effects of taxation 74 Summary 78 Chapter 5 – Economics of Information Adverse selection 81 Firm screening 89 Branding provides information 90 Branding versus commodities 92 Signaling mechanisms 93 Chapter 6 – Productivity and Human Capital Human capital 98 Job creation 103 Effects of human capital on standard of living 105 Productivity 107 Income inequality 111 Chapter 7 – Financial Markets...
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...The Psychology of Racism Introduction Throughout history the superiority of the winners has been connected to a denial of feelings - what, in the British empire, was called the stiff upper lip. The conquerers of nature and "natives" claimed their right to the world as their possession because they had first conquered themselves. Powerful people get others to do their bidding. It is the people that they subordinate who are forced to make adapt their lives to their masters bidding. The people with power can look aloof, calm and collected because they find it is easier to appear to be like this. They have the easier life, they are not being treated like beasts of burden, they are not being robbed and murdered. The ideology and culture of power often turns things upside down. Distress is the result of subordination and in human relationships the emotional display of distress then becomes the proof of inferiority. It proves that you need "protection". It becomes part of the power way of thinking, embedded in the culture, that the unemotional life style is evidence of superiority. The "Stiff upper lip" is the way you hold your face so as not to smile, snarl or cry. It is colonialism in facial expression when times, occaisionally, don't go so well. In contrast the emotional excitability of "the natives" proves their inferiority, it proves they have to be 'civilised'...
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...Why Hijab? One of the many questions that I have been asked is why does Islam make hijab mandatory for women? Islam has introduced hijab as part of the decency and modesty in interaction between members of the opposite sex. Verse 59 of chapter 33 quoted previously gives a very good reason; it says, “This is more appropriate so that they may be known [as Muslim women] and thus not be harassed [or molested].” Men, whether they confess it or not, are slaves of lust and desire. • Hijab protects women from such men; it symbolizes that she has been sanctified to one man only and is off-limit to all others. • Hijab contributes to the stability and preservation of marriage and family by eliminating the chances of extramarital affairs. • Finally, it compels men to focus on the real personality of the woman and de-emphasizes her physical beauty. It puts the woman in control of strangers’ reaction to her. Commenting on the attire of women in North Africa and South East Asia, Germaine Greer, one of the pioneers of the women’s liberation movement, wrote: “Women who wear cortes or huipiles or saris or jellabas or salwar kameez or any other ample garments can swell and diminish inside them without embarrassment or discomfort. Women with shawls and veils can breastfeed anywhere without calling attention to themselves, while baby is protected from dust and flies. In most non-Western societies, the dress and ornaments of women celebrate the mothering function. Ours deny...
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...Ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you to this European Union Youth Conference. I am Claes Larsen. I am a student at London School of Economics and Political Science. Today our this speech topic is going to be “is immigration good for Britain?”. I will talk about economic, social cultural and political areas, where immigrations probably have an impact on the society. Before we start, I would like if you could wait with the questions till after the speech. Thank you. At first, I would like to give you a summary of how the British immigration. The latest numbers is from June 2014, it shows that immigration static is estimated to be around 583.000. That is nearly a 20% incensement since previous year, were the statistic was around 502.000. Emigration leaving the UK was nearly the same as previous year, with only 3000 increasing. How is the British native onion about immigrations? In an authoritative survey were more than 20,000 people attended, 60% opinion was that they bring more disadvantages than advantages to the UK. However, overall 77% if there was a dramatic reduction in immigrants, it would have benefit on the economy. The idea with migrants was that they would handle the jobs that the British people did not wanted to do, and to a lower salary. Overall the must of the publics opinion is that immigration is a burden to the country and it is benefits, but somehow they cannot live without, cause then there will be nobody to take the jobs, they do not want. But probably are...
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...Columbia Presbyterian medical center and new York psychiatric institute. He is also the author of “The New Crisis of Confidence in Psychiatric Diagnosis; a paper written in 2013. The paper reports that there has been an uprising in diagnoses of anxiety disorder, mood disorder, childhood bipolar, autism, and ADD. The question to ponder is how of these numbers were deemed correctly and how many are the crybabies of America. Who is sick and who is not? There are multiple theories as to why the inflation has occurred. The first is the awareness levels. Due to the fact that mental illness is more prevalent now, more people are able to recognize what’s going on. Though this is a great step forward, it is a weak theory and can only be accounted for a small percentage. The next theory is that the age we live in is stressful. I think this is the weakest of theories because we have life much easier than those who used to freeze to death while they were hunting. We have everything at our fingertips. Human nature is not something that evolves quickly. Labels on the other hand change quicker than they have before. Diagnostic inflation is not uncommon. In fact it happens just like economic inflation. There isn’t much you can do to keep it under control and it has a million different causes. Severe psychiatric disorders are easy to define....
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...Every animal including man is born free. All animals in their natural state, except man who is precluded by civilization to be in his natural state, are free. Some animals lose their freedom only because of man's needs and deeds. The world is 'open' and not 'closed' in its natural state; every animal - man is not exempted - desires novelty, spontaneity and genuine creativity, which are the hallmarks of freedom.Man, though born free like other animals, is in chain everywhere. This is because of the restrictions and restraints which he imposes on himself and which are imposed on him by others. For example, no one is expected to appear naked in public in the name of freedom. There are social norms to be followed. Different occasions demand different customs. Man, living in a society, has to follow certain customs, conventions and traditions in the interest of harmonious existence; he cannot take the stand that he is absolutely free and that he can do things in his own way.Man, in the process of his change from primitive tribalism to civilized existence, has chained himself more and more to rules and regulations. Unlike other living creatures, he is capable of thinking and is intelligent to devise ways and means of exploiting his fellowmen. This exploitation leads to his keeping them subdued and enslaved. Imperialism in the past and neo-colonialism and neo-imperialism today have only been instruments of suppressing the aspirations for freedom of the exploited. A classic example of...
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...are entwined / inter-dependent in the sense that politics - whether of the specifically governmental kind (political parties, pressure groups, etc.), the economic kind (bureaucracies, the organization of the workplace into social hierarchies based upon status, etc.) or the interpersonal (relations between males and females, children and adults, etc) - involves the exercising of power. What we have to begin by doing, therefore, is to define the concept of power (and understand the differing dimensions / aspects of power - coercive power, types of authority and so forth) and relate it to such ideas as: a. The social characteristics of the powerful and the powerless. b. The development of ideological frameworks that legitimise the exercise of power. c. The social effects / consequences of the exercising of power. Explicitly, in relation to politics and power there are two basic kinds of sociological question that we need to explore: a. Who rules in society? b. How is their power created, legitimised and reproduced? In social terms, power, almost by definition, involves the rule by the few over the majority and we have to understand the political processes (both Structural and Interpersonal) whereby power is legitimated (the process whereby power ceases to be nakedly coercive and becomes power that is based upon authority. Question: How would you define the concept of power? (Try to think of an example of a relationship based upon power (for example, making your little brother / sister...
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...chain. - J. J. RousseauDiscuss the meaning and importance of freedom in the light of this quotation. | | Every animal including man is born free. All animals in their natural state, except man who is precluded by civilization to be in his natural state, are free. Some animals lose their freedom only because of man's needs and deeds. The world is 'open' and not 'closed' in its natural state; every animal - man is not exempted - desires novelty, spontaneity and genuine creativity, which are the hallmarks of freedom.Man, though born free like other animals, is in chain everywhere. This is because of the restrictions and restraints which he imposes on himself and which are imposed on him by others. For example, no one is expected to appear naked in public in the name of freedom. There are social norms to be followed. Different occasions demand different customs. Man, living in a society, has to follow certain customs, conventions and traditions in the interest of harmonious existence; he cannot take the stand that he is absolutely free and that he can do things in his own way.Man, in the process of his change from primitive tribalism to civilized existence, has chained himself more and more to rules and regulations. Unlike other living creatures, he is capable of thinking and is intelligent to devise ways and means of exploiting his fellowmen. This exploitation leads to his keeping them subdued and enslaved. Imperialism in the past and neo-colonialism and neo-imperialism today have...
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...Every animal including man is born free. All animals in their natural state, except man who is precluded by civilization to be in his natural state, are free. Some animals lose their freedom only because of man's needs and deeds. The world is 'open' and not 'closed' in its natural state; every animal - man is not exempted - desires novelty, spontaneity and genuine creativity, which are the hallmarks of freedom. Man, though born free like other animals, is in chain everywhere. This is because of the restrictions and restraints which he imposes on himself and which are imposed on him by others. For example, no one is expected to appear naked in public in the name of freedom. There are social norms to be followed. Different occasions demand different customs. Man, living in a society, has to follow certain customs, conventions and traditions in the interest of harmonious existence; he cannot take the stand that he is absolutely free and that he can do things in his own way. Man, in the process of his change from primitive tribalism to civilized existence, has chained himself more and more to rules and regulations. Unlike other living creatures, he is capable of thinking and is intelligent to devise ways and means of exploiting his fellowmen. This exploitation leads to his keeping them subdued and enslaved. Imperialism in the past and neo-colonialism and neo-imperialism today have only been instruments of suppressing the aspirations for freedom of the exploited. A classic example...
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...Soccer is eating itself. Something has to give. Or will it? Real Madrid is broke. Real's biggest rival-Barcelona is also broke. How do the mentioned statements sound to you? Well, in simple terms, signs of inevitable economic collapse in European football are distinct. Virtually, financial crisis such as huge debts, cash crunches, and mismanagement is happening everywhere, in any European soccer clubs. Soccer is eating itself! Over the past years, there is no doubt that European football leagues have dominated the soccer market, for they have been popular and reputable since decades ago. The most popular ones consist of English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A, and German Bundesliga. These so-called ‘Big Four’ leagues has possessed indisputable control over the soccer market, notably prices charged for broadcasting, match tickets, signings of players, advertisements and even betting activities. Therefore, it is said that the ‘Big Four’ has made up an oligopoly market structure. In particular, it is regarded as homogeneously oligopoly, since all leagues offers entertainments connected to football. There might be slight differences in services provided such as different time of kick off for different leagues, but pricing for services such as broadcasting, ticketing are near identical, making the time factor insignificant. Back to the main objective, how will the domination of ‘Big Four’ affect the economy of soccer market in Europe? First of all, the nature...
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...a. Rather than using focus groups to test its branding and messaging, New Belgium used insiders in the bike community and brewery friends who had a personal history and knowledge of the brand. Evaluate this decision, recognizing that the sale of beer in the United States and elsewhere include imports and the fact that the branding occurred in Colorado. NBB understands that customer retention is very important for the success and sustainability of the company. The insiders and friends have always been loyal customers to NBB and keeping them in the loop may increase efficiency. Increasing customer retention rate by 5%, increases profits by 25% to 95% (Ciotti, 2013). For NBB, communication (word-of-mouth) has always been the primary method of marketing that brought the company to a successful stand. This means the insiders and friends have probably played a great role in the marketing of the brand image. I think this decision was meant to reciprocate the loyalty proven by the NBB friends and Bike community as this might later translate to increasing customer trust and thus doubling of profits/market share. With Colorado being home of much more global beer brands such as Coors and depot of foreign popular beers like Heineken and Guinness, ensuring the widest possible input through a more traditional marketing approach may turn out to be very costly and competitive because the other major brands were already well-known than the “Big Fat Tire” Brand. So going through the already...
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...of Market Segmentation The starting point for discussing segmentation is mass marketing. In mass marketing, the seller engages in the mass production, mass distribution, and mass promotion of one product for all buyers. A) The argument for mass marketing is that it creates the largest potential market, which leads, to the lowest costs that in turn can lead to lower prices or higher margins. Segment Marketing A market segment consists of a group of customers who share a similar set of needs and wants. A) The marketer does not create the segments. B) The marketer’s task is to identify the segments and decide which one(s) to target. C) A flexible market offering consists of two parts: 1) A naked solution containing the product and service elements that all segment member’s value. 2) Discretionary options that some segment member’s value. D) Market segments can be defined in many different ways: a. One way to carve up a market is to identify preference segments. b. Homogeneous preferences. c. Diffused preferences. d. Clustered preferences. Figures 8.1 (a), 8.1 (b), and 8.1 (c) show the differences. Review Key Definitions here: mass...
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...intro fashion ruling every domain of life, definition of "modern fashion" by Lipov lipovertsky, simmel.. GENDER Barthes in his attempt for a semantics of fashion in The System of Fashion, applies the economic system that is brought to the fore by Karl Marx and consisting three categories of production, distribution and consumption to a social institution: fashion. Thus he defines 3 states of clothing: real clothing, represented garment and the used garment. Real clothing is the when the raw material is used and the clothing is first produced as a prototype for its later stages. This real clothing then is provided with a symbolic mise en scène and becomes the represented garment. The image of the cloth performs a mimetic function as well as making the garment into a pleasing sight, or a pleasant arrangement. The used garment is the clothing after its purchase which usually doesn't satisfy the reasons that the represented garment was bought for. Barthes argues that clothes change their meaning and went under transformation at each of these stages. In the case of fashion, the system that Barthes proposes would reveal that these stages of production, distribution and consumption take place all at different locations hence are separated and can take place one after another, moving from one place to other and transform their meanings. However, in the case of architecture, these stages take place all at the same site. There is but one site. After the building is constructed...
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