The price elasticity of demand for common stock

We study the price elasticity of demand for the common stock of an individual corporation. Despite the prevelance of assumptions that demand is perfectly elastic, there is little if any direct evidence in the literature to either support or reject that contention. Consistent with the notion of finite price elasticities, we find that the announcement of primary stock oferings by regulated firms depresses their stock prices and little if any evidence that this decline is the result of adverse information about future cash flows. Attempts to relate offer announcement effects directly to possible determinants of price elasticities, however, are inconclusive.

Adaptation to Changes in the Coffee Value Chain and the Price of Coiffee among Coffee Producers in Two Villages in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

Market liberalization in Tanzania has eroded the monopoly of the cooperative unions by allowing private coffee buyers (PCBs) to compete with them on equal footing. Similarly, farmers groups and primary societies are now allowed to sell coffee at auction. Thus, farmers have various options for selling their coffee. Similarly, the coffee industry has experienced large fluctuations in prices and stagnation in production. How do farmers react to these changes? Can and do farmers profit from different market conditions and sell to different traders at the lower end of the value chain, or do they remain with cooperatives or farmers groups? This study was conducted in Mruwia and Mshiri villages in Moshi Rural district. Whereas Mshiri village remains attached to the Kilimanjaro Native Cooperative Union (KNCU), Mruwia has detached from this organization and sells coffee independently. The sample (103) was randomly selected from the coffee farmers in the two villages. Data were collected through surveys, focus group discussions (FGDs), and socio-anthropological methods (participant-observation, biographies, and thematic interviews). Results indicate that the selection of whom to sell coffee depends largely on farmers’ dependence on coffee and prices, other benefits accrued, and whether the initial costs are covered by buyers. Additionally, most respondents did not sell coffee to PCBs. Thus, prices, the institutional infrastructure, and the structure of local communities were important when making decisions about how and with whom to trade.

The Strategic Role of the Sales Force: Perceptions of Senior Sales Executives

Current models of sales force strategy imply formidable information processing demands, which leads us to take a cognitive approach to studying the issue of sales force strategy. We focus on how top-level executives use mental models of sales force performance to simplify the issue of sales force strategy. We interviewed 74 senior executives responsible for their firms’ selling function using the repertory grid approach, as this methodology has been shown to be particularly effective at uncovering the collective cognitive maps on which executives’ decisions and behaviors are based. Executives identified a broad set of 37 strategic concepts that they felt distinguish the sales force efforts of directly competing companies. A second set of sales executives classified the 37 concepts into capabilities, resources, and organizational context concepts. Based on the classification results and feedback from both sets of executives, we developed research propositions for examining sales force strategy and provide directions for future research.