Competition and product survival in the UK car market

The paper examines the extent to which inter- and intra-firm competition influenced the survival of cars in the UK market between 1971 and 1998. It is shown that, while competition influenced product survival in all market segments within the UK car market, the nature of that competition differed between them. In the small family and large family car segments, intra-firm competition dominated inter-firm competition. In contrast, in the luxury/sports car segment only inter-firm competition conditions resulted in product survival. Evidence was also found that the luxury/sports car segment has grown more competitive over time and that firms marketing products in the family car segments have become considerably more successful at avoiding the effects of intra-firm competition.

Mobilising community action towards a low-carbon future: Opportunities and challenges for local government in the UK

Over the last decade the important role that local authorities can play in catalyzing communityaction on climate change has been repeatedly emphasised by the UK Government. The paper examines this policy context and explores the options available to local authorities in terms of reaching and engaging their communities. The type of progressive response shown by some UKlocal authorities is illustrated with empirical evidence gathered through a study conducted in the London Borough of Islington focusing on their recently established ‘Green Living Centre’. The results confirm interest in this major council-led community initiative, with positive attitudes expressed by the majority of those questioned in terms of the advice and information available. However, it is also clear that many participants had preexisting pro-environmental attitudes and behavioural routines. Results from a broader sample of Islington residents indicate a substantial challenge in reaching the wider community, where enthusiasm for sustainability change and interest in this type of scheme were more mixed. The prospect for local government in addressing this challenge – and their ability to trigger and capitalize upon concepts of social change at the community level towardsalowercarbon future – is discussed in the final part of the paper.

Tax principles, product differentiation and the nature of competition

We analyze the choice between the origin and destination principles of taxation when there is product differentiation and Bertrand competition. If taxes are redistributed to consumers and demand is linear the origin principle dominates the destination principle whatever the degree of product differentiation and extent of economic integration. With nonlinear demand the origin principle dominates if there is sufficient economic integration. When the social value assigned to tax revenue is higher than the private value, the destination principle dominates for intermediate values of product differentiation and economic integration. The same results are also shown to hold with Cournot competition.

Prizes for modernity in the provinces: The Arts Council’s 1950-1951 regional playwriting competition

As part of its contribution to the 1951 Festival of Britain, the Arts Council ran what can be seen in retrospect to be an important playwriting competition. Disregarding the London stage entirely, it invited regional theatres throughout the UK to put forward nominations for new plays within their repertoire for 1950-1951. Each of the five winning plays would receive, what was then, the substantial sum of £100. Originality and innovation featured highly amongst the selection criteria, with 40 per cent of the judges’ marks being awarded for “interest of subject matter and inventiveness of treatment”. This article will assess some of the surprising outcomes of the competition and argue that it served as an important nexus point in British theatrical historiography between two key moments in post-war Britain: the first being the inauguration of the Festival of Britain in 1951, the other being the debut of John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger in May 1956. The article will also argue that the Arts Council’s play competition was significant for two other reasons. By circumventing the London stage, it provides a useful tool by which to reassess the state of new writing in regional theatre at the beginning of the 1950s and to question how far received views of parochialism and conservatism held true. The paper will also put forward a case for the competition significantly anticipating the work of George Devine at the English Stage Company, which during its early years established a reputation for itself by heavily exploiting the repertoire of new plays originally commissioned by regional theatres. This article forms part of a five year funded Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) project, ‘Giving Voice to the Nation: The Arts Council of Great Britain and the Development of Theatre and Performance in Britain 1945-1994’. Details of the Arts Council’s archvie, which is housed at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London can be found at http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/wid/ead/acgb/acgbf.html Keywords: Arts Council of Great Britain, regional theatre, playwriting, Festival of Britain, English Stage Company (Royal Court) , Yvonne Mitchell

Comparing hypotheses about competition in the food system

A procedure is presented for comparing hypotheses about competition that makes no parametric assumptions about cost and demand functions, can be implemented with a modicum of data, and relies on Bayesian comparisons of non-nested hypotheses. The methodology is applied to data on five of the major U.S. food industries

Venues on the verges: London's theater government between 1594 and 1614

In 1594, major decisions were made by the governors of London and the country about plays and playing. We need to learn what lay behind these events, such as what led James Burbage to build his Blackfriars theater in 1596. That initial fiasco might tell us much about what lay behind Shakespeare’s decision to join the new Chamberlain’s Men in 1594 and his subsequent commitment to them as a full-time playwright. When the Globe burned down in 1613, a majority of the shareholders decided to rebuild it at great cost, but Shakespeare withdrew. The rebuilding was old-fashioned thinking, reverting to the company’s desire, asserted in 1594, to play indoors in winter, which helps to clarify their decisions and Shakespeare’s own—to write plays rather than more long poems. The few surviving papers of the Privy Council and the London mayoralty from the time suggest that one of the two new companies of 1594 preferred to play indoors during the winter instead of at their allocated open playhouses in the suburbs. They tried to renew this traditional practice, first in 1594 and again in 1596 when James Burbage built the indoor Blackfriars playhouse for them. The renewal of the Globe in 1614 was part of the same thinking, although Shakespeare evidently opted out of the decision.

Military competition and the emergence of nationalism: putting the logic of political survival into historical context

This essay aims to make a contribution to the conversation between IR and nationalism literatures by considering a particular question: What is the relationship between interstate military competition and the emergence of nationalism as a potent force in world politics? The conventional wisdom among international security scholars, especially neorealists, holds that nationalism can be more or less treated like a “technology” that allowed states to extract significant resources as well as manpower from their respective populations. This paper underlines some of the problems involved with this perspective and pushes forward an interpretation that is based on the logic of political survival. I argue that nationalism’s emergence as a powerful force in world politics followed from the “mutation” and absorption of the universalistic/cosmopolitan republican ideas that gained temporary primacy in Europe during the eighteenth century into particularistic nationalist ideologies. This transformation, in turn, can be best explained by the French Revolution’s dramatic impacts on rulers’ political survival calculi vis-à-vis both interstate and domestic political challenges. The analysis offered in this essay contributes to our understanding of the relationship between IR and nationalism while also highlighting the potential value of the political survival framework for exploring macrohistorical puzzles.

Competition for land

A key challenge for humanity is how a future global population of 9 billion can all be fed healthily and sustainably. Here, we review how competition for land is influenced by other drivers and pressures, examine land-use change over the past 20 years and consider future changes over the next 40 years. Competition for land, in itself, is not a driver affecting food and farming in the future, but is an emergent property of other drivers and pressures. Modelling studies suggest that future policy decisions in the agriculture, forestry, energy and conservation sectors could have profound effects, with different demands for land to supply multiple ecosystem services usually intensifying competition for land in the future. In addition to policies addressing agriculture and food production, further policies addressing the primary drivers of competition for land (population growth, dietary preference, protected areas, forest policy) could have significant impacts in reducing competition for land. Technologies for increasing per-area productivity of agricultural land will also be necessary. Key uncertainties in our projections of competition for land in the future relate predominantly to uncertainties in the drivers and pressures within the scenarios, in the models and data used in the projections and in the policy interventions assumed to affect the drivers and pressures in the future.

Microstructure of the Euro-area government bond market

This chapter highlights similarities and differences of equity and fixed- income markets and provides an overview of the characteristics of European government bond market trading and liquidity. Most existing studies focus on the U.S. market. This chapter presents the institutional details of the MTS market, which is the largest European electronic platform for trading government, quasi-government, asset- backed, and corporate fixed- income securities. It reviews the main features of high- frequency fixed- income data and the methods for measuring market liquidity. Finally, the chapter shows how liquidity differs across European countries, how liquidity varies with the structure of the market, and how liquidity has changed during the recent liquidity and sovereign crises.