David Bell

Bio: David Bell is an academic researcher from University of Leeds. The author has contributed to research in topics: Tourism & Queer. The author has an hindex of 52, co-authored 214 publications receiving 14873 citations. Previous affiliations of David Bell include University of California, Los Angeles & Staffordshire University.

The "84/14/2" rule revisited : what drives choice, incidence and quantity elasticities?

Abstract: A brand's total price elasticity, conditional on a purchase occasion, can be decomposed into three components: the brand choice, purchase incidence and purchase quantity elasticity. Gupta (1988) has analyzed this relationship within the context of a single product category. That study reported that the main impact of a price promotion falls on brand choice (84%), but to a lesser extent, purchase timing acceleration (14%) and stockpiling (2%), are also impacted. This research makes three new substantive contributions. First, while we confirm that the majority of the promotion effect is derived from choice, the relative emphasis on incidence and quantity varies systematically across categories. Storable products have relatively higher weight on quantity, perishable products have a higher weight on incidence. Second, we utilize a generalized least squares meta analysis procedure (Montgomery and Srinivasan, 1996) to show how factors such as marketing effort, category structure, brand franchise and consumer demographic variables influence elasticities. One key finding is that unpredictability of marketing effort has more influence on elasticity response than does relative levels of marketing effort. Third, we show that in several instances where important decision variables do not affect total elasticities, this is due to offsetting effects within two or more of the three behavioral components of elasticity. To calibrate our models, we use a multicategory scanner panel dataset to generate choice, incidence and quantity promotion elasticity estimates for 173 brands within 13 categories. Managerial implications for developing effective promotion strategies are discussed.

I Persevered with My Geography

Abstract: This personal reflection traces some of the interconnections between Stuart Hall's work and the “new” cultural geography. The author, in the context of his own intellectual biography and indebted to Hall and to those geographers whose work has been influenced by him, is interested in “routes” rather than “roots” and in the traffic between cultural studies and “critical” human geography. Drawing on a selection of Hall's work and a number of published interviews, the essay reflects on several moments of traffic and interchange. The discussion is partial and personal, rather than systematic, and tracks back and forth across a particular period when cultural studies exerted a significant influence on the discipline of geography, perhaps most notably in the United Kingdom. Beginning and ending in the current conjuncture, and taking in various stopping-off points along the way, the essay reflects on the legacy of this traffic in ideas.

Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community

Abstract: The present historical moment may seem a particularly inopportune time to review Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam's latest exploration of civic decline in America. After all, the outpouring of volunteerism, solidarity, patriotism, and self-sacrifice displayed by Americans in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks appears to fly in the face of Putnam's central argument: that \"social capital\" -defined as \"social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them\" (p. 19)'has declined to dangerously low levels in America over the last three decades. However, Putnam is not fazed in the least by the recent effusion of solidarity. Quite the contrary, he sees in it the potential to \"reverse what has been a 30to 40-year steady decline in most measures of connectedness or community.\"' As an example of how the current \"war on terrorism\" could generate a durable civic renewal, Putnam points to the burst in civic practices that occurred during and after World War II, which he says \"permanently marked\" the generation that lived through it and had a \"terrific effect on American public life over the last half-century.\" 3 If Americans can follow this example and channel their current civic

Economics of Information

Abstract: The author systematically examines one of the important issues of information — establishing the market price. He introduces the concept of «search» — where a buyer wanting to get a better price, is forced to question sellers. The article deals with various aspects of finding the necessary information.

Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists

Abstract: The demarcation of science from other intellectual activities-long an analytic problem for philosophers and sociologists-is here examined as a practical problem for scientists. Construction of a boundary between science and varieties of non-science is useful for scientists' pursuit of professional goals: acquisition of intellectual authority and career opportunities; denial of these resources to "pseudoscientists"; and protection of the autonomy of scientific research from political interference. "Boundary-work" describes an ideological style found in scientists' attempts to create a public image for science by contrasting it favorably to non-scientific intellectual or technical activities. Alternative sets of characteristics available for ideological attribution to science reflect ambivalences or strains within the institution: science can be made to look empirical or theoretical, pure or applied. However, selection of one or another description depends on which characteristics best achieve the demarcation in a way that justifies scientists' claims to authority or resources. Thus, "science" is no single thing: its boundaries are drawn and redrawn inflexible, historically changing and sometimes ambiguous ways.