Essays on the Economics of Intellectual Property Rights

Väitöskirjassani tarkastelen informaatiohyödykkeiden ja tekijänoikeuksien taloustiedettä kahdesta eri perspektiivistä. Niistä ensimmäinen kuuluu endogeenisen kasvuteorian alaan. Väitöskirjassani yleistän ”pool of knowledge” -tyyppisen endogeenisen kasvumallin tilanteeseen, jossa patentoitavissa olevalla innovaatiolla on minimikoko, ja jossa uudenlaisen tuotteen patentoinut yritys voi menettää monopolinsa tuotteeseen jäljittelyn johdosta. Mallin kontekstissa voidaan analysoida jäljittelyn ja innovaatioilta vaaditun ”minimikoon” vaikutuksia hyvinvointiin ja talouskasvuun. Kasvun maksimoiva imitaation määrä on mallissa aina nolla, mutta hyvinvoinnin maksimoiva imitaation määrä voi olla positiivinen. Talouskasvun ja hyvinvoinnin maksimoivalla patentoitavissa olevan innovaation ”minimikoolla” voi olla mikä tahansa teoreettista maksimia pienempi arvo. Väitöskirjani kahdessa jälkimmäisessä pääluvussa tarkastelen informaatiohyödykkeiden kaupallista piratismia mikrotaloustieteellisen mallin avulla. Informaatiohyödykkeistä laittomasti tehtyjen kopioiden tuotantokustannukset ovat pienet, ja miltei olemattomat silloin kun niitä levitetään esimerkiksi Internetissä. Koska piraattikopioilla on monta eri tuottajaa, niiden hinnan voitaisiin mikrotaloustieteen teorian perusteella olettaa laskevan melkein nollaan, ja jos näin kävisi, kaupallinen piratismi olisi mahdotonta. Mallissani selitän kaupallisen piratismin olemassaolon olettamalla, että piratismista saatavan rangaistuksen uhka riippuu siitä, kuinka monille kuluttajille piraatti tarjoaa laittomia hyödykkeitä, ja että se siksi vaikuttaa piraattikopioiden markkinoihin mainonnan kustannuksen tavoin. Kaupallisten piraattien kiinteiden kustannusten lisääminen on mallissani aina tekijänoikeuksien haltijan etujen mukaista, mutta ”mainonnan kustannuksen” lisääminen ei välttämättä ole, vaan se saattaa myös alentaa laillisten kopioiden myynnistä saatavia voittoja. Tämä tulos poikkeaa vastaavista aiemmista tuloksista sikäli, että se pätee vaikka tarkasteltuihin informaatiohyödykkeisiin ei liittyisi verkkovaikutuksia. Aiemmin ei-kaupallisen piratismin malleista on usein johdettu tulos, jonka mukaan informaatiohyödykkeen laittomat kopiot voivat kasvattaa laillisten kopioiden myynnistä saatavia voittoja jos laillisten kopioiden arvo niiden käyttäjille riippuu siitä, kuinka monet muut kuluttajat käyttävät samanlaista hyödykettä ja jos piraattikopioiden saatavuus lisää riittävästi laillisten kopioiden arvoa. Väitöskirjan viimeisessä pääluvussa yleistän mallini verkkotoimialoille, ja tutkin yleistämäni mallin avulla sitä, missä tapauksissa vastaava tulos pätee myös kaupalliseen piratismiin.

The Macroeconomic Effects of Fiscal Policy in a Small Open Economy under a Flexible Exchange Rate Regime

This licentiate's thesis analyzes the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy in a small open economy under a flexible exchange rate regime, assuming that the government spends exclusively on domestically produced goods. The motivation for this research comes from the observation that the literature on the new open economy macroeconomics (NOEM) has focused almost exclusively on two-country global models and the analyses of the effects of fiscal policy on small economies are almost completely ignored. This thesis aims at filling in the gap in the NOEM literature and illustrates how the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy in a small open economy depend on the specification of preferences. The research method is to present two theoretical model that are extensions to the model contained in the Appendix to Obstfeld and Rogoff (1995). The first model analyzes the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy, making use of a model that exploits the idea of modelling private and government consumption as substitutes in private utility. The model offers intuitive predictions on how the effects of fiscal policy depend on the marginal rate of substitution between private and government consumption. The findings illustrate that the higher the substitutability between private and government consumption, (i) the bigger is the crowding out effect on private consumption (ii) and the smaller is the positive effect on output. The welfare analysis shows that the less fiscal policy decreases welfare the higher is the marginal rate of substitution between private and government consumption. The second model of this thesis studies how the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy depend on the elasticity of substitution between traded and nontraded goods. This model reveals that this elasticity a key variable to explain the exchange rate, current account and output response to a permanent rise in government spending. Finally, the model demonstrates that temporary changes in government spending are an effective stabilization tool when used wisely and timely in response to undesired fluctuations in output. Undesired fluctuations in output can be perfectly offset by an opposite change in government spending without causing any side-effects.

Social Networks and Everyday Practices in Russia

My doctoral dissertation in sociology and Russian studies, Social Networks and Everyday Practices in Russia, employs a "micro" or "grassroots" perspective on the transition. The study is a collection of articles detailing social networks in five different contexts. The first article examines Russian birthdays from a network perspective. The second takes a look at health care to see whether networks have become obsolete in a sector that is still overwhelmingly public, but increasingly being monetarised. The third article investigates neighbourhood relations. The fourth details relationships at work, particularly from the vantage point of internal migration. The fifth explores housing and the role of networks and money both in the Soviet and post-Soviet era. The study is based on qualitative social network and interview data gathered among three groups, teachers, doctors and factory workers, in St. Petersburg during 1993-2000. Methodologically it builds on a qualitative social network approach. The study adds a critical element to the discussion on networks in post-socialism. A considerable consensus exists that social networks were vital in state socialist societies and were used to bypass various difficulties caused by endemic shortages and bureaucratic rigidities, but a more debated issue has been their role in post-socialism. Some scholars have argued that the importance of networks has been dramatically reduced in the new market economy, whereas others have stressed their continuing importance. If a common denominator in both has been a focus on networks in relation to the past, a more overlooked aspect has been the question of inequality. To what extent is access to networks unequally distributed? What are the limits and consequences of networks, for those who have access, those outside networks or society at large? My study provides some evidence about inequalities. It shows that some groups are privileged over others, for instance, middle-class people in informal access to health care. Moreover, analysing the formation of networks sheds additional light on inequalities, as it highlights the importance of migration as a mechanism of inequality, for example. The five articles focus on how networks are actually used in everyday life. The article on health care, for instance, shows that personal connections are still important and popular in post-Soviet Russia, despite the growing importance of money and the emergence of "fee for service" medicine. Fifteen of twenty teachers were involved in informal medical exchange during a two-week study period, so that they used their networks to bypass the formal market mechanisms or official procedures. Medicines were obtained through personal connections because some were unavailable at local pharmacies or because these connections could provide medicines for a cheaper price or even for free. The article on neighbours shows that "mutual help" was the central feature of neighbouring, so that the exchange of goods, services and information covered almost half the contacts with neighbours reported. Neighbours did not provide merely small-scale help but were often exchange partners because they possessed important professional qualities, had access to workplace resources, or knew somebody useful. The article on the Russian work collective details workplace-related relationships in a tractor factory and shows that interaction with and assistance from one's co-workers remains important. The most interesting finding was that co-workers were even more important to those who had migrated to the city than to those who were born there, which is explained by the specifics of Soviet migration. As a result, the workplace heavily influenced or absorbed contexts for the worker migrants to establish relationships whereas many meeting-places commonly available in Western countries were largely absent or at least did not function as trusted public meeting places to initiate relationships. More results are to be found from my dissertation: Anna-Maria Salmi: Social Networks and Everyday Practices in Russia, Kikimora Publications, 2006, see www.kikimora-publications.com.

Humanitaarisuuden varjossa : Poliittiset tekijät lastensiirroissa Ruotsiin sotiemme aikana ja niiden jälkeen

The evacuation of Finnish children to Sweden during WW II has often been called a small migration . Historical research on this subject is scarce, considering the great number of children involved. The present research has applied, apart from the traditional archive research, the framework of history-culture developed by Rüsen in order to have an all-inclusive approach to the impact of this historical event. The framework has three dimensions: political, aesthetic and cognitive. The collective memory of war children has also been discussed. The research looks for political factors involved in the evacuations during the Winter War and the Continuation War and the post-war period. The approach is wider than a purely humanitarian one. Political factors have had an impact in both Finland and Sweden, beginning from the decision-making process and ending with the discussion of the unexpected consequences of the evacuations in the Finnish Parliament in 1950. The Winter War (30.11.1939 13.3.1940) witnessed the first child transports. These were also the model for future decision making. The transports were begun on the initiative of Swedes Maja Sandler, the wife of the resigned minister of foreign affairs Rickard Sandler, and Hanna Rydh-Munck af Rosenschöld , but this activity was soon accepted by the Swedish government because the humanitarian help in the form of child transports lightened the political burden of Prime Minister Hansson, who was not willing to help Finland militarily. It was help that Finland never asked for and it was rejected at the beginning. The negative response of Minister Juho Koivisto was not taken very seriously. The political forces in Finland supporting child transports were stronger than those rejecting them. The major politicians in support belonged to Finland´s Swedish minority. In addition, close to 1 000 Finnish children remained in Sweden after the Winter War. No analysis was made of the reasons why these children did not return home. A committee set up to help Finland and Norway was established in Sweden in 1941. Its chairman was Torsten Nothin, an influential Swedish politician. In December 1941 he appealed to the Swedish government to provide help to Finnish children under the authority of The International Red Cross. This plea had no results. The delivery of great amounts of food to Finland, which was now at war with Great Britain, had automatically caused reactions among the allies against the Swedish imports through Gothenburg. This included the import of oil, which was essential for the Swedish navy and air force. Oil was later used successfully to force a reduction in commerce between Sweden and Finland. The contradiction between Sweden´s essential political interests and humanitarian help was solved in a way that did not harm the country´s vital political interests. Instead of delivering help to Finland, Finnish children were transported to Sweden through the organisations that had already been created. At the beginning of the Continuation War (25.6.1941 27.4.1945) negative opinion regarding child transports re-emerged in Finland. Karl-August Fagerholm implemented the transports in September 1941. In 1942, members of the conservative parties in the Finnish Parliament expressed their fear of losing the children to the Swedes. They suggested that Finland should withdraw from the inter-Nordic agreement, according to which the adoptions were approved by the court of the country where the child resided. This initiative failed. Paavo Virkkunen, an influential member of the conservative party Kokoomus in Finland, favoured the so-called good-father system, where help was delivered to Finland in the form of money and goods. Virkkunen was concerned about the consequences of a long stay in a Swedish family. The risk of losing the children was clear. The extreme conservative party (IKL, the Patriotic Movement of the Finnish People) wanted to alienate Finland from Sweden and bring Finland closer to Germany. Von Blücher, the German ambassador to Finland, had in his report to Berlin, mentioned the political consequences of the child transports. Among other things, they would bring Finland and Sweden closer to each other. He had also paid attention to the Nordic political orientation in Finland. He did not question or criticize the child transports. His main interest was to increase German political influence in Finland, and the Nordic political orientation was an obstacle. Fagerholm was politically ill-favoured by the Germans, because he had a strong Nordic political disposition and had criticised Germany´s activities in Norway. The criticism of child transports was at the same time criticism of Fagerholm. The official censorship organ of the Finnish government (VTL) denied the criticism of child transports in January 1942. The reasons were political. Statements made by members of the Finnish Parliament were also censored, because it was thought that they would offend the Swedes. In addition, the censorship organ used child transports as a means of active propaganda aimed at improving the relations between the two countries. The Finnish Parliament was informed in 1948 that about 15 000 Finnish children still remained in Sweden. These children would stay there permanently. In 1950 the members of the Agrarian Party in Finland stated that Finland should actively strive to get the children back. The party on the left (SKDL, the Democratic Movement of Finnish People) also focused on the unexpected consequences of the child transports. The Social Democrats, and largely Fagerholm, had been the main force in Finland behind the child transports. Members of the SKDL, controlled by Finland´s Communist Party, stated that the war time authorities were responsible for this war loss. Many of the Finnish parents could not get their children back despite repeated requests. The discussion of the problem became political, for example von Born, a member of the Swedish minority party RKP, related this problem to foreign policy by stating that the request to repatriate the Finnish children would have negative political consequences for the relations between Finland and Sweden. He emphasized expressing feelings of gratitude to the Swedes. After the war a new foreign policy was established by Prime Minister (1944 1946) and later President (1946 1956) Juho Kusti Paasikivi. The main cornerstone of this policy was to establish good relations with the Soviet Union. The other, often forgotten, cornerstone was to simultaneously establish good relations with other Nordic countries, especially Sweden, as a counterbalance. The unexpected results of the child evacuation, a Swedish initiative, had violated the good relations with Sweden. The motives of the Democratic Movement of Finnish People were much the same as those of the Patriotic Movement of Finnish People. Only the ideology was different. The Nordic political orientation was an obstacle to both parties. The position of the Democratic Movement of Finnish People was much better than that of the Patriotic Movement of Finnish People, because now one could clearly see the unexpected results, which included human tragedy for the many families who could not be re-united with their children despite their repeated requests. The Swedes questioned the figure given to the Finnish Parliament regarding the number of children permanently remaining in Sweden. This research agrees with the Swedes. In a calculation based on Swedish population registers, the number of these children is about 7 100. The reliability of this figure is increased by the fact that the child allowance programme began in Sweden in 1948. The prerequisite to have this allowance was that the child be in the Swedish population register. It was not necessary for the child to have Swedish nationality. The Finnish Parliament had false information about the number of Finnish children who remained in Sweden in 1942 and in 1950. There was no parliamentary control in Finland regarding child transports, because the decision was made by one cabinet member and speeches by MPs in the Finnish Parliament were censored, like all criticism regarding child transports to Sweden. In Great Britain parliamentary control worked better throughout the whole war, because the speeches regarding evacuation were not censored. At the beginning of the war certain members of the British Labour Party and the Welsh Nationalists were particularly outspoken about the scheme. Fagerholm does not discuss to any great extent the child transports in his memoirs. He does not evaluate the process and results as a whole. This research provides some possibilities for an evaluation of this sort. The Swedish medical reports give a clear picture of the physical condition of the Finnish children when arriving in Sweden. The transports actually revealed how bad the situation of the poorest children was. According to Titmuss, similar observations were made in Great Britain during the British evacuations. The child transports saved the lives of approximately 2 900 children. Most of these children were removed to Sweden to receive treatment for illnesses, but many among the healthy children were undernourished and some suffered from the effects of tuberculosis. The medical inspection in Finland was not thorough. If you compare the figure of 2 900 children saved and returned with the figure of about 7 100 children who remained permanently in Sweden, you may draw the conclusion that Finland as a country failed to benefit from the child transports, and that the whole operation was a political mistake with far-reaching consequenses. The basic goal of the operation was to save lives and have all the children return to Finland after the war. The difficulties with the repatriation of the children were mainly psychological. The level of child psychology in Finland at that time was low. One may question the report by Professor Martti Kaila regarding the adaptation of children to their families back in Finland. Anna Freud´s warnings concerning the difficulties that arise when child evacuees return are also valid in Finland. Freud viewed the emotional life of children in a way different from Kaila: the physical survival of a small child forces her to create strong emotional ties to the person who is looking after her. This, a characteristic of all small children, occurred with the Finnish children too, and it was something the political decision makers in Finland could not see during and after the war. It is a characteristic of all little children. Yet, such experiences were already evident during the Winter War. The best possible solution had been to limit the child transports only to children in need of medical treatment. Children from large and poor families had been helped by organising meals and by buying food from Denmark with Swedish money. Assisting Finland by all possible means should have been the basic goal of Fagerholm in September 1941, when the offer of child transports came from Sweden. Fagerholm felt gratitude towards the Swedes. The risks became clear to him only in 1943. The war children are today a rather scattered and diffuse group of people. Emotionally, part of these children remained in Sweden after the war. There is no clear collective memory, only individual memories; the collective memory of the war children has partly been shaped later through the activities of the war child associations. The main difference between the children evacuated in Finland (for example from Karelia to safer areas with their families) and the war children, who were sent abroad, is that the war children lack a shared story and experience with their families. They were outsiders . The whole matter is sensitive to many of such mothers and discussing the subject has often been avoided in families. The war-time censorship has continued in families through silence and avoidance and Finnish politicians and Finnish families had to face each other on this issue after the war. The lack of all-inclusive historical research has also prevented the formation of a collective awareness among war children returned to Finland or those remaining permanently abroad.. Knowledge of historical facts will help war-children by providing an opportunity to create an all-inclusive approach to the past. Personal experiences should be regarded as part of a large historical entity shadowed by war and where many political factors were at work in both Finland and Sweden. This means strengthening of the cognitive dimension discussed in Rüsen´s all-inclusive historical approach.

Encouragement and discouragement : Essays on taxation and government expenditure

This thesis consists of an introduction to a topic of optimal use of taxes and government expenditure and three chapters analysing these themes more in depth. Chapter 2 analyses to what extent a given amount of subsidies affects the labour supply of parents. Municipal supplement to the Finnish home care allowance provides exogenous variation to labour supply decision of a parent. This kind of subsidy that is tied to staying at home instead of working is found to have fairly large effect on labour supply decisions of parents. Chapter 3 studies theoretically when it is optimal to provide publicly private goods. In the set up of the model government sets income taxes optimally and provides a private good, if it is beneficial to do so. The analysis results in an optimal provision rule according to which the good should be provided when it lowers the participation threshold into labour force. Chapter 4 investigates what happened to prices and demand when hairdressers value added tax was cut in Finland from 22 per cent to 8 per cent. The pass-through to prices was about half of the full pass-through and no clear indication of increased demand for the services or better employment situation in the sector is found.

Prosopis, an Alien among the Sacred Trees of South India

The problematic of invasive species in an alien environment has aroused the attention of scientists all over the world for quite some time. One of the exotic tree species that has provoked special attention in the tropical drylands is Prosopis juliflora. Originating in South America, prosopis (hereafter referred to as prosopis) has been introduced in the hot and semi-arid zones of the world particularly to provide fuelwood, to stabilize sand dunes and to combat desertification. The tree has become an essential source for fuelwood and a provider of several other products and services in areas where it has become established. However, despite the numerous benefits the tree provides to rural people, in several regions prosopis has become a noxious weed with a negative impact on the environment and to the economy of farmers and landowners. In India, prosopis was introduced in Andhra Pradesh in 1877. The tree was then proclaimed as the precious child of the plant world by scientists and local people alike. The purpose of this study was to investigate the overall impact of prosopis on local rural livelihoods in the drylands of South India. Of particular interest was the examination of the different usages of the tree, especially as fuelwood, and people s perceptions of it. Furthermore, the study examined the negative impacts of the uncontrolled invasion of prosopis on croplands, and its occupation of the banks of irrigation canals and other water sources. As another central theme, this study analysed the Hindu classification system for nature and for trees in particular. In India, several tree species are regarded as sacred. This study examined the position of the exotic prosopis among sacred trees, such as the bodhi, banyan and neem trees. The principle method for collecting the field data was by using individual and thematic group interviews. These interviews were semi-structured with open ended questions. Moreover, unstructured interviews as well as general observations provided complementary information. The data were gathered during two fieldwork periods in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, in South India. The results confirmed that prosopis both provides benefits and causes hazards to different stakeholders. Farmers and agriculturalists suffer economic losses in areas where prosopis has invaded crop fields and competes with other plants for water and nutrients. On the other hand, for a significant number of poor rural people, prosopis has become an important source of livelihood benefits. This tree, which grows on government wastelands, is commonly a free resource for all and has thus become a major local source of fuelwood. It also provides several other goods and services and cash income that contributes to improve livelihoods in rural communities. Prosopis ranked lowest in the tree classificatioin system of the Hindus of South India. Although it is appreciated for many benefits it provides for poor people, it has remained an outsider compared with the indigenous tree species. On the other hand, the most sacred trees, such as the bodhi or the banyan, are completely excluded from extraction and it is seen as a sacrilege to even cut branches from any of these trees. An unexpected finding was that, in a few cases, prosopis had also been elevated to the status of a sacred tree. Goods and services from prosopis are not utilized in the most beneficial way. Silvicultural management practices are suggested that would provide additional income and employment opportunities. Interventions are recommended to control further invasion of the tree that might cause serious negative effects in the future. For Hindus, the sacred always ranks highest, even above economic gain. The conservation of sacred groves and sacred trees is a tradition that has its roots in ancient history. These socio-religious practices need to be respected and continued. Successful management of tree and forest resources depends on the willingness of the local people to manage their natural resources, and this willingness exists and has always existed in South India. Keywords: South India, drylands, livelihood, fuelwood, invasive, resource, silviculture.

Essays on the Determinants of International Portfolio Investments

Investors significantly overweight domestic assets in their portfolios. This behavior which is commonly called “home bias” contradicts the prescriptions of portfolio theory. This thesis explores potential reasons for the “home bias” by examining the characteristics of the investing and the target countries and features of the interaction between them. A common theme of the four essays is a focus on the importance of information about foreign markets in explaining the share of these markets in investors’ portfolios. The results indicate that the size of the equity ownership in another country strongly relates to the distance to the financial capital of that country, and to trade in goods with and direct investments (FDI) to that country. The first essay empirically investigates the relationship between trade in real goods and portfolio investments. Overall, the evidence indicates a substantial role for trade in reducing the information cost relating to portfolio investments. The second essay examines the implications of the launch of the European Monetary Union (EMU) on international portfolio investments. The evidence on the allocation of Finnish international portfolio investments is more consistent with an information-based than a diversification motive explanation. The third essay employs new data for a large number of countries and further explores the role of trade on international portfolio investments. The results indicate that trade provides important information especially on firms in countries in which the corporate governance structure and the information environment of firms generate less reliable information. The fourth essay examines the relationship between direct investments (FDI) and portfolio investments. In contrast to the predications of portfolio theory, it provides evidence that FDI is a complement rather than a substitute for portfolio investments.

Rethinking Service Companies’ Business Logic: Do We Need a Customer-Dominant Logic as a Guideline?

Purpose –This paper explores and expands the roles of customers and companies in creating value by introducing a new a customer-based approach to service. The customer’s logic is examined as being the foundation of a customer-based marketing and business logic. Design/methodology/approach – The authors argue that both goods-dominant logics and service-dominant logics are provider-dominant. Contrasting the customer-dominant logic with provider-dominant logics, the paper examines the creation of service value from the perspectives of value-in-use, the customer’s own context, and the customer’s experience of service. Findings –Moving from a provider-dominant logic to a customer-dominant logic uncovered five major challenges to service marketers: Company involvement, company control in co-creation, visibility of value creation, locus of customer experience, and character of customer experience. Research limitations/implications – The paper is exploratory. It presents and discusses a conceptual model and suggests implications for research and practice. Practical implications –Awareness of the mechanisms of customer logic will provide businesses with new perspectives on the role of the company in their customer’s lives. We propose that understanding the customer’s logic should represent the starting-point for the marketer’s business logic. Originality/value – The paper increases the understanding of how the customer’s logic underpins the customer-dominant business logic. By exploring consequences of applying a customer-dominant logic, we suggest further directions for theoretical and empirical research.

Customer Needing - Conceptualising Industrial Service from a Customer Perspective

Views on industrial service have conceptually progressed from the output of the provider’s production process to the result of an interaction process in which the customer also is involved. Although there are attempts to be customer-oriented, especially when the focus is on solutions, an industrial company’s offering combining goods and services is inherently seller-oriented. There is, however, a need to go beyond the current literature and company practices. We propose that what is needed is a genuinely customer-based parallel concept to offering that takes the customer’s view and put forward a new concept labelled customer needing. A needing is based on the customer’s mental model of their business and strategies which will affect priorities, decisions, and actions. A needing can be modelled as a configuration of three dimensions containing six functions that create realised value for the customer. These dimensions and functions can be used to describe needings which represent starting points for sellers’ creation of successful offerings. When offerings match needings over time the seller should have the potential to form and sustain successful buyer relationships.

Re-Conceptualizing Value-Creation From Industrial Business Logic to Service Business Logic

There is an urgent interest in marketing to move away from neo-classical value definitions suggesting that value creation is a process of exchanging goods for money. In the present paper, value creation is conceptualized as an integration of two distinct, yet closely coupled processes. First, actors co-create what this paper calls an underlying basis of value. This is done by interactively re-configuring resources. By relating and combining resources, activity sets, and risks across actor boundaries in novel ways actors create joint productivity gains – a concept very similar to density (Normann, 2001). Second, actors engage in a process of signification and evaluation. Signification implies co-constructing the meaning and worth of joint productivity gains co-created through interactive resource re-configuration, as well as sharing those gains through a pricing mechanism as value to involved actors. The conceptual framework highlights an all-important dynamics associated with ´value creation´ and ´value´ - a dynamics the paper claims has eluded past marketing research. The paper argues that the framework presented here is appropriate for the interactive service perspective, where value and value creation are not objectively given, but depend on the power of involved actors´ socially constructed frames to mobilize resources across actor boundaries in ways that ´enhance system well-being´ (Vargo et al., 2008). The paper contributes to research on Service Logic, Service-Dominant Logic, and Service Science.

What Can A Service Logic Offer Marketing Theory

The goods-dominated marketing model has major shortcomings as a guiding marketing theory. Its marketing mix approach is mainly geared towards buying and does not include consumption as an integral part of marketing theory. Although it is during the process of consuming goods and services that value is generated for customers and the foundation for repeat purchasing and customer relationships are laid, this process is left outside the scope of marketing. The focus in service marketing is not on a product but on interactions in service encounters. Consumption has become an integral part of a holistic marketing model. Other than standardized goods-based value propositions can be better understood when taking a servicebased approach. It is concluded that marketing based on a goods logic is but a special case of marketing based on a service logic and applicable only in certain contexts with standardized products.

Marketing and the Logic of Service: Value Facilitation, Value Creation and Co-creation, and Their Marketing Implications

The discussion of a service-dominant logic has made the findings of decades of service marketing research a topic of interest for marketing at large. Some fundamental aspects of the logic such as value creation and its marketing implications are more complex than they have been treated as so far and need to be further developed to serve marketing theory and practice well. Following the analysis in the present article it is argued that although customers are co-producers in service processes, according to the value-in-use notion adopted in the contemporary marketing and management literature they are fundamentally the creators of value for themselves. Furthermore, it is concluded that although by providing goods and services as input resources into customers’ consumption and value-generating processes firms are fundamentally value facilitators, interactions with customers that exist or can be created enable firms to engage themselves with their customers’ processes and thereby they become co-creators of value with their customers. As marketing implications it is observed that 1) the goal of marketing is to support customers’ value creation, 2) following a service logic and due to the existence of interactions where the firm’s and the customer’s processes merge into an integrated joint value creation process, the firm is not restricted to making value propositions only, but can directly and actively influence the customer’s value fulfilment as well and extend its marketing process to include activities during customer-firm interactions, and 3) although all goods and services are consumed as service, customers’ purchasing decisions can be expected to be dependant of whether they have the skills and interest to use a resource, such as a good, as service or want to buy extended market offerings including process-related elements. Finally, the analysis concludes with five service logic theses.

International Portfolio Investments and The Informational Value of Trade

A large volume of literature suggests that information asymmetry resulting from the spatial separation between investors and investments have a significant impact on the composition of investors’ domestic and international portfolios. I show that institutional factors affecting trading in tangible goods help explain a substantial portion of investors’ spatial bias. More importantly, I demonstrate that an information flow medium with breadth and richness directly linked to the bilateral commitment of resources between countries, that I measure by their trading intensity in tangible goods, is consistent with the prevailing country allocation in investors’ international portfolios.

Hyveiden harjoittaminen : edellytykset ja esteet

In the first half of the 20th century, most moral philosophers took the concept of virtue to be secondary to moral principles or emotions, though in various and mutually conflicting ways. In the early 1960s interest in the virtues was restored by the analytic philosophers Elizabeth Anscombe and Georg Henrik von Wright, the younger colleagues and friends of the late Wittgenstein. Later, Alasdair MacIntyre became a leading virtue ethicist. In 1981, MacIntyre introduced in After Virtue the concept of practices, which he based on the Aristotelian distinction between praxis and poiesis. This dissertation examines MacIntyre s characterization of the interconnectedness between practices and virtues, especially in relation to skills, education, and certain emotions. The primary position of the virtues is defended against the tendency in modern moral philosophy to overemphasize the role either of principles and rules or of emotions. The view according to which rational action and acting according to the virtues is best conceptualized as following rules or principles is criticized by arguments that are grounded by some Wittgensteinian observations, and that can be characterized as transcendental. Even if the virtues cannot be defined by, and are not based entirely on, emotions, the role of certain emotions on the learning and education of skills and virtues are studied more carefully than by MacIntyre. In the cases of resentment, indignation, and shame, the analysis of Peter Strawson is utilized, and in the case of regret, the analysis of Bernard Williams. Williams analysis of regret and moral conflict concludes in a kind of antirealism, which this study criticizes. Where education of practices and skills and the related reactive emotions are examined as conditions of learning and practicing the virtues, institutions and ideologies are examined as obstacles and threats to the virtues. This theme is studied through Karl Marx s conception of alienation and Karl Polanyi s historical and sociological research concerning the great transformation . The study includes six Finnish-published articles carrying the titles Our negative attitudes towards other persons , Authority and upbringing , Moral conflicts, regret and ethical realism , Practices and institutions , Doing justice as condition to communal action: a transcendental argument for justice as virtue , and Alienation from practices in capitalist society: Alasdair MacIntyre s Marxist Aristotelianism . The introductory essay sums up the themes of the articles and presents some central issues of virtue ethics by relating the classical Socratic questions to Aristotelian practical philosophy, as well as to current controversies in metaethics and moral psychology.

Studies on Stone Age Housepits in Fennoscandia (4000 - 2000 cal BC) : Changes in ground plan, site location and degree of sedentism

Housepits have a remarkably short research history as compared to Fennoscandian archaeological research on the Stone Age in general. The current understanding of the numbers and the distribution of Stone Age housepits in the Nordic countries has, for the most part, been shaped by archaeological studies carried out over the last twenty to thirty years. The main subjects of this research are Neolithic housepits, which are archaeological remains of semi-subterranean pithouses. This dissertation consists of five peer-reviewed articles and a synthesis paper. The articles deal with the development of housepits as seen in the data gathered from Finland (the Lake Saimaa area and south-eastern Finland) and Russia (the Karelian Isthmus). This synthesis expands the discussion of the changes observed in the Papers to include Fennoscandian housepit research as a whole. Certain changes in the size, shape, environmental location, and clustering of housepits extended into various cultures and ecological zones in northern Fennoscandia. Previously, the evolution of housepits has been interpreted to have been caused by the adaptation of Neolithic societies to prevailing environmental circumstances or to re-organization following contacts with the agrarian Corded Ware/Battle Axe Cultures spreading to North. This dissertation argues for two waves of change in the pithouse building tradition. Both waves brought with them certain changes in the pithouses themselves and in the practices of locating the dwellings in the environment/landscape. The changes in housepits do not go hand in hand with other changes in material culture, nor are the changes restricted to certain ecological environments. Based on current information, it appears that the changes relate primarily to the spread of new concepts of housing and possibly to new technology, as opposed to representing merely a local response to environmental factors. This development commenced already before the birth of the Corded Ware/Battle Axe Cultures. Therefore, the changes are argued to have resulted from the spreading of new ideas through the same networks that actively distributed commodities, exotic goods, and raw materials over vast areas between the southern Baltic Sea, the north-west Russian forest zone, and Fennoscandia.