Purchasing power

About: Purchasing power is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2714 publications have been published within this topic receiving 36866 citations. The topic is also known as: adjusted for inflation.

Financing Japan's World War II Occupation of Southeast Asia

Abstract: This paper analyzes how Japan financed its World War II occupation of Southeast Asia, the transfer of resources to Japan, and the monetary and inflation consequences of Japanese policies. In Malaya, Burma, Indonesia and the Philippines, the issue of military scrip to pay for resources and occupying armies greatly increased money supply. Despite high inflation, hyperinflation hardly occurred because of a sustained transactions demand for money, because of Japan's strong enforcement of monetary monopoly, and because of declining Japanese military capability to ship resources home. In Thailand and Indochina, occupation costs and bilateral clearing arrangements created near open-ended Japanese purchasing power and allowed the transfer to Japan of as much as a third of Indochina's annual GDP. Although the Thai and Indochinese governments financed Japanese demands mainly by printing large quantities of money, inflation rose only in line with monetary expansion due to money's continued use as a store of value in rice-surplus areas.

Senior Customers' Service Encounter Preferences

Abstract: Growing segment size and increasing affluence have resulted in a substantial increase in the purchasing power of the senior market Seniors spend a higher proportion of their total expenditure on s

Seniors and Information Technology: Are We Shrinking the Digital Divide?

Abstract: The "digital divide" has been present in the field of information technology (IT) since the inception of the digital computer. Throughout the course of history, one group (or more) has had better access to computer and information technology than another faction. For example: rich versus poor, young versus old, advanced societies versus less developed countries, etc. This disparity has existed for a variety of reasons, among them political, cultural, economic and even class or socioeconomic in nature. This paper examines one particular component of this phenomenon, the "gray divide" pertaining to the use of IT by our elderly, or senior citizens. By utilizing census data and marketing research, we paint a portrait of a vastly underrepresented target market pertaining to IT and IT-related products: our seniors. While the elderly have more assets and disposable income than their younger counterparts, by and large the IT industry is aimed squarely away from this ever-increasing group of consumers. We offer insights into this trend and offer suggestions for future research. INTRODUCTION The information technology phenomenon known as the "digital divide" has been present since the inception of the computer. The divide alludes to the notion of the "haves and have nots" pertaining to ownership, availability, and use of computers and information technology related products and services. This divide can take on many forms: young vs. old, rich vs. poor, developed nations vs. less developed nations, male vs. female, and so on. Ravi and Murthy (2003; 2004) note that the uneven diffusion of internet penetration rates (i.e., the divide) exist in many countries due to technological, political, social, and even cultural reasons. While there is certainly no doubt as to the existence of the divide and the myriad of potential explanations for it, we feel that marketers of IT and IT-related products are missing out on a potential bonanza or windfall of profits by not tailoring their wares to our elderly citizens. This paper examines the current state of the art with relation to the purchasing power of the elderly, IT products and services geared toward (or not toward) them, and the implications of shrinking this digital divide between the young and old. Impetus for the study Many of us take for granted simple computer tasks such as opening a file, cutting and pasting some text, saving a document and e-mailing it forthwith. It is through the wonder of these electronic aides that such global mass communication can progress on a daily basis, as the world becomes more and more digital every day. However, there is a very large and prosperous segment of our society that is all but forgotten in this age of automation and computer calisthenics. This vast subpopulation is known as the elderly, or perhaps more politically correct, seniors or senior citizens. It is indeed ironic that this oft-neglected demographic has, potentially, more assets and disposable income with which to spend on computers and information technology (IT) than any other single group in the USA and around the world. We believe that seniors would both spend more on IT, and use it more often, if they could overcome the many built-in obstacles and issues associated with the effective implementation of these tools in a senior setting. It is important that vendors of these products be aware of their offering's shortcomings if they want to cash in on this potential goldmine of opportunity. BACKGROUND We begin by noting that the elderly population among us continues to represent an increasing proportion of US, as well as worldwide, residents. It is estimated that almost 30% (29.4%) of American citizens are over the age of 50 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2006) and by 2030, one in five Americans (70 million) will be over 65 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004). Furthermore, the number of people over the age of 65 is increasing worldwide with the fastest growing subgroup those aged 80+ years (Czaja & Lee, 2007). …

The Purchasing Power of Money and Nominal Interest Rates: A Re-Examination

Abstract: While it has been known for some time that, under uncertainty, the original version of the Fisher hypothesis is not precisely correct, empirical researchers have largely ignored this fact. Such an omission has possibly resulted in erroneous conclusions concerning other hypotheses; most notably the impact of prices on the real economy. This paper clarifies some of the previous interpretations of the existing empirical literature and provides a theoretical version of the relation between prices and interest rates. Empirical tests based on both the Livingston survey data and data from time-series forecasting models provide support for the Fisher effect and the hypothesis that only covariance risk is priced in the Treasury bill market. ONE OF THE BASIC hypotheses concerning rationality in financial markets is based on statements generally attributed to Fisher [18]. Fisher argued that the nominal or money rate of return on an asset should compensate an investor for his or her required real rate of return and changes in the purchasing power of money. For the uncertainty case, Fisher replaced known purchasing power changes with the expected inflation rate. Whereas the Fisher relationship under certainty is well defined, his basic theorem under uncertainty is not precise. As Fama [15] has argued, it is changes in the purchasing power of money, not the inflation rate, that should concern investors. Under uncertainty, the expected value of one is not, by Jensen's inequality, the inverse of the expected value of the other. Moreover, Fama and Farber [16], Grauer and Litzenberger [20], and Benninga and Protopapadakis [3] have shown that, when investors are risk averse, the Fisher relationship will generally not hold, even after adjustment has been made for the distinction between purchasing power changes and the inflation rate. In particular, these authors show that an adjustment must be made for the fact that the real rate of return on nominal bonds is random. While these issues have been discussed in the theoretical literature, they have largely been ignored in the empirical work on this topic. Given the fact that nominal rates do not seem to adjust as rapidly to price changes as Fisher hypothesized, numerous empirical researchers have expanded the basic Fisher model in an attempt to explain this empirical anomaly. These extensions include the incorporation of (a) inflation rate variability and the growth in real output