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Patents are legal delinquents. A growing body of empirical evidence demonstrates that patents repeatedly fail to fulfill the responsibilities they have been assigned in fostering innovation. But I argue here that in their moments of misbehavior, we can catch a glimpse of the social roles patents play when no one is watching. Drawing on insights from the sociology of markets, I argue that patents are surreptitiously performing functions familiar from the grocery store, the vegetable stand, or the barber shop. I suggest that patents are calculative, not in the mathematical sense, but in the sociological sense of structuring and facilitating market relations. This approach to discovering the social roles of patents opens the door to a new examination of patent purposes, and to understanding some otherwise inexplicable characteristics of patent law.

Once scaled, online platforms reconfigure value to remain competitive. Reconfiguration in online platforms may take a different form than in pipelines, as online platforms are intermediaries that generate network effects among the sides they connect. They also face stiff competition from other spheres due to lower barriers to entry. Why and how do online platforms reconfigure value? By examining 13 Indian online platforms that have achieved a certain level of success (such as tipped markets, investor confidence, or profitability), this article offers four strategies for reconfiguring online platforms: enhance interactions, enhance capabilities, offer new services, and nurture new transactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Sarcodon and Hydnellum are two ectomycorrhizal genera of important ecological and economic value in Southwest China, and they are common in the free markets in this region. It was estimated that more than 1,500 tonnes of them were sold as edible per year, but there was little information about the taxonomic placements of these edible mushrooms sold in the markets. Traditional concepts of the two genera have also been challenged recently, and circumscription of Sarcodon and the informally defined clade “Neosarcodon” remained unresolved. In the present study, specimens collected in the field and purchased from the markets in Southwest China were analyzed based on morphological characters and DNA sequences. Phylogeny of the traditional Sarcodon s. lat. and Hydnellum s. lat. was reconstructed from the combined internal transcribed spacer (ITS), nuclear large ribosomal subunit (nLSU) and RNA polymerase II second largest subunit (RPB2) dataset based on expanded samples to reevaluate the taxonomic placements of the two genera. In the present molecular analyses, four distinct clades were recovered and strongly supported: Hydnellum, Neosarcodon, Phellodon and Sarcodon. Neosarcodon is formally introduced as a generic name to include nine species previously placed in Sarcodon, and the delimitation of Sarcodon is revised based on phylogenetic and morphological studies. Phylogenetic analyses also revealed an unexpected species diversity (17 phylogenetic species) of Sarcodon and Hydnellum in the markets; nine phylogenetic species of Sarcodon and eight of Hydnellum were uncovered from the samples collected in the markets. Eight species were resolved in the traditional S. imbricatus complex, with S. imbricatus s.str. being the most common edible stipitate hydnoid fungal species. Three of the edible Hydnellum species (H. edulium, H. subalpinum, and H. subscabrosellum), and five separated from the S. imbricatus complex (Sarcodon flavidus, S. giganteus, S. neosquamosus, S. nigrosquamosus, and S. pseudoimbricatus), are described as new. Three new Chinese records (H. illudens, H. martioflavum, and H. versipelle), and the notable S. imbricatus and S. leucopus are also reported.

This review of Economics and Empire in the Ancient Near East, edited by Matthew J. M. Coomber (Eugene, OR : Cascade Books, 2023), the inaugural volume of a new series of Guides to the Bible and Economics, continues with a list of crucial issues that biblical scholarship ought to integrate in order to grasp the economic environments in which biblical texts were developed and formalized: usufruct and ownership, rich and poor, credit and debt, land and labour, and exploitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we argue that if a set of plausible conditions obtain, then driving a standard vehicle rather than riding in an autonomous vehicle (AV) will become analogous to driving drunk rather than driving sober, and therefore impermissible. In addition, we argue that a ban on the production, sale, and purchase of new standard vehicles would also become justified. We make this case in part by highlighting that the central reasons typically offered in support of state-mandated vaccination will also support mandating AV use. Finally, we discuss some of the implications of our argument for the obligations of vehicle-producing firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sarcodon and Hydnellum are two ectomycorrhizal genera of important ecological and economic value in Southwest China, and they are common in the free markets in this region. It was estimated that more than 1,500 tonnes of them were sold as edible per year, but there was little information about the taxonomic placements of these edible mushrooms sold in the markets. Traditional concepts of the two genera have also been challenged recently, and circumscription of Sarcodon and the informally defined clade "Neosarcodon" remained unresolved. In the present study, specimens collected in the field and purchased from the markets in Southwest China were analyzed based on morphological characters and DNA sequences. Phylogeny of the traditional Sarcodon s. lat. and Hydnellum s. lat. was reconstructed from the combined internal transcribed spacer (ITS), nuclear large ribosomal subunit (nLSU) and RNA polymerase II second largest subunit (RPB2) dataset based on expanded samples to reevaluate the taxonomic placements of the two genera. In the present molecular analyses, four distinct clades were recovered and strongly supported: Hydnellum, Neosarcodon, Phellodon and Sarcodon. Neosarcodon is formally introduced as a generic name to include nine species previously placed in Sarcodon, and the delimitation of Sarcodon is revised based on phylogenetic and morphological studies. Phylogenetic analyses also revealed an unexpected species diversity (17 phylogenetic species) of Sarcodon and Hydnellum in the markets; nine phylogenetic species of Sarcodon and eight of Hydnellum were uncovered from the samples collected in the markets. Eight species were resolved in the traditional S. imbricatus complex, with S. imbricatus s.str. being the most common edible stipitate hydnoid fungal species. Three of the edible Hydnellum species (H. edulium, H. subalpinum, and H. subscabrosellum), and five separated from the S. imbricatus complex (Sarcodon flavidus, S. giganteus, S. neosquamosus, S. nigrosquamosus, and S. pseudoimbricatus), are described as new. Three new Chinese records (H. illudens, H. martioflavum, and H. versipelle), and the notable S. imbricatus and S. leucopus are also reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To analyse oil, the world's most traded commodity, we combine Global Production Network (GPN) and Global Financial Network (GFN) approaches into the Global Production and Financial Network (GPFN). The combination offers a dynamic framework, as key actors and geographies in the GPFN change over time. It brings together the production and financial strands of research on oil and overcomes the physical reality v. financial fiction dichotomy in literature. Using a wide range of data on oil networks, prices, historical accounts, as well as industry, media and policy reports, we apply the GPFN to explain the evolution of oil networks, since their inception, as well as the mid- and short-term price anomalies since 2010. Our history of oil GPFN demonstrates the stability of its analytical categories and the stickiness of power wielded by some actors and geographies, while others come and go. Our account of price anomalies shows the inseparability of physical and financial factors in explaining them. As whole the GFPN is an opportunity to understand the evolving broad structures, distribution of power and price formation in markets, and as such represents a way forward for studying other products and sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the place of the market in society? Polanyi's answer derives from institutional separation and the self-regulating mechanism of supply and demand. In this article, I offer an alternative approach. Following Aristotle, I suggest that commodity fiction follows from the fictitious nature of valuation in the market economy. I then combine this broader definition of commodity fiction with Aristotle's ideas on means and ends of human action, which leads to a framework relating the uniform standard of value in the market economy to commodity fiction and market imperialism. This framework, like Polanyi, underlines the market's subordination of society, but it explains such domination with how the market subverts political deliberation on the allocation of time and resources to distinct objectives in society. The result is a theoretical framework that goes beyond the embeddedness-disembeddedness dichotomy and that emphasizes how the place of the market in society is inextricably a political phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To support increasing renewable capacity for a net-zero future, energy storage will play a key role in maintaining grid stability. In this paper, all current and near-future energy storage technologies are compared for three different scenarios: (1) fixed electricity buy-in price, (2) market-based electricity buy-in price, and (3) energy storage integrated into a fully renewable electricity system. In the first part of this study, an algorithm is devised to simulate strategic buy-in of electricity for energy storage. This analysis yields a qualitative decision-making tool for a given energy storage duration and size. Building upon the first part's findings, an integration study gives insight into expected power prices and expected storage size in a typical northwestern European fully renewable energy system. The integration study shows significant need for electricity storage with durations spanning from one to several days, typically around 40 h. Pumped Hydro Storage and Pumped Thermal storage surface as the best options. The overall levelized costs of storage are expected to be in the USD 200–500/MWh range. Integration of storage with renewables can yield a system-levelized cost of electricity of about USD 150/MWh. Allowing flexibility in demand may lower the overall system-levelized cost of electricity to USD 100/MWh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across Northern Thailand, het thop mushrooms (Astraeus) are foraged and sold into an increasingly commodified marketplace. A species of wild fungi that only appears for a short time each year, it is widely enjoyed across the diverse range of communities living in the region and increasingly positioned as part of the Lanna food and cultural aesthetic. Through a rapid rise in price over recent decades and the subsequent forging of supply chains linking rural communities to urban and online markets, foraging practices now provide significant seasonal incomes and form an essential part of annual livelihoods. However, as this paper contends – working closely with the analytical framing of "precarity" put forth by Tsing (2015) in a similar fungal context – there are forms of precariousness and uncertainty that are inherent in wild products, from the indeterminant ecologies from which it emerges, to the unreliable livelihoods that arise from it, and the fickle market for such products. The purpose is not to dismiss this market as frivolous or problematic, but rather to suggest that in a disturbed and distorted environmental and economic context such as Northern Thailand, this is indicative of a wider shift toward a "salvage economy." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past two decades, there has been a decline in the use of uniform-price auctions in favor of fixed prices in markets of peer-to-peer lending, equity crowdfunding, and initial public offerings. This article aims to analytically study why this trend might be occurring. The analysis reveals that, relative to a fixed price, a uniform-price auction leads to more herding and strategic delay of bid submission and, consequently, a smaller transaction completion probability and lower expected revenue. These predictions are consistent with the empirical regularities observed for the bidding behavior and funding outcomes on Prosper, one of the leading peer-to-peer online lending platforms, and those documented in the literature for markets of equity crowdfunding and initial public offerings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital transformation is necessary for today's business to remain relevant, competitive and successful. Different technologies bring different benefits to businesses. They help to organize and optimize processes, work more efficiently and create successful products and services.

The growth of markets in North Korea has spurred discussion about the prospects for social change in the country. This article explores whether and how marketisation increases social trust among market participants and its implications for everyday politics in North Korea. We draw insights from the literature on social trust as well as empirical evidence from interviews conducted with Chinese business entrepreneurs operating in North Korea to better understand the relationship between market activity and trust in North Korea. We argue that market participants rely on a variety of strategies to navigate North Korea's ambiguous political and economic climate. These strategies are often adopted to increase transparency, access information, reduce uncertainty, and resolve business disputes between parties. Ultimately, each of these strategies is linked to building trust among North Koreans. At the same time, the North Korean state has also inserted itself into trust networks to extract additional resources from markets and (re)establish political control. Thus, in the everyday politics of North Korea, participation in informal markets reflects socialisation into norms and behaviours that increase trust while simultaneously providing support to the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Market structure maps spatially represent competitive relationships among brands and products. In these maps, each product is typically visualized in a single map location. Such visualization, however, does not adequately accommodate multimarket membership products (MMPs), which are products that compete in multiple submarkets that are each characterized by distinct competitors and consumer preferences. The author proposes a novel framework that accommodates MMPs by visualizing products in the local context of each submarket in which they compete. This framework is then used to study market structure in the digital camera market. Competitive relationships are inferred from consumers' online searches using bootstrapped neural product embedding. The research shows that 8% of cameras are MMPs and that 50% of all submarkets are affected by MMPs. The map generated with the proposed framework uncovers mismatches between manufacturer positioning and consumer perception of several cameras. An extensive comparison of the proposed framework with alternative mapping methods reveals that (1) commonly used mapping methods misrepresent MMPs' competitive positions in their maps and (2) ignoring MMPs can lead to distorted visualizations of the underlying market structure. Both problems compromise firms' abilities to accurately assess products' competitive positions and evaluate the effectiveness of their positioning strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special section aims to shed light on moral milieus and agencies in contemporary capitalist central and eastern Europe. Drawing on case studies from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Romania, and Russia, it offers insight into changing perceptions of proper economy and practice amongst a broad range of actors—from landfill workers to business managers and the super-rich. The contributors explore how actors at various scales morally construct, contest, and defend ideas of justice, (re-)distribution, and social worth, as well as socio-economic hierarchy, inequality, and harm. They analyse the capitalist moral transformation and order in the region and examine the local appropriation of and buy-in to (as well as critique of) aspects of neoliberal moral orders—a topic sidelined in much of the existing moral economy scholarship. Exploring a broad range of moral economic phenomena, the contributors move beyond the conventional definition of morals as prosocial norms and action, approaching morals as a broader empirical phenomenon of economy and politics. They examine the actions, practices, and reasoning of different actors in relation to shifting notions of acceptable and unacceptable, just and unjust, and praiseworthy and blameworthy behaviour. As such, this collection makes the case for widening the empirical object and analytical purchase of moral economy to include the study of not only moral critiques and resistance to capitalism but also the diverse moral agencies, milieus and orders of capitalism, and the ways in which the advancement and embedding of the capitalist moral order has shaped economic life in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction to this theme issue discusses a series of papers examining the increasing marketisation of social reproduction and its effects on systems that sustain human and social life. This is done by examining the frontiers, framings, and frictions that arise when market systems are constructed to enable capital accumulation in the realm of social reproduction. Frontiers identify the expansion of market logic into new areas, framings explore how financial actors attempt to bring the logic of social reproduction within the purview of market competition, and frictions highlight the various tensions that generate resistance to the roll out of market logics. Through establishing these three areas, we argue that both market structures and systems of social reproduction should be understood as geographically variegated and, at times, uncertain. This variegation necessitates an understanding of marketised social reproduction as forged through complex articulations of market and non-market logics. Using cases from surrogacy to smart electricity meters, the papers in this theme issue illustrate that while these articulations may generate benefits for some individuals, households and communities, such processes of marketisation can introduce new layers of inequity and undermine the ethical relations and social commitments that sustain life—in the service of enabling accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades investors have sought to find ways of profiting off the billions of public dollars spent annually on systems of public schooling across the world. This interest has coincided with the growing marketization of systems of public schooling, especially in the United States, as well as the increased use of educational technologies (or EdTech). This study examines the implications of the growing use of profit-driven educational technologies for the politics and spatial practices of schooling. Specifically, it examines past experiences with market-oriented EdTech systems in Oregon and Michigan to highlight how the combination of market systems of governance and profit-driven EdTech practices depend on the deconstruction of links between schools, communities, and students in order to roll out aspatial and apolitical educational practices that maximize profits. The placeless vision for education embedded in profit-driven EdTech helps promote the reproduction of dominant orders and stifles place-based struggles over educational justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Campaigns for personal health expenses make up the largest and fastest-growing segment of donation-based crowdfunding. Set against the backdrop of retrenchment and disinvestment in public healthcare systems across the global North, health-related crowdfunding is a way to navigate increasingly marketised systems of social reproduction. Despite high profile success stories, campaigns vary significantly in their ability to capture the hearts, and ultimately wallets, of donors. While existing analyses of online campaign pages offer some insight into the marketing of healthcare needs, far less is known about practices and experiences of crowdfunding platform users, including campaigners. Bringing literature on crowdfunding together with accounts of the marketisation of care, our paper asks: how do campaigners work to secure crowdfunded healthcare? Through the accounts of 15 people campaigning on behalf of family or friends in Aotearoa New Zealand, we show how attempts to appeal to donors depend on campaigners' abilities to 'market' illness and need in ways that resonate with the crowd. We have two main foci. First, we examine the responsibility and responsibilisation of campaigners to engage and perform accountability to crowdfunders. Second, we show how campaigners mobilise recipients' traits of deservingness and other culturally favoured personal qualities to appeal to the crowd's perceived predilections. In sum, the paper demonstrates how the use of crowdfunding is both necessitated by the marketisation of healthcare while simultaneously exerting its own form of market discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A long sociological tradition has examined how state coercion undergirds the "free market" for labor. In the contemporary prison, however, there are signs this relationship has been turned on its head. Whereas in the past, state coercion helped prisons generate profit for private markets, today market ideas are increasingly used within prisons to facilitate state control. I draw on an analysis of seven waves of the Survey of Inmates in State Correctional Facilities, as well as 61 interviews with state prison administrators, prison industry advocates, and formerly incarcerated people. Although the market for the products of prison labor has declined, and incarcerated people, on average, are working less than ever before, inequality in the distribution of work and rewards for this work has sharpened. This changing structure of prison labor is associated with a changing understanding of it. Prison administrators, and to some extent incarcerated people themselves, use market ideas to explain the new organization of prison labor and justify people's places within it. This organization and these ideas solve managerial problems within the prison and are suggestive of parallels between prison and social welfare policy in the contemporary era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In dyadic ultimatum bargaining proposers, who are privately informed about the pie size, can exploit their "moral wiggle room" by engaging in unfairness which is unobservable by responders. Our setup instead assumes better informed responders and, as a consequence, limits ultimatum power and questions conflict resolution via acceptance of ultimatum proposals. In addition to testing the game theoretic solution, based on common opportunism, we assess whether two different market framings boost benchmark behavior. Our results confirm nearly universal responder opportunism. Although the benchmark proposer demand is modal, proposer choices display substantial variation, even in later rounds and even in the range in which lower demands would let both parties expect to earn more. Nevertheless, such inefficiently large demands become less frequent across rounds. Our results also show that market framing is insignificant and more so in later rounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis paper uncovers a hitherto unnoticed pattern of communal segregation among establishments located in some of Delhi’s most important bazars. It demonstrates that this pattern, emerging between 1913 and 1932, was driven by structural features of the ways in which Delhi’s trade and retail interacted with communal violence in the 1920s. Those features include the dislocating effects of communal violence on bazars. More strident political activity by merchants, however, was important fuel to this fire. Merchants did not, also, restrict themselves to repeating communal tropes developed elsewhere. Their self-organisation gave shape to a conception of ‘Hindu’ and ‘Muslim’ trades. Rather than see a communal ‘pre-Partition’ in the 1930s, this evidence suggests that communal segregation was already well on the rise in the 1920s. Business as usual, then, was a source of deepening communal antagonisms rather than, as is sometimes assumed, a source of everyday bonhomie. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the soundness of understanding markets based on historically-grounded methodologies as of 2024. Topics covered include the availability of product and customer information that may influence market and other economic institutions design, an institutional account of markets, the epistemic preconditions of markets and market regulation, and a new frontline from products to customers. Also noted is the value of market situation inputs from those directly involved.

Transnational corporations are recasting themselves as midwives of women’s empowerment rather than vehicles of exploitation, pledging their supply chains as platforms of inclusive capitalism rather than conduits of adverse incorporation. In this contribution we interrogate that corporate promise of inclusion empirically, examining both the corporate apparatus of gender empowerment and the experiences of women entrepreneurs they claim to empower. Through a case study of a small women-owned enterprise in Nairobi, on its journey to inclusion in one of the world’s largest corporate supply chains, we chronicle the efforts of women entrepreneurs to be made ‘ready’ for the rewards of inclusion in the global marketplace. While TNCs invoke the shibboleth of inclusive markets – seeking to capture the moral currency it nets them – we reveal how the conversion to global supplier leaves small enterprises in Africa leveraged and dependent rather than secure and autonomous. In the end, we argue, the inclusive market becomes a vehicle of failed hopes and corporate control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gambir Tembung Market is one of the centers of community trading activities located in Percut Sei Tuan sub-district, Deli serdang regency. This market is located at the intersection of Tembung main road (Medan - Batang Kuis), Pasar VII street and gambir VIII market road which is the main access for the people of Deli Serdang to Medan City. The purpose of this study is to analyze and identify parking needs in Pasar Gambir Tembung, including the extent of parking demand and how much capacity is needed. The study as a whole will provide insight into the relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable, as well as how much the independent variable contributes to the dependent variable. From the results of the analysis of the parking space needs model, the number of parking areas needed by motorists when carrying out activities in Gambir Tembung Market is 2608,001 m2. The parking space requirement model that best represents the accumulated parking lot of Pasar Gambir Tembung is the variable power regression model Market Area (X1) with the equation Y=35.673+0.368X1 and an R-square value of 0.770. The conclusion of the parking space requirement model that best represents the accumulation of parking in Pasar Gambir Tembung is the variable power regression model Market Area (X1) with the equation Y = 35.673 + 0.368X1 and an R-square value of 0.770 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we consider the importance of trust, in the context of economic institutions, and specifically with respect to questions about market mechanisms and the role of social interactions. We review recent advances in institutional economics closely tied to developments in philosophy of mind and cognitive science, involving extended and enactive cognition. We argue that the analysis of different conceptions of institutional mind extension, in Denzau and North's shared mental models, Clark's extended mind, and a more enactive approach that emphasizes the importance of social interaction and personal relationships, can benefit from Kathrine Hawley's distinction between reliability and trust. Institutional arrangements based solely on the reliability of impersonal mechanisms can lead to a variety of social pathologies and, at the extreme, a form of cognitive atrophy, all of which can undermine the sustainability of institutions. Even if trust comes with risks and some degree of unpredictability, it turns out to be a necessary glue-like ingredient in the constitution of social institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the dynamics of neoliberal agrarian restructuring within the Turkish sugar industry, focusing on the 2018 privatization of the Alpullu Sugar Factory. The analysis examines the transformative impact of market dependence and land commodification on relationship of farmers with the agricultural sector. Specifically, it focuses on two significant neoliberal shifts that have altered the dynamics of farming. First, the withdrawal of state support in agricultural markets prompted farmers to diversify their income streams, leading to a transition from sugar beet cultivation to alternative crops and contemplation of urban migration. Second, in the 2000s, farmers, grappling with declining agricultural revenues, increasingly relied on private bank credits as a means of financial security. This shift was propelled by changes in agricultural policy regulations and the dissolution of state‐sponsored credit systems. Employing a blend of qualitative and quantitative research methods, this study elucidated these complex transformations and their profound impact on agrarian livelihoods, land ownership shifts, production strategies and market relationships. The research revealed the complex interplay of social, economic and historical dynamics steering the trajectory of the Turkish sugar industry, providing valuable insights into neoliberal restructuring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human milk (HM) is a highly evolutionary selected, complex biofluid, which provides tailored nutrition, immune system support and developmental cues that are unique to each maternal–infant dyad. In the absence of maternal milk, the World Health Organisation recommends vulnerable infants should be fed with screened donor HM (DHM) from a HM bank (HMB) ideally embedded in local or regional lactation support services. However, demand for HM products has arisen from an increasing awareness of the developmental and health impacts of the early introduction of formula and a lack of prioritisation into government‐funded and nonprofit milk banking and innovation. This survey of global nonprofit milk bank leaders aimed to outline the trends, commonalities and differences between nonprofit and for‐profit HM banking, examine strategies regarding the marketing and placement of products to hospital and public customers and outline the key social, ethical and human rights concerns. The survey captured information from 59 milk bank leaders in 30 countries from every populated continent. In total, five companies are currently trading HM products with several early‐stage private milk companies (PMCs). Products tended to be more expensive from PMC than HMB, milk providers were financially remunerated and lactation support for milk providers and recipients was not a core function of PMCs. Current regulatory frameworks for HM vary widely, with the majority of countries lacking any framework, and most others placing HM within food legislation, which does not include the support and care of milk donors and recipient prioritisation. Regulation as a Medical Product of Human Origin was only in place to prevent the sale of HM in four countries; export and import of HM was banned in two countries. This paper discusses the safety and ethical concerns raised by the commodification of HM and the opportunities policymakers have globally and country‐level to limit the potential for exploitation and the undermining of breastfeeding. Key messages: The number and scope of human milk (HM) profit‐making companies is increasing globallyCurrent regulatory frameworks for HM vary widelyProducts offered by private milk companies (PMCs) are generally more expensive than from HM banksSome PMCs are adopting marketing practices traditionally associated with breast milk substitute companies.The health benefits of HM‐based fortifiers compared to bovine milk‐based fortifiers are unclear and may be marginal [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uncovers a hitherto unnoticed pattern of communal segregation among establishments located in some of Delhi's most important bazars. It demonstrates that this pattern, emerging between 1913 and 1932, was driven by structural features of the ways in which Delhi's trade and retail interacted with communal violence in the 1920s. Those features include the dislocating effects of communal violence on bazars. More strident political activity by merchants, however, was important fuel to this fire. Merchants did not, also, restrict themselves to repeating communal tropes developed elsewhere. Their self-organisation gave shape to a conception of 'Hindu' and 'Muslim' trades. Rather than see a communal 'pre-Partition' in the 1930s, this evidence suggests that communal segregation was already well on the rise in the 1920s. Business as usual, then, was a source of deepening communal antagonisms rather than, as is sometimes assumed, a source of everyday bonhomie. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of an increasing world population and a subsequent need for an increase in sustainable and healthy food production, low trophic species, such as oysters, emerge as a promising alternative. However, regional variations in oyster production techniques, market dynamics, and consumption patterns create challenges for both the global and local industry's growth. In this study, a descriptive qualitative analysis of oyster markets across seven Atlantic regions was carried out. The Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas) was found to be farmed in most Atlantic regions except the US but is classified as invasive in Sweden and potentially invasive in South Africa. Other farmed and/or harvested species include native species (C. gasar and C. rhizophorae) in Brazil, the American cupped oyster (C. virginica) in the US, and the European flat oyster (Ostrea edulis) in France, Sweden, and the US. In Irish farms, Pacific oysters are primarily for export to European markets. The marine aquaculture sectors of Sweden, South Africa, and Namibia, as well as Brazil's farming for C. gasar, were found to be underdeveloped. This study also observed a variation in licensing, property rights, and regulatory frameworks. Financial challenges for small businesses, ecological implications of seed production techniques, biosecurity risks, and public health considerations are emphasized as critical areas for attention. This study offers valuable insights into the selected markets and can serve as a useful resource for policymakers, aquaculture practitioners, and stakeholders in optimizing global shellfish industry strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Markets are sites of collaboration as well as contestation between their various actors, including firms and consumers. In this respect, a narrative that consumers are more empowered than ever has been in vogue. Drawing from Kafka's literature and philosophy and the paradigm of critical marketing, this paper argues for a broadened perspective. Using a selective and exploratory-review approach, six dimensions of the state of today's consumer emerge. These are subsequently assessed and developed as manifestations challenging the empowerment thesis. The depiction of intense subjugation in Kafka's fiction and the lack of agency his characters portray furnish narrative frames to view the paradoxical state of contemporary consumption. Specifically, consumer choice and sovereignty, service failures and recoveries, privacy concerns, the capitalist nexus, transformation in service provisioning modes, and frontline employees' lowered stakes comprise six analytical frames of consumers' lives that depict their paradoxical simultaneity of empowerment and entrapment. The work contributes to critical marketing theory in particular and critical philosophy in general. Specifically, the proposed framework of consumption challenges depicted herein can serve as a mid-range theoretical taxonomy. The exemplar states highlighted reveal managerial and policy challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Where economists previously viewed the market as arising from a ‘spontaneous order’, antithetical to design, they now design markets to achieve specific purposes. This paper reconstructs how this change in what markets are and can do came about and considers some consequences. Two decisive developments in economic theory are identified: first, Hurwicz’s view of institutions as mechanisms, which should be designed to align incentives with social goals; and second, the notion of marketplaces – consisting of infrastructure and algorithms – which should be designed to exhibit stable properties. These developments have empowered economists to create marketplaces for specific purposes, by designing appropriate algorithms. I argue that this power to create marketplaces requires a shift in ethical reasoning, from whether markets should reach into certain spheres of life, to how market algorithms should be designed. I exemplify this shift, focusing on bias, and arguing that transparency should become a goal of market design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We ask how an increasing share of women or migrants in the workplace affects wages for different groups depending on market‐based or relational outcomes. Using data on nearly every French employee and workplace, we propose four theoretically informed outcomes. We do not find an increase in the share of women or migrants provokes a wage backlash but that these groups instead have some "power in numbers." Yet, most importantly, our results show demographic changes are conditioned by class position through a surplus appropriation mechanism. The share of women and the share of migrants in the professional and managerial class raise wages within this class especially for men and migrants in this class, respectively. We also find the entry of migrant workers puts downward pressure on worker wages—both natives and migrants. We offer an interpretation of these results based on the redistribution of labor costs when hiring employees like women and migrants who earn less on average. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do gender diversity quotas enhance firm value? This broad question has sparked significant debate because, whereas diversity is generally thought to improve board functioning, prior research in international settings suggests mandating diversity may have adverse consequences if it moves firms away from market equilibrium. Exploiting the political events leading up to the passage of California Senate Bill (SB) 826 as an exogenous shock to assess the market implications of board gender composition, we document either significantly positive or insignificant two-day abnormal returns for California firms across a variety of model specifications. Importantly, this finding contradicts the strong claims of contemporary studies of SB 826 that the California mandate was value-destructive. We reconcile these findings by providing critical evidence that contemporaneous results lack robustness to alternative model specifications and provide an incomplete picture by failing to comprehensively examine a broader set of event dates or account for mixed messaging on the final event date. We also provide some evidence of significant negative abnormal returns to litigation milestones that threaten to overturn SB 826 with the magnitude increasing in the size of board gender deficits. Finally, we provide evidence that there is no observable decline in newly appointed female director quality following the implementation of SB 826 relative to either preregulation or male director appointments. Collectively, our results suggest nonnegative (if not positive) consequences to California firms arising from SB 826 and directly counter assertions that mandated gender diversity is detrimental to firm value. This paper was accepted by Brian Bushee, accounting. Funding: The authors gratefully acknowledge research funding from Brigham Young University and the University of Toronto. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4825. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We are currently witnessing a global transition (albeit slow) towards new, more sustainable models of development and consumption. This transition activates and highlights a series of discrepancies between the various actors in agri-food marketing systems, including the institutions that govern regulatory and trade aspects. These discrepancies highlight that the global agri-marketing system does not provide adequate responses to the principles of sustainability. This is due to a mixture of opportunism, information asymmetries, and 'lock-in effects', which create serious market failures. This, in turn, brings structural holes, in which new forms of exchange are born. We identify these as nested markets: hybrid market forms that often use new information technologies and create a new form of proximity in which reciprocity and reputation play a central role. In this article, we argue that the market is not only the place where prices and quantities are assessed. Markets are complex social spaces, where more-or-less stable relationships are formed, based on values of reciprocity and reputation that contain opportunism. This article discusses the many well-documented cases of new markets. This article argues that these new markets are characterized by a strong specificity of the resources used (that include territory, sustainability, and solidarity). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the lives and activities of Afghan Sikhs living in the United Kingdom. Rather than analysing Afghan Sikhs as a one-dimensional "community" defined in relationship to a singular "identity" based on a shared geographical origin in Afghanistan, the article emphasises the ways in which they have formed multiple and dynamic networks across shifting geographical and historical contexts. Ethnographically, it focuses on the importance of commercial spaces, practices, and relations to the formation of such networks and the modes of social life within which these are entwined. The article argues that particular forms of everyday cosmopolitanism arise in the context of participation in long-distance commerce. Cosmopolitan sensibilities coexist with distinctions based on caste, language, and regional background, and are consciously regarded by some of the traders as markers of skill and social accomplishment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Directional change (DC) is an alternative to time series in recording transactions: it only records the transactions at which price changes to the opposite direction of the current trend by a threshold specified by the observer. DC can only be confirmed in hindsight: one does not know that direction has changed until it is confirmed by a later transaction. The transaction in which the price confirms a DC is called a DC confirmation point. DC nowcasting is an attempt to recognize DC before the DC confirmation point. Accurate DC nowcasting will benefit trading. In this paper, we propose a method for DC nowcasting. This method is entirely data driven: it is based on the historical distribution of DC‐related indicators. Empirical results suggest that DC nowcasting is possible, even under a naïve rule. This opens the door to a promising research direction on an important topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Floating markets are a unique form of traditional commercial business, playing an important role in waterway trade and featuring distinctively attractive local cultural values. Studies of floating markets not only provide insights into cultural heritage but also foster better conservation and effective destination marketing and promotion. Research data were collected from structured interviews with 80 merchants and 8 representatives of state management agencies responsible for culture and tourism. Moreover, unstructured interviews with 34 merchants were undertaken. Field observations and literature review also provided relevant sources of information to frame our research. The findings in this study indicate that floating markets in Vietnam have distinctive features that have been historically long formed as a consequence of both natural and socioeconomic factors. Floating markets are found to play a focal role in the socioeconomic and cultural development of the country. There are also some critical changes made to conventional spaces, trading boat quantity, travel and trading activities, community relations, and impacts in the floating markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]