Realistic Characteristics of Life in the Iron Mills Essay

Davis narrates the story with as much irony as she situates her story close to a nineteenth century factory where her characters were once employed, more importantly, where her male character, Hugh Wolfe who used to live in her home, a lowly Welsh immigrant who finds comfort working for an Iron Mill along with him Deborah—a pathetic, grotesque woman deprived of everything that the word beautiful stands for. Their tale is set in the city of Wheeling, Virginia where it is portrayed in a gloomy state, perhaps the idea of uneducated men and women that paced back and forth set up a negative feeling, the text â€Å"You may pick the Welsh emigrants, Cornish miners, out of the throng passing the windows, any day. They are a trifle more filthy; their muscles are not so brawny, they stoop more. When they are drunk, they neither yell, nor shout, nor stagger, but skulk along like beaten hounds. (Davis, Rebecca Harding. Copyright 1861. â€Å"Life in the Iron Mills†) describes the immigrants as poorly as they are deprived of any sort of luxury for the reason that in this time period the type of class you are in defines how other people should look at you, how they treat you, or even how you should live you life, your limitations. Only three people seem to symbolize the head, the heart, and the pocket of the middle-class: Kirby, Mitchell, and Doctor May. Kirby—being one of the mill owners is the source of abusiveness to the poor workers, Mitchell—being the constant joker, a sarcastic bastard who toyed with Wolfe’s feelings, and Doctor May whom Wolfe trusts despite her lack of will to heal Wolfe’s misery. Denied of free will, focal characters Deborah and Hugh could never really make a choice especially when it came for Hugh to decide if he should return the stolen money or continue to live in guilt. Back then, hardly does anyone reflect about the wellbeing of other people, alas, when the authorities finally jailed Hugh for his sin it was too late for him to repent for his immorality. Power is symbolized through money and how it separates the upper class from the lower class. It gives the wealthy a place of authority and destroys the unfortunate. Before Hugh committed suicide, he and Deborah spoke one last of their unidealized accent, â€Å"It is best, Deb. I cannot bear to be hurted any more. †Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬Å"Hur knows,† she said, humbly. Tell my father good-by; and–and kiss little Janey. † (Davis, Rebecca Harding. Copyright 1861. â€Å"Life in the Iron Mills†) which, despite its unconventional tongue, seems to say more than how it is read as, simply by saying farewell to Wolfe’s family. Sentimental Characteristics of Life in the Iron Mills In this context, in the midst of all the autocracy and injustice the workers only hope for survival is food. Yet the ‘hunger’ that is often mentioned in the story is not drawn to food alone but to the worker’s hunger for better lives. His words passed far over the furnace tender’s grasp, toned to suit another class of culture; they sounded in his ears a very pleasant song in an unknown tongue† (85). Davis suggests, in this text, that faith and hope are essential for these people to find happiness. Hugh Wolfe yearns to have a better life so he goes to church and pray for divine providence, yet when he hears the sermon it seemed to him that God only cared for the privileged. Yet, however contemptuous their lives may be and even though Wolfe decided to end his life in the end, certain occurrences have proved worthy of optimism. After Wolfe was buried, it seems that there is still hope for Deborah, as the text goes, â€Å"As the evening wore on, she leaned against the iron bars, looking at the hills that rose far off, through the thick sodden clouds, like a bright, unattainable calm. As she looked, a shadow of their solemn repose fell on her face: its fierce discontent faded into a pitiful, humble quiet. Slow, solemn tears gathered in her eyes: the poor weak eyes turned so hopelessly to the place where Hugh was to rest, the grave heights looking higher and brighter and more solemn than ever before. The Quaker watched her keenly. She came to her at last, and touched her arm. —â€Å"When thee comes back,† she said, in a low, sorrowful tone, like one who speaks from a strong heart deeply moved with remorse or pity, â€Å"thee shall begin thy life again,–there on the hills. I came too late; but not for thee,–by God’s help, it may be. † (Davis, Rebecca Harding. Copyright 1861. â€Å"Life in the Iron Mills†) this gives their ending a clearer view of Deborah may have wanted to live her life next after the treacherous event. With hope and the will to step forward and rise.

Four Basic Ways a Divisionally Structured Firm Could

There are four basic ways a divisionally structured firm could be organized. What are these four ways? Give an example of each. The four basic ways a divisionally structured firm could be organized are 1) by geographic area. An example of this would be any organization with similar branch facilities located in widely dispersed areas; 2) by product or service. Huffy is an example of divisional structure by product; 3) by customer. Book publishing companies often organize their activities around customer groups as college, secondary schools and private commercial schools; and 4) by process.An example of this is a manufacturing business organized into six divisions: electrical work, glass cutting, welding, grinding, painting and foundry work. Each division would be responsible for generating revenues and profits. Compare and contrast restructuring and reengineering. Restructuring involves reducing the size of the firm in terms of number of employees, number of divisions or units and num ber of hierarchical levels in the firm’s organizational structure. Restructuring is concerned primarily with shareholder well-being rather than employee well-being.In contrast, reengineering is concerned more with employee and customer well-being than shareholder well-being. Reengineering involves reconfiguring or redesigning work, jobs and processes for the purpose of improving cost, quality, service and speed. Whereas restructuring is concerned with eliminating or establishing, shrinking or enlarging, and moving organizational departments and divisions, the focus of reengineering is changing the way work is actually carried out. Reengineering is characterized by many tactical decisions, whereas restructuring is characterized by strategic decisions.

Obesity and Fast Food Essay

January 2009 Abstract. We investigate the health consequences of changes in the supply of fast food using the exact geographical location of fast food restaurants. Specifically, we ask how the supply of fast food affects the obesity rates of 3 million school children and the weight gain of over 1 million pregnant women. We find that among 9th grade children, a fast food restaurant within a tenth of a mile of a school is associated with at least a 5. 2 percent increase in obesity rates. There is no discernable effect at . 25 miles and at . 5 miles. Among pregnant women, models with mother fixed effects indicate that a fast food restaurant within a half mile of her residence results in a 2. 5 percent increase in the probability of gaining over 20 kilos. The effect is larger, but less precisely estimated at . 1 miles. In contrast, the presence of non-fast food restaurants is uncorrelated with obesity and weight gain. Moreover, proximity to future fast food restaurants is uncorrelated with current obesity and weight gain, conditional on current proximity to fast food. The implied effects of fast-food on caloric intake are at least one order of magnitude smaller for mothers, which suggests that they are less constrained by travel costs than school children. Our results imply that policies restricting access to fast food near schools could have significant effects on obesity among school children, but similar policies restricting the availability of fast food in residential areas are unlikely to have large effects on adults. The authors thank John Cawley and participants in seminars at the NBER Summer Institute, the 2009 AEA Meetings, the ASSA 2009 Meetings, the Federal Reserve Banks of New York and Chicago, The New School, the Tinbergen Institute, the Rady School at UCSD, and Williams College for helpful comments. We thank Cecilia Machado, Emilia Simeonova, Johannes Schmeider, and Joshua Goodman for excellent research assistance. We thank Glenn Copeland of the Michigan Dept. of Community Health, Katherine Hempstead and Matthew Weinberg of the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services, Craig Edelman of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Health, Rachelle Moore of the Texas Dept. of State Health Services, and Gary Sammet and Joseph Shiveley of the Florida Department of Health for their help in accessing the data. The authors are solely responsible for the use that has been made of the data and for the contents of this article. 1 1. Introduction The prevalence of obesity and obesity related diseases has increased rapidly in the U. S. since the mid 1970s. At the same time, the number of fast food restaurants more than doubled over the same time period, while the number of other restaurants grew at a much slower pace according to the Census of Retail Trade (Chou, Grossman, and Saffer, 2004). In the public debate over obesity it is often assumed that the widespread availability of fast food restaurants is an important determinant of the dramatic increases in obesity rates. Policy makers in several cities have responded by restricting the availability or content of fast food, or by requiring posting of the caloric content of the meals (Mcbride, 2008; Mair et al. 2005). But the evidence linking fast food and obesity is not strong. Much of it is based on correlational studies in small data sets. In this paper we seek to identify the causal effect of increases in the supply of fast food restaurants on obesity rates. Specifically, using a detailed dataset on the exact geographical location restaurant establishments, we ask how proximity to fast food affects the obesity rates of 3 million school children and the weight gain of over 1 million pregnant women. For school children, we observe obesity rates for 9th graders in California over several years, and we are therefore able to estimate cross-sectional as well fixed effects models that control for characteristics of schools and neighborhoods. For mothers, we employ the information on weight gain during pregnancy reported in the Vital Statistics data for Michigan, New Jersey, and Texas covering fifteen years. 1 We focus on women who have at least two children so that we can follow a given woman across two pregnancies and estimate models that include mother fixed effects. The design employed in this study allows for a more precise identification of the effect of fast-food on obesity compared to the previous literature (summarized in Section 2). First, we observe information on weight for millions of individuals compared to at most tens of thousand in the standard data sets with weight information such as the NHANES and the BRFSS. This substantially increases the power of our estimates. Second, we exploit very detailed geographical location information, including distances The Vital Statistics data reports only the weight gain and not the weight at the beginning (or end) of the pregnancy. One advantage of focusing on a longitudinal measure of weight gain instead of a measure of weight in levels is that only the recent exposure to fast-food should matter. 1 2 of only one tenth of a mile. By comparing groups of individuals who are at only slightly different distances to a restaurant, we can arguably diminish the impact of unobservable differences in characteristics between the two groups. Third, we have a more precise idea of the timing of exposure than many previous studies: The 9th graders are exposed to fast food near their new school from September until the time of a spring fitness test, while weight gain during pregnancy pertains to the 9 months of pregnancy. While it is clear that fast food is generally unhealthy, it is not obvious a priori that changes in the availability of fast food should be expected to have an impact on health. On the one hand, it is possible that proximity to a fast food restaurant simply leads local consumers to substitute away from unhealthy food prepared at home or consumed in existing restaurants, without significant changes in the overall amount of unhealthy food consumed. On the other hand, proximity to a fast food restaurant could lower the monetary and non-monetary costs of accessing unhealthy food. In addition, proximity to fast food may increase consumption of unhealthy food even in the absence of any decrease in cost if individuals have self-control problems. Ultimately, the effect of changes in the supply of fast food on obesity is an empirical question. We find that among 9th grade children, the presence of a fast-food restaurant within a tenth of a mile of a school is associated with an increase of about 1. 7 percentage points in the fraction of students in a class who are obese relative to the presence at. 25 miles. This effect amounts to a 5. 2 percent increase in the incidence of obesity. Since grade 9 is the first year of high school and the fitness tests take place in the Spring, the period of fast-food exposure is approximately 30 weeks, implying an increased caloric intake of 30 to 100 calories per school-day. The effect is larger in models that include school fixed effects. Consistent with highly non–linear transportation costs, we find no discernable effect at . 25 miles and at . 5 miles. The effect is largest for Hispanic students and female students. Among pregnant women, we find that a fast food restaurant within a half mile of a residence results in 0. 19 percentage points higher probability of gaining over 20kg. This amounts to a 2. 5 percent increase in the probability of gaining over 20 kilos. The effect is larger at . 1 miles, but in contrast to the results for 9th graders, it is still discernable at . 25 miles and at . 5 miles. The increase in weight implies an increased caloric intake of 1 to 4 3 calories per day in the pregnancy period. The effect varies across races and educational levels. It is largest for African American mothers and for mothers with a high school education or less. It is zero for mothers with a college degree or an associate’s degree. Overall, our findings suggest that increases in the supply of fast food restaurants have a significant effect on obesity, at least in some groups. However, it is in principle possible that our estimates reflect unmeasured shifts in the demand for fast food. Fast food chains are likely to open new restaurants where they expect demand to be strong, and higher demand for unhealthy food is almost certainly correlated with higher risk of obesity. The presence of unobserved determinants of obesity that may be correlated with increases in the number of fast food restaurants would lead us to overestimate the role of fast food restaurants. We can not entirely rule out this possibility. However, three pieces of evidence lend some credibility to our interpretation. First, we find that observable characteristics of the schools are not associated with changes in the availability of a fast food in the immediate vicinity of a school. Furthermore, we show that within the geographical area under consideration, fast food restaurants are uniformly distributed over space. Specifically, fast food restaurants are equally likely to be located within . 1, . 25, and . 5 miles of a school. We also find that after conditioning on mother fixed effects, the observable characteristics of mothers that predict high weight gain are negatively (not positively) related to the presence of a fast-food chain, suggesting that any bias in our estimates may be downward, not upward. While these findings do not necessarily imply that changes in the supply of fast food restaurants are orthogonal to unobserved determinants of obesity, they are at least consistent with our identifying assumption. Second, while we find that proximity to a fast food restaurant is associated with increases in obesity rates and weight gains, proximity to non fast food restaurants has no discernible effect on obesity rates or weight gains. This suggests that our estimates are not just capturing increases in the local demand for restaurant establishments. Third, we find that while current proximity to a fast food restaurant affects current obesity rates, proximity to future fast food restaurants, controlling for current proximity, has no effect on current obesity rates and weight gains. Taken together, the weight of the 4 evidence is consistent with a causal effect of fast food restaurants on obesity rates among 9th graders and on weight gains among pregnant women. The results on the impact of fast-food on obesity are consistent with a model in which access to fast-foods increases obesity by lowering food prices or by tempting consumers with self-control problems. 2 Differences in travel costs between students and mothers could explain the different effects of proximity. Ninth graders have higher travel costs in the sense that they are constrained to stay near the school during the school day, and hence are more affected by fast-food restaurants that are very close to the school. For this group, proximity to fast-food has a quite sizeable effect on obesity. In contrast, for pregnant women, proximity to fast-food has a quantitatively small (albeit statistically significant) impact on weight gain. Our results suggest that a ban on fast-foods in the immediate proximity of schools could have a sizeable effect on obesity rates among affected students. However, a similar attempt to reduce access to fast food in residential neighborhoods would be unlikely to have much effect on adult consumers. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. In Section 2 we review the existing literature. In Section 3 we describe our data sources. In Section 4, we present our econometric models and our empirical findings. Section 5 concludes. 2. Background While the main motivation for focusing on school children and pregnant women is the availability of geographically detailed data on weight measures for a very large sample, they are important groups to study in their own right. Among school aged children 6-19 rates of overweight have soared from about 5% in the early 1970s to 16% in 1999-2002 (Hedley et al. 2004). These rates are of particular concern given that children who are overweight are more likely to be overweight as adults, and are increasingly suffering from diseases associated with obesity while still in childhood (Krebs and Jacobson, 2003). At the same time, the fraction of women gaining over 60 2 Consumers with self-control problems are not as tempted by fatty foods if they first have to incur the transportation cost of walking to a fast-food restaurant. Only when a fast-food is right near the school, the temptation of the fast-food looms large. For an overview of the role of self-control in economic applications, see DellaVigna (2009). A model of cues in consumption (Laibson, 2001) has similar implications: a fast-food that is in immediate proximity from the school is more likely to trigger a cue that leads to over-consumption. 5 pounds during pregnancy doubled between 1989 and 2000 (Lin, forthcoming). Excessive weight gain during pregnancy is often associated with higher rates of hypertension, C-section, and large-for-gestational age infants, as well as with a higher incidence of later maternal obesity (Gunderson and Abrams, 2000; Rooney and Schauberger, 2002; Thorsdottir et al. , 2002; Wanjiku and Raynor, 2004). 3 Moreover, Figure 1 shows that the incidence of low APGAR scores (APGAR scores less than 8), an indicator of poor fetal health, increases sharply with weight gain above about 20 kilograms. Critics of the fast food industry point to several features that may make fast food less healthy than other types of restaurant food (Spurlock, 2004; Schlosser, 2002). These include low monetary and time costs, large portions, and high calorie density of signature menu items. Indeed, energy densities for individual food items are often so high that it would be difficult for individuals consuming them not to exceed their average recommended dietary intakes (Prentice and Jebb, 2003). Some consumers may be particularly vulnerable. In two randomized experimental trials involving 26 obese and 28 lean adolescents, Ebbeling et al. (2004) compared caloric intakes on â€Å"unlimited fast food days† and â€Å"no fast food days†. They found that obese adolescents had higher caloric intakes on the fast food days, but not on the no fast food days. The largest fast food chains are also characterized by aggressive marketing to children. One experimental study of young children 3 to 5 offered them identical pairs of foods and beverages, the only difference being that some of the foods were in McDonald’s packaging. Children were significantly more likely to choose items perceived to be from McDonald’s (Robinson et al.2007). Chou, Grossman, and Rashad (forthcoming) use data from the National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS) 1979 and 1997 cohorts to examine the effect of exposure to fast food advertising on overweight among children and adolescents. In ordinary least squares (OLS) models, they find significant effects in most specifications. 4 3 According to the Centers for Disease Control, obesity and excessive weight gain are independently associated with poor pregnancy outcomes. Recommended weight gain is lower for obese women than in others. (http://www. cdc.gov/pednss/how_to/read_a_data_table/prevalence_tables/birth_outcome. htm) 4 They also estimate instrumental variables (IV) models using the price of advertising as an instrument. However, while they find a significant â€Å"first stage†, they do not report the IV estimates because tests 6 Still, a recent review of the considerable epidemiological literature about the relationship between fast food and obesity (Rosenheck, 2008) concluded that â€Å"Findings from observational studies as yet are unable to demonstrate a causal link between fast food consumption and weight gain or obesity†. Most epidemiological studies have longitudinal designs in which large groups of participants are tracked over a period of time and changes in their body mass index (BMI) are correlated with baseline measures of fast food consumption. These studies typically find a positive link between obesity and fast food consumption. However, existing observational studies cannot rule out potential confounders such as lack of physical activity, consumption of sugary beverages, and so on. food. 5 There is also a rapidly growing economics literature on obesity, reviewed in Philipson and Posner (2008). Economic studies place varying amounts of emphasis on increased caloric consumption as a primary determinant of obesity (a trend that is consistent with the increased availability of fast food). Using data from the NLSY, Lakdawalla and Philipson (2002) conclude that about 40% of the increase in obesity from 1976 to 1994 is attributable to lower food prices (and increased consumption) while the remainder is due to reduced physical activity in market and home production. Bleich et al. (2007) examine data from several developed countries and conclude that increased caloric intake is the main contributor to obesity. Cutler et al. (2003) examine food diaries as well as time use data from the last few decades and conclude that rising obesity is linked to increased caloric intake and not to reduced energy expenditure. 6 7 Moreover, all of these studies rely on self-reported consumption of fast suggest that advertising exposure is not endogenous. They also estimate, but do not report individual fixed effects models, because these models have much larger standard errors than the ones reported. 5 A typical question is of the form â€Å"How often do you eat food from a place like McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut, Burger King or some other fast food restaurant? † 6 They suggest that the increased caloric intake is from greater frequency of snacking, and not from increased portion sizes at restaurants or fattening meals at fast food restaurants. They further suggest that technological change has lowered the time cost of food preparation which in turn has lead to more frequent consumption of food. Finally, they speculate that people with self control problems are over-consuming in response to the fall in the time cost of food preparation. Cawley (1999) discusses a similar behavioral theory of obesity as a consequence of addiction. 7 Courtemanche and Carden examine the impact on obesity of Wal-Mart and warehouse club retailers such as Sam’s club, Costco and BJ’s wholesale club which compete on price. They link store location data to individual data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS. ) They find that non-grocery selling Wal-Mart stores reduce weight while non-grocery selling stores and warehouse clubs either reduce weight or have no effect. Their explanation is that reduced prices for everyday purchases expand real 7 A series of recent papers explicitly focus on fast food restaurants as potential contributors to obesity. Chou et al. (2004) estimate models combining state-level price data with individual demographic and weight data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance surveys and find a positive association between obesity and the per capita number of restaurants (fast food and others) in the state. Rashad, Grossman, and Chou (2005) present similar findings using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. Anderson and Butcher (2005) investigate the effect of school food policies on the BMI of adolescent students using data from the NLSY97. They assume that variation in financial pressure on schools across counties provides exogenous variation in availability of junk food in the schools. They find that a 10 percentage point increase in the probability of access to junk food at school can lead to about 1 percent increase in students’ BMI. Anderson, Butcher and Schanzenbach (2007) examine the elasticity of children’s BMI with respect to mother’s BMI and find that it has increased over time, suggesting an increased role for environmental factors in child obesity. Anderson, Butcher, and Levine (2003) find that maternal employment is related to childhood obesity, and speculate that employed mothers might spend more on fast food. Cawley and Liu (2007) use time use data and find that employed women spend less time cooking and are more likely to purchase prepared foods. The paper that is closest to ours is a recent study by Anderson and Matsa (2009) that focuses on the link between eating out and obesity using the presence of Interstate highways in rural areas as an instrument for restaurant density. Interstate highways increase restaurant density for communities adjacent to highways, reducing the travel costs of eating out for people in these communities. They find no evidence of a causal link between restaurants and obesity. Using data from the USDA, they argue that the lack of an effect is due to the presence of selection bias in restaurant patrons –people who eat out also consume more calories when they eat at home–and the fact that large portions at restaurants are offset by lower caloric intake at other times of the day. Our paper differs from Anderson and Matsa (2009) in four important dimensions, and these four differences are likely to explain the difference in our findings. incomes, enabling households to substitute away from cheap unhealthy foods to more expensive but healthier alternatives. 8 (i) First, our data allow us to distinguish between fast food restaurants and other restaurants. We can therefore estimate separately the impact of fast-foods and of other restaurants on obesity. In contrast, Anderson and Matsa do not have data on fast food restaurants and therefore focus on the effect of any restaurant on obesity. This difference turns out to be crucial, because when we estimate the effect of any restaurant on obesity using our data we also find no discernible effect on obesity. (ii) Second, we have a very large sample that allows us to identify even small effects, such as mean increases of 50 grams in the weight gain of mothers during pregnancy. Our estimates of weight gain for mothers are within the confidence interval of Anderson and Matsa’s two stage least squares estimates. Put differently, based on their sample size, our statistically significant estimates would have been considered statistically insignificant. (iii) Third, our data give us the exact location of each restaurant, school and mother. The spatial richness of our data allows us to examine the effect of fast food restaurants on obesity at a very detailed geographical level. For example, we can distinguish the effect at . 1 miles from the effect at . 25 miles. As it turns out, this feature is quite important, because the effects that we find are geographically extremely localized. For example, we find that fast food restaurant have an effect on 9th graders only for distances of . 1 miles or less. By contrast, Anderson and Matsa use a city as the level of geographical analysis. It is not surprising that at this level of aggregation the estimated effect is zero. (iv) Fourth, Anderson and Matsa’s identification strategy differs from ours, since we do not use an instrument for fast-food availability and focus instead on changes in the availability of fast-foods at very close distances. The populations under consideration are also different, and may react differently to proximity to a fast food restaurant. Anderson and Matsa focus on predominantly white rural communities, while we focus on primarily urban 9th graders and urban mothers. We document that the effects vary considerable depending on race, with blacks and Hispanics having the largest effect. Indeed, when Dunn (2008) uses an instrumental variables approach similar to the one used Anderson and Matsa based on proximity to freeways, he finds no effect for rural areas and for 9 whites in suburban areas, but strong effect for blacks and Hispanics. As we show below, we also find stronger effects for minorities. Taken together, these four differences lead us to conclude that the evidence in Anderson and Matsa is consistent with our evidence. 8 In summary, there is strong evidence of correlations between fast food consumption and obesity. It has been more difficult to demonstrate a causal role for fast food. In this paper we tap new data in an attempt to test the causal connection between fast food and obesity. 3. Data Sources and Summary Statistics Data for this project comes from three sources. (a) School Data. Data on children comes from the California public schools for the years 1999 and 2001 to 2007. The observations for 9th graders, which we focus on in this paper, represent 3. 06 million student-year observations. In the spring, California 9th graders are given a fitness assessment, the FITNESSGRAM ®. Data is reported at the class level in the form of the percentage of students who are obese, and who have acceptable levels of abdominal strength, aerobic capacity, flexibility, trunk strength, and upper body strength. Obesity is measured using actual body fat measures, which are considerably more accurate than the usual BMI measure (Cawley and Burkhauser, 2006). Data is also reported for sub-groups within the school (e. g. by race and gender) provided the cells have at least 10 students. Since grade 9 is the first year of high school and the fitness tests take place in the Spring, this impact corresponds to approximately 30 weeks of fast-food exposure. 9 This administrative data set is merged to information about schools (including the percent black, white, Hispanic, and Asian, percent immigrant, pupil/teacher ratios, fraction eligible for free lunch etc. ) from the National Center for Education Statistic’s Common Core of Data, as well as to the Start test scores for the 9th grade. The location of the school was also geocoded using ArcView. Finally, we merged in information. 8 9 See also Brennan and carpenter (2009). In very few cases, a high school is in the same location as a middle school, in which case the estimates reflect a longer-term impact of fast-food. 10 about the nearest Census block group of the school from the 2000 Census including the median earnings, percent high-school degree, percent unemployed, and percent urban. (b) Mothers Data. Data on mothers come from Vital Statistics Natality data from Michigan, New Jersey, and Texas. These data are from birth certificates, and cover all births in these states from 1989 to 2003 (from 1990 in Michigan). For these three states, we were able to gain access to confidential data including mothers names, birth dates, and addresses, which enabled us both to construct a panel data set linking births to the same mother over time, and to geocode her location (again using ArcView). The Natality data are very rich, and include information about the mother’s age, education, race and ethnicity; whether she smoked during pregnancy; the child’s gender, birth order, and gestation; whether it was a multiple birth; and maternal weight gain. We restrict the sample to singleton births and to mothers with at least two births in the sample, for a total of over 3. 5 million births. (c) Restaurant Data. Restaurant data with geo-coding information come from the National Establishment Time Series Database (Dun and Bradstreet). These data are used by all major banks, lending institutions, insurance and finance companies as the primary system for creditworthiness assessment of firms. As such, it is arguably more precise and comprehensive than yellow pages and business directories. 10 We obtained a panel of virtually all firms in Standard Industrial Classification 58 from 1990 to 2006, with names and addresses. Using this data, we constructed several different measures of â€Å"fast food† and â€Å"other restaurants,† as discussed further in Appendix 1. In this paper, the benchmark definition of fast-food restaurants includes only the top-10 fast-food chains, namely, Mc Donalds, Subway, Burger King, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Little Caesars, KFC, Wendy’s, Dominos Pizza, and Jack In The Box. We also show estimates using a broader definition that includes both chain restaurants and independent burger and pizza restaurants. Finally, we also measure the supply of non-fast food restaurants. The definition of â€Å"other restaurants† changes with the definition of fast food. Appendix Table 1 lists the top 10 fast food chains as well as examples of restaurants that we did not classify as fast food. The yellow pages are not intended to be a comprehensive listing of businesses – they are a paid advertisement. Companies that do not pay are not listed. 10 11 Matching. Matching was performed using information on latitude and longitude of restaurant location. Specifically, we match the schools and mother’s residence to the closest restaurants using ArcView software. For the school data, we match the results on testing for the spring of year t with restaurant availability in year t-1. For the mother data, we match the data on weight gain during pregnancy with restaurant availability in the year that overlaps the most with the pregnancy. Summary Statistics. Using the data on restaurant, school, and mother’s locations, we constructed indicators for whether there are fast food or other restaurants within . 1, . 25, and . 5 miles of either the school or the mother’s residence. Table 1a shows summary characteristics of the schools data set by distance to a fast food restaurant. Here, as in most of the paper, we use the narrow definition of fast-food, including the top-10 fast-food chains. Relatively few schools are within . 1 miles of a fast food restaurant, and the characteristics of these schools are somewhat different than those of the average California school. Only 7% of schools have a fast food restaurant within . 1 miles, while 65% of all schools have a fast food restaurant within 1/2 of a mile. 11 Schools within . 1 miles of a fast food restaurant have more Hispanic students, a slightly higher fraction of students eligible for free lunch, and lower test scores. They are also located in poorer and more urban areas. The last row indicates that schools near a fast food restaurant have a higher incidence of obese students than the average California school. Table 1b shows a similar summary of the mother data. Again, mothers who live near fast food restaurants have different characteristics than the average mother. They are younger, less educated, more likely to be black or Hispanic, and less likely to be married. 4. Empirical Analysis We begin in Section 4. 1 by describing our econometric models and our identifying assumptions. In Section 4. 2 we show the correlation between restaurant location and student characteristics for the school sample, and the correlation between The average school in our sample had 4 fast foods within 1 mile and 24 other restaurants within the same radius. 11 12 restaurant location and mother characteristics for the mother sample. Our empirical estimates for students and mothers are in Section 4. 3 and 4. 4, respectively. 13 4. 1 Econometric Specifications Our empirical specification for schools is (1) Yst = ? F1st + ? F25st + ? F50st + ? ’ N1st + ? ’ N25st + ? ’ N50st + ? Xst + ? Zst + ds + est where Yst is the fraction of students in school s in a given grade who are obese in year t; F1st is an indicator equal to 1 if there is a fast food restaurant within . 1 mile from the school in year t; F25st is an indicator equal to 1 if there is a fast food restaurant within . 25 miles from the school in year t; F50st is an indicator equal to 1 if there is a fast food restaurant within . 5 mile from the school in year t; N1st, N25st and N50st are similar indicators for the presence of non-fast food restaurants within . 1, . 25 and . 5 miles from the school; ds is a fixed effect for the school. The vectors Xst and Zst include school and neighborhood time-varying characteristics that can potentially affect obesity rates. Specifically, Xst is a vector of school-grade specific characteristics including fraction blacks, fraction native Americans, fraction Hispanic, fraction immigrants, fraction female, fraction eligible for free lunch, whether the school is qualified for Title I funding, pupil/teacher ratio, and 9th grade tests scores, as well as school-district characteristics such as fraction immigrants, fraction of non-English speaking students (LEP/ELL), share of IEP students. Zst is a vector of characteristics of the Census block closest to the school including median income, median earnings, average household size, median rent, median housing value, percent white, percent black, percent Asian, percent.

Discussion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 136

Discussion - Essay Example Narratives are segregated into three parts, the beginning, middle, and the end. Wars have protagonists and antagonists that can be shaped to rationalize a topic in any work of art. However, war narratives including even the most thoughtful ones often face constraints. For instance, Full Metal Jacket, shows war as violent occurrence, brutal and awful. However, it equally turns war into a current narrative. In contentious films such as Meal jacket, the horrors are made part of the Joker’s change from a defenseless civilian to a perverse warrior who is no longer fearful. Adornos use of the term barbaric majorly in reference to writing poetry after Auschwitz was not intended to castigate poets and artists. It is implied in Adorno’s dictum that writing literature from differend is barbaric. Gallows humor is good in relieving the extreme emotional attachment that the audience may develop in the case of heart wrecking literature. In essence, Gallows humor relegates the seriousness that the society attaches to some occurrences such as death, crime, and disease. The use of gallows humor expresses the resistance of the ego to provocations and

Story of my leadership Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Story of my leadership - Assignment Example He should be able to portray optimism even in the face of adversity. This type of leadership advocates for what would be referred to us intellectual stimulation. Offering a room for creativity free from a lot of red tapes predisposes leader’s followers to a greater level of confidence. The followers are able to effectively connect with their leader without fear of any punitive measures against them. In this leadership model, a leader should be able to enhance positive change among his followers. It focuses on the personality of the leader instead of the actions of the same leader. To effect change and impart it among individuals requires a lot of assertiveness which is a must trait that a leader should posses if not learn. Change may be costly to an organization if not handled in the right manner. It includes all aspects of change be it a positive change or negative change. Change involves transition and is complex in nature. Without extreme care, several factors are likely to go wrong and this is one major challenge to transformational leadership model. For change to be effective and minimize negative challenges that are most likely to occur, three dimensional aspects need to be adequately addressed. These include, inspiring and motivating those affected by change. This includes emotional motivation. Emerging factors in the post change phase and their impacts must adequately be addressed. Management of people’s actions that assist them in undertaking whatever is expected of

None Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

None - Essay Example This would be a step towards identifying any more risks of injury that may be associated with the product. In the report to be presented, I will identify the product and also make an accurate description of it as per the regulations of the commission. In the report, I will make sure that I include the name of the manufacturer as well as the distributors of the product that I have information on while stating the nature and extent of the defect that is in the product. I would also include my name and address in the report even though I will hope that the commission keep this confidential since I would not want to be victimized by the management of the company for reporting about the defect to the commission. The decision to report the defects to the commission would be a difficult one since I would have to surrender the reports without the approval of the directors and from previous experience, the board of directors does not tolerate the employees who present to them their findings on the defect and this might be the same action that is taken against me. Nevertheless, I will approach them with the information prior to making the report to the commission. Regardless of the outcome of the presentation of the information to the directors, I will ensure that they commission gets the report and although this is a difficult decision since am new to the job and there is a possibility that reporting about the defects will lead to my dismissal. I consider the USD 5000 that I am being asked to pay on behalf of Green Move to have the Zero Pedal on the shelves of a Sporting goods store illegal since in my opinion, it is tantamount to a bribe. The store should stock the goods depending on the demand by the customers since if the demand is available and the store is not willing to stock the Zero Pedal, then other stores that are willing bring the product closer to the

Introduction to Shipping Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Introduction to Shipping - Essay Example This paper aims at explaining the design process and factors to be considered with the building of a commercial ship and describing the scope and scale of the international shipping industry. A ship design process refers to a process in which the ship owner description and requirements are set into specifications, drawing, and technical information needed for the actual building of the ship. This process is always led by a naval architect but highly contributed to by designers, engineers and many other relevant professionals. The ship designing process is subdivided into various phases. During each phase, the design is improved by increasing the level of details. The owners specification about the ship to be designed must contain detailed about fuel endurance, cargo capacity in terms of volume and weight, and speed (Okumoto 2009, p. 64). The building and operation cost are determined by the owner. The ship design process mainly consists of four stages. These stages are: identification of needs; definition of requirements; selection of the design criteria and development of solution framework. The process can also be phased into three phases namely: initial design, basic design, and the detailed design. This nature of the process can be referred to as a design spiral methodology and strategy. Given that the design requirements is not always similar for all ship owners, it is always important to make use of the relevant tools and experience in incorporating different and conflicting expectations and requirements in design missions (Barrass 2004, p. 101). At the initial design stage, the design team has the task of determining the parameters that are supposed to be the basis for the optimal ship dimensions. The team should also hull form development and also propulsion auxiliary systems and system selection in accordance to the requirements of the owner. This stage of design is mainly characterized by analysis

How Do We Forgive Our Fathers (Poem) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

How Do We Forgive Our Fathers (Poem) - Essay Example The speaker of the poem is most probably a son, a son who faces the double dilemmas of knowing himself and knowing his father, without losing touch with his own identity. The poem suggests that a father’s masculinity defines his personality, which in turn, shapes his attitudes and behaviors as a husband and a father to his family; in other words, masculinity develops and delimits his destiny, a destiny that is intertwined with his children’s identities. In the first stanza, the poem looks at his father through the haze of the past and the future. The first line states: â€Å"How do we forgive our Fathers?† (Lourie 1). These words ask all children about forgiving their fathers. â€Å"Fathers† is capitalized, which makes it more personal because a son would say â€Å"Father† not â€Å"father.† It is in plural form too, which connotes the universality of having fathers as a shared experience. The first line also evokes the image of a father who must be forgiven. The speaker no longer asks if people need to forgive their fathers, but focuses on the process, the â€Å"how.† Apparently, the speaker does not know the process of forgiving someone as important in his life as a father. The poet continues the thought to the second line, which states: â€Å"Maybe in a dream† (Lourie 2). ... The future may be bleak when children have a hard time forgiving their fathers. The question of forgiveness is perceived with both hesitation and opportunity. The next few lines of the first stanza introduce the greatest faults of fathers in general. The third line continues to the idea of fathers’ deficiencies. It states: â€Å"Do we forgive our Fathers for leaving us too often or forever† (Lourie 3). Instead of answering the question â€Å"how,† the poet refers to the reasons why people have to forgive their fathers. The shift of the content from the â€Å"how† to the â€Å"why† provides a clearer explanation of the context of forgiveness. What have fathers done to be forgiven? The poet answers that fathers sometimes leave their families too much or forever, wherein â€Å"too often† means they always have to go to work, and for their spare time, they drink or spend it with their colleagues and friends. This aspect of fatherhood highlights c lass, race, and gender issues. The working class, especially low-income minority groups, spends their lifetime working to make ends meet. As fathers, the patriarchal society expects them to be the breadwinners, which is a gender issue. As men of the house, they must make money, or else, society questions their masculinity. To leave â€Å"forever,† on the contrary, means that the father has abandoned his family. He has sired a child and left him/her to his/her mother. This kind of fatherhood is criticized, but not as blatantly as mothers who abandon their children. Somehow, a masculine world condones abandoning fathers as an acceptable norm. These reasons for forgiving fathers are important because they undermine the essence of a father. A father who is gone or almost always gone can hardly be a father in

Newton, Leibniz, and the Invention of Calculus Essay

Newton, Leibniz, and the Invention of Calculus - Essay Example The theorem was the start of the Newton’s mathematical innovation (Dunham 6). In 1666, Newton made his first contribution to calculus through the introduction of fluxions. In the late 1665 before his first publication, Newton had made studies on the tangent problems by combining velocity components of the moving points in a proper coordinate system. This was vital for the introduction of fluxions which is a key component in geometric applications (Edwards 191). Newton was capable of exploiting the concepts of antidifferentiation and differentiation by the substitution methods. This is the equivalent of what is called integration and chain rule by substitution. This is essential in the building of calculus of fluxions (Edwards 196). Newton applied the method of successive approximations in his De Analysi to the reversion of series. Newton proceeds further to use the technique of reversion of series in the discovery of sine and cosine series (Edwards

Boston Tea Party Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Boston Tea Party - Research Paper Example Boston Tea Party indeed happened to be one of the first significant acts of defiance against the British. It did put to test the sovereignty of the British Parliament and the King. It put to question the British right of ruling a people who were not only losing touch with Britain but were also getting increasingly sovereign and independent. The Boston Tea Party marked the colonies frustration over representation and laid down the foundation of the future notion of self governance. To put it simply, in the history of the United States, the Boston Tea Party signified the spirit of change, radical action and an idea of governance accruing moral bearing from the actual will of the people. It would be really interesting to delve into the political genesis of the Boston Tea Party. For the British the victory in the French and the India wars did indeed turn out to be utterly costly (Volo 238). Thereby the British monarchy and the Parliament did look to taxing the American colonies as a possible way out of bearing with the high costs incurred during the French and the Indian wars in 1763 (Volo 238). Besides the Britain was also looking forwards to consolidate its hold over the American colonies that had become increasingly distant and independent as the home nation remained embroiled in wars. The political ineptitude of Britain culminating in a series of taxes like the Stamp Act of 1765, the Townsend Acts of 1767 and the hurting and painful Boston Massacre immensely innervated and agitated the colonies and badly impacted their relationship with Britain, leading to much mutual resentment and disappointment (Volo110). Eventually it was the British ploy to tax the tea consu med by the colonies that laid down the foundations of the Boston Tea Party. The colonists refused to pay many of the levies imposed by the British Parliament, denying abiding by the taxes that were envisioned and imposed by a political institution in which they were denied any

Ethics and Business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Ethics and Business - Essay Example According to its simplest definition, business ethics refers to the practice of differentiating what is right and what is wrong. Everyday, businesses find themselves faced with decisions, which make a strong impact on the lives of the stakeholders of the company. Important here to note is that stakeholders just not only include the â€Å"employees, customers, investors, debtors, shareholders, suppliers, distributors and competitors† (Wicks, Freeman, Werhane, & Martin, pp. 85-86, 2009) of the company but they also go on to include the entire society or community with which they are working. There are various reasons why companies should care about ethics and ethical behavior at their organizations. First, gone are the days when business had great bargaining power and customers were only concerned with their products and services. Globalization and revolution in information technology have changed everything and customers are now more aware than ever. Furthermore, with increased competition, businesses now have no choice but to fulfill the needs of customers regarding the information that they want (Beauchamp, Bowie & Arnold, pp. 41-48, 2008). Thanks to the vigilant media, journalists, governmental agencies and other watchdogs, that any potential news about any irresponsibility, ignorance environmental protection, injustice to stakeholders and other forms of unethical conduct, sooner or later, reaches straight to the customers in flashes. In addition, when it does, customers have shown that they have the power to stage boycotts, protests and blacklist the company in the eyes of all customers. Therefore, it is in the best interests of the company and its stakeholders to ensure ethical conduct at all times (Henn, pp. 320-324, 2009). Second, when a company actually ensures ethical behavior with the insiders and outsiders, it acts as a vital source to motivate the employees. When employees know that they are indirectly working for a company, which is better th an other companies or the organization, is not harming other unlike others or it is working for a cause as well, employees listen to their inside voice which tells them to work harder to be a part of it (Henn, pp. 320-324, 2009). Companies, which have championed corporate social responsibility and ethical behavior, have had lesser employee turnover as compared to others. Furthermore, ethical companies are not only able to retain talent, but they also attract more talented and skilled people than others that allow them to have a greater pool of candidates (Wicks, Freeman, Werhane, & Martin, pp. 85-86, 2009). Third, marketing remains an important aspect of the business. Marketing ensures that company generates enough value for the customers to satisfy their needs and earn appropriate revenues. However, an important aspect of marketing is promotion of the product, in the absence of which the business has no reason to survive because if the customer does not know about the product in th e way in which the company desires then there is little no point in running the business (George, pp. 254-256, 2006). With the passage of time and especially over the past few decades, promotion is becoming an expensive and troublesome activity for various businesses. It is becoming impossible to reach the desired customers with traditional means of promotion. Customers have greater control over their telephones, emails, TV sets and others. Furthermo

Formative Evaluation Essay Example for Free

Formative Evaluation Essay The processes of evaluation depend mainly on the purpose of the evaluation and the object to be evaluated. There are many processes of evaluation, but the most important basic distinction in these processes is between formative and summative. Formative Evaluation In this process, the evaluation is done on the strengths, weaknesses and even on how to improve the object. It is usually done by examining the delivery of the service or the technology, implementation of the quality, and the assessment of the organizational personnel, procedures, and context among others. The formative evaluation can be subdivided into the following types of evaluation which are very essential: assessment evaluation, which is used in order to determine the feasibility of the evaluation and how the administrators, sponsors, donors among others can help to improve its usefulness; process evaluation, this mainly involves investigation of the process of service or technology delivery and other alternative delivery processes; needs assessment, this is used to determine who needs the program, the greatness of the need, and even how to meet the need; and lastly, implementation evaluation, which involves the monitoring of the fidelity of service or technology deliverance ( Trochim, 2006). Summative evaluation This process of evaluation examines the outcomes of the effects of some object on the service or technological deliverance. It usually describes what happens subsequent to technology or service delivery, assess whether the object caused the observed outcome, and even est imate the cost associated with the object. The summative evaluation consists of several types and these include: impact evaluation, this usually involves the assessment of the overall effects of the service or the technology; outcome evaluation, this deals with investigating whether the service or the technology caused the effects on that specific target outcome; cost effectiveness and benefit analysis, which deals with questions of efficiency and effectiveness by standardizing the outcomes in terms of values and cost; meta-analysis, which involves the integration of the outcome estimates from the all the studies done to come to an overall judgement about the question(s) being evaluated; and lastly, secondary analysis, which involves reexamination of the existing data so that new questions can be addressed or new methods can used (Trochim, 2006). The most important objectives of evaluation is to provide a useful feedback to various audiences, who may include administrators, sponsors, staff and even donors among others. It is often done to gauge success in attaining organization goals. In most cases, the feedback from evaluation is perceived as useful since it helps in decision-making and policy formulation. However, in very rare cases the evaluation feedback can fail to influence the making of short-term decisions. The evaluation tool is mainly used in a workplace by the employers to review employee performance and is usually done by the supervisors or senior managers. In such a case, it may involve assessing how the employee is doing using performance scale rating which show the strengths and weaknesses in important areas which may include promptness and following given instructions among others. The employees are also given the chance to share their suggestions and concerns about the workplace experiences and details such as pay raise, promotions and many others. Furthermore, the significant progress made in achieving the employee goals in a set time period is also evaluated. These employee goals can be set by the organization or can be set voluntary. Word Count: 560 Reference List Trochim W. T. (2006). Research Methods Knowledge Base. Retrieved on May 2, 2009 from http://www. socialresearchmethods. net/kb/index. php

Jazzy Studio Is A Music And Sound Recording Marketing Essay

Jazzy Studio Is A Music And Sound Recording Marketing Essay Jazzy studio is a music and sound recording studio that provides recording services to local talents in and around Abeokuta south local government in Ogun state, Nigeria. The organization is led by a respected businessman, Seun Odegbami, who has considerable experience in running an effective business. The company owner Seun Odegbami offers more than 10 years of industry experience and offers a strong background in sound recording, audio engineering and promotional marketing skills. The focus of this business is to put forth objectives to provide audio recording services for musicians/artists, to provide quality promotional materials, increase sales and customer base, and to offer outstanding materials and videography services in the near future. Jazzy studio is ready to elevate to the next step and the company is also seeking a business loan in the amount of à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦7million, which will be used in the purchase of equipment upgrades and advertising. 1.1 MISSION Jazzy studios mission is to provide an environment in which personal artistry is encouraged and creativity is inspired as well as expressed. The company will commit to its customers by providing a professional full service recording studio and video production company dedicated to supplying superior quality at affordable price. 1.2 VISION We intend to provide our customers with the best quality and services ensuring customer satisfaction by encouraging two factors: HONOR AND INTEGRITY. 1.3 OBJECTIVES The main objectives of jazzy studios include: To provide exceptional audio recording services for musicians/artist. To increase sales and customer base To provide promotional material (posters, fliers) for musicians/artist. To offer outstanding videography services in near future. 1.4 PRODUCT AND SERVICES The studio will offer a variety of recording and production products that will appeal to the residents of our target market and its surrounding areas. These services include: Professional audio recording Manufacture and press compact discs for artist Creating innovative sound and concepts using the best recording equipments. Vocal training Tutorial sessions 1.5 MANAGEMENT BIOGRAPHY The management team of jazzy studios comprises of three staffs namely: Seun Odegbami, Richard Ositelu and Tope Ogundipe. The team is lead by Chief Executive Officer, Seun Odegbami who directs the affairs of the company after a successful career as a manager at Marvin Records. He received his first degree in media services from university of Lagos in 2001 and later proceeded to the University of Sunderland where he bagged his M.B.A in 2003. Seun Odegbami offers more than 10 years of vast experience in the music industry. The audio engineer is Richard Ositelu.The audio engineer also called audio technician, recording engineer deals with the use of machinery and equipments for production of quality sounds. Richard finished from Yaba College of Technology with HND in sound engineering and has 5 years of working experience in the studio. Tope Ogundipe acts as an administrative officer. She is responsible for all accounting and administrative services of the organization. Tope is an OND holder from Lagos state polytechnic and also offers 2 years of working experience. Our organization is made up of three staffs that would carry out business goals and ensure customer satisfaction is guaranteed at all time. C:UsersSubbyDownloadsacc3.gif Figure 1: illustration of company organogram 1.6 COMPANY SUMMARY COMPANY NAME: JAZZY STUDIOS LIMITED ADDRESS: 4, Laderin Road Abeokuta, Ogun State. PHONE NUMBER: 01-273648, 07061524987 EMAIL: [emailprotected], [emailprotected] WEBSITE: www.jazzystudios.com Jazzy studio sits in Laderin road which is the heart of Abeokuta. The studio consists of three rooms: a waiting area, a pre-production area and a post production area with a state of the art recording sound booth. It is the only full service, professional recording studio in the area. 2.0 THE ECONOMY The economic market condition in Nigeria is struggling to leverage her vast wealth in order to displace the crushing poverty that affects over 50% of its population. Despite the slowdown in the economy, there have been a great number of young talents taking music as a long time career. The music industry has high employment-generating potentials. The growing success of the industry has not gone unnoticed by investors and indeed many record labels are investing in new and talented artistes nationwide. The recent success of top musicians in the global world has been a massive boost for young aspiring talents in the music industry. 2.1 MARKET ANALYSIS SUMMARY The overall market for sound recording is immense and the demand for sound recording is increasing. Sound recording aid the booming technology that delivers audio to MP3players, computers, IPOD etc. also, sound engineering technicians operate machines and equipments to record, synchronize, and mix sound effect in recording studio, theater productions and video production. Jazzy studio launches its services in receptive to the steady growing market segment which is among young adults in Nigeria today. Despite the economic downturns, there is still an increase of young talents in the music industry and our organization is ready to provide sound services to local vocal talent whether they are artist, children interested in tutorial session in audio recording. 2.2 INDUSTRY ANALYSIS There are approximately 1,255 sound recording studios in Nigeria. Revenues generated by the industry total more than à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦50 million and there is an estimate of about 6,000 people employed by the industry. The industry is expected to continually grow as the number of potential talents is on the rise and more competitors entering the market. The Nigerian census estimates that the industry has grow at a rate of 11.5% annually. 2.3 MARKET SEGMENTATION Our market segmentation is fairly straight forward and focuses on our target market, customers within the music and sound recording industry. These customers prefer certain quality of work and its our duty to deliver the quality they expect. The information in our market analysis table shows our main markets which are the local independent artist and children. Our market for local independent artist who are our biggest and popular market exists due to ideal location. Our children clientele exist due to tutorial sessions we offer in our community. Table: Market Analysis Market analysis 2012 2013 2014 2015 Potential customers Growth Independent artist 20% 100 120 140 160 Children 20% 32 52 72 92 Total 20% 132 202 322 442 2.4 MARKET TARGET Jazzy studio will serve the music recording market segment. Since our company is located in the heart of Abeokuta, the target market will be young aspiring musicians who probably are unable able to afford the regular studio session fee. They utilize us to build onto their audio portfolio, and to provide excellent service. Because we mainly focus on the music recording market, we know how to meet the specific needs of our clients. Therefore, we intend to reach our target market through word of the mouth marketing, fliers and business cards which will be distributed in the neighborhood 2.5 COMPETITOR ANALYSIS Jazzy studio is the only full service and professional studio in Abeokuta south local government and our business is in a non-competitive environment. The studio has modern and abstract sound systems which will attract more customers. There are currently no competitors in this line of business in Abeokuta south. 2.6 COMPETITVE ADVANTAGE Jazzy studios competitive advantage relies in our ability to position as a strategic ally with our customers. The companys reputation of being trustworthy and reliable will be a key factor by building a business based on long standing relationship with our clients. The longer the relationship, the more we will help our clients understand what we offer them and why they need it. Our Producers and audio engineers will establish strong relationships with clients to ensure that they are satisfied because it aids us in generating future business. Our organization operates under a business philosophy that specialized customer service is the best way to attract more clients. Jazzy studios also recognize the opportunity to provide tutorial sessions to young aspiring adults. This approach tends to get the attention of local young aspiring musicians/artist which is the best way to make money in the long term and bring the best out of clients. 3.0 BUSINESS STRATEGY Our business strategy involves advertising and reaching all the potential clients that we can. Our goal is to provide exceptional service to our customer and satisfy them at all cost. Currently, jazzy studio has an advantage because the owner/produce, Seun Odegbami is a well known superior business man that has excellent audio engineering and communication skills. Seun also offers more than 10years of experience to the music recording industry. Once a few bands have been secured, it then becomes our marketing strategy to plug the bands as much as possible. This will be done by leveraging all of their networking contacts. 3.1 SALES STRATEGY The CEO has an excellent customer relation and interpersonal skills; these skills will be used in making customer/musicians comfortable in trusting jazzy studio to produce and record music for them. Keeping customers happy, we feel, is an implicit part of building a relationship that will encourage business growth. 3.2 SERVICE BUSINESS ANALYSIS As a music recording company, it is our duty to offer customers the best services, a professional atmosphere and comfortable environment. We also provide musicians/artist with promotional materials, such as fliers, posters and cd covers at a very reasonable price. As simple as it may be, our method of executing customer service has an important effect on the bottom line. Skillful use of good communication will bring the business we desire. 3.3 WEBSITE MARKETING STRATEGY Our online services will provide intending customers an opportunity to access more information about the organization, promos, recording hours and tutorial. The site will be linked to various entertainment sites such as music sturvs, notjustok, and jaguda. Jazzy studio will also submit the site to several different search engines and lastly, the URL address will be prominent on printed material and correspondence. 4.0 FINANCIAL ANALYSIS The financial plan of any business is essential as it makes all the difference between organized activities and chaos (Maslauskaite and Koumpis 2011). A comprehensive business plan is useless if it does not contain a financial plan and projection for the future. The current financial plan for jazzy studio is to obtain a business loan in the amount of à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦7million. The loan will be used to update and purchase new equipment and software, increase advertising and provide video recording services. The following sections of this plan will serve to describe jazzy studios financial plan in more details: Sales projection Balance sheet Profit and loss Break-even analysis 4.1 SALES PROJECTION Sales projection is a core in a business plan. Managers tend to measure a business growth by its sales and the sales forecast sets the standard for expense, profit and growth. Jazzy studios average 21 sessions a month. Studio sessions cost à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦7500/hour. Most sessions last for 3 hours thus each session totals à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦22,500.Each promotional design cost à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦10,000. Our goal is to design between 50-100 promotional designs a year. Our forecast for jazzy records total sales in its first year is à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦3,150,000. During the years 2014-2016 we see a 30% annual increase. Table: SALES PROJECTION Sales Forecast 2013 2014 2015 2016 Unit sales Audio Production 120 135 161 195 Promotional design 45 91 110 165 Total Unit Sales Unit Prices Audio Production Promotional Design Sales Audio Production Promotional Design Total Sales 165 2013 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦22,500 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦10,000 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦2,700,000 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦450,000 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦3,150,000 226 2014 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦22,500 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦10,000 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦3,037,500 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦910,000 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦3,947,500 271 2015 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦25,500 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦10,000 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦4,105,500 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦1,100,000 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦5,205,500 360 2016 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦25,500 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦10,000 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦4,972,500 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦1,650,000 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦6,622,500 Figure : sales by year 4.2 IMPORTANT ASSUMPTIONS The table below shows the assumptions used in the financial calculation of this business plan. The average per-unit revenue cost is estimated to be à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦18,700. The average per-unit variable cost is estimated to be à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦500. The estimated monthly fixed cost is à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦100,000. Table: General assumptions General Assumptions 2012 2013 2014 Current Interest rate 10.00% 10.00% 10.00% Long term interest rate 10.00% 10.00% 10.00% Tax rate 15.00% 15.00% 15.00% 4.3 PROJECTED PROFIT AND LOSS The net income for 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 is forecast to be à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦3,150,000, à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦3,947,500, à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦5,205,500, à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦6,622,500 respectively. The net profit for the same period is 4.4 PROJECT BALANCE SHEET The table below illustrates the project balance sheet. TABLE: Balance Sheet Pro forma balance sheet 2013 2014 2015 2016 ASSETS Current assets Cash à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦7,005,021 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦7,503,871 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦8,012,760 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦8,499,091 Other current assets Total current asset Long term asset Accumulated depreciation Total long term asset Total assets à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦3,121,023 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦10,126,044 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦0 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦0 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦0 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦10,126,044 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦3,121,023 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦10,624,894 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦0 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦0 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦0 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦10,624,894 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦3,121,023 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦11,133,783 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦0 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦0 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦0 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦11,133,783 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦3,121,023 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦11,620,114 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦0 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦0 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦0 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦11,620,114 LIABILITIES AND CAPITAL 2013 2014 2015 2016 Current liabilities Accounts payable à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦ 56 Current borrowing à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦0 32 91 Other current liabilities Subtotal current liabilities Long term liabilities Total liabilities Paid in capital Retained earning Earnings Total capital Total liabilities and capital Net worth à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¦0 35 54 43 5.0 SWOT ANALYSIS A SWOT analysis identifies the internal and external factors that are either helpful or not and serves as a useful resources which may be incorporated into an organization strategic planning model (Chen and bruneski). The SWOT analysis aids in displaying the internal strengths and weaknesses that Jazzy studio must address. The SWOT analysis allows us to examine opportunities presented to Jazzy studio as well as possible potential threats. The companys strength which includes: having 10 years of industry experience and knowledge, quality production and sound, excellent and stable staff, essential equipment, high customer loyalty and good referral relationships as well as strong media relationship will help the company grow from strength to strength. 5.0.1 STRENGTHS 10 years of industry knowledge Essential equipments Strong media relationship Quality production and sound Cost advantages with new technology Growing customer base and customer loyalty within target group. Awesome website 5.0.2 WEAKNESSES Lack of money to advertise Cost factor with keeping state-of-the-art hardware New entrants Limited channels of distribution 5.0.3 OPPORTUNITIES Growing market with a significant of our target market still not knowing we exist. Strategic alliance offering source for referrals to extend our reach. Developing new technologies to cope with the driving force of the industry Internet through expanding e-commerce. Expanding nationwide 5.0.4 THREAT Emerging local competitors: currently there are no recording studios in the area. Increase in price inputs can cause upward pricing Changes in regulations can impact the business 5.1 LIMITING FACTORS The limiting factors that control the organization process, such as growth, resources are as follows: Lack of constant electricity Piracy

Microeconomics: Elasticity Concept of Supply and Demand

Microeconomics: Elasticity Concept of Supply and Demand INTRODUCTORY MICROECONOMICS CONTENTS MICROENOMICS (Words: 2,744) 1.  ELASTICITY CONCEPT OF DEMAND SUPPLY Elasticity lets us know a lot of things about our demand and supply. Besides that, elasticity of demand lets us know what number of additional units of an item will be sold when the value is cut (or what number of fewer units will be sold when the value is increased). The degree to which a demand or supply curves responds to a change in value is the curve elasticity (Heakal, R., 2003). Reem Heakal (2003) expressed that items that are necessities are more incentive to price changes since purchasers might keep purchasing these items despite the increments of price. On the other hand, a price increase of a good or service that is recognized to a lesser degree need will stop more consumers since the chance expense of purchasing the item will get to be excessively high (Quant Lego, 2013). Elasticity is a concept of responsiveness of one or more economic variables to changes in an alternate set of one or more variables (Quant Lego, 2013). The way of this responsiveness and the genuine value of elasticity convey useful knowledge and information to comprehend the way of relationship among economic variables and take decisions to influence one economic variable under ones control to acquire a desired outcome about the quality of the other economic variable (Quant Lego, 2013). A good or service is acknowledged to be highly elastic if a slight change in value prompts to a sharp change in the amount demanded or supplied. Normally these sorts of items are promptly accessible in the business and an individual may not so much require them in his or her everyday life. O the other hand, an inelastic good or service is one in which changes in value witness just modest changes in the amount demanded or supplied, if any whatsoever (Quant Lego, 2013). These products have a tendency to be things that are to a greater extent a need to the consumer in his or her everyday life. The elasticity of the supply or demand curves can be determined using the equation below: Elasticity = (% change in quantity / % change in price) According to Heakal, R. (2003), if elasticity is greater than or equal to one, the curve is considered to be elastic. If it is less than one, the curve is said to be inelastic. The demand curve is a negative slope as shown in Figure 1, and if there is a large decrease in the quantity demanded with a small increase in price, the demand curve looks flatter, or more horizontal. This flatter curve means that the good or service in question is elastic (Heakal, R., 2003). Figure 1Graph of elastic demand (Source: http://www.investopedia.com/university/economics/economics4.asp) Meanwhile, inelastic demand is represented with a much more upright curve as quantity changes little with a large movement in price as shown in Figure 2 (Heakal, R., 2003). Figure 2Graph of Inelastic demand (Source: http://www.investopedia.com/university/economics/economics4.asp) Elasticity of supply works similarly. According to Heakal, R. (2003), if a change in price results in a big change in the amount supplied, the supply curve appears flatter and is considered elastic. Hence, elasticity in this case would be greater than or equal to one as shown in Figure 3. Figure 3 Graph of elastic supply (Source: http://www.investopedia.com/university/economics/economics4.asp) On the other hand, if a big change in price only results in a minor change in the quantity supplied, the supply curve is steeper and its elasticity would be less than one as shown in Figure 4 (Heakal, R., 2003). Figure 4Graph of inelastic supply (Source: http://www.investopedia.com/university/economics/economics4.asp) Elasticity, defined as a ratio of proportional or per cent changes, is necessarily dimensionless meaning that it is independent of units of measurement (Hodrick, L. S. (1999). For example, the value of the price elasticity of demand for gasoline would be the same whether prices were measured in dollars or francs, or quantities in tonnes or gallons. This unit-independence is the main reason why elasticity is so popular a measure of the responsiveness of economic behaviour (Hairies, L., 2005). 2.  PRICE ELASTICITY OF DEMAND AND SUPPLY Hence, elasticity is a measure of exactly how much the amount demanded will be influenced by a change in value wage or change in price of related goods (Heakal, R., 2003). There are four sorts of elasticity, there are; price elasticity of demand, income elasticity of demand, cross price elasticity of demand and price elasticity of supply (Gachette, B., 2007). 2.1  Price Elasticity of demand Price elasticity of demand analyses the responsiveness of consumer demand to a change in price which is significant to know since then we know if it’s more beneficial to increase or decrease cost. In addition, price elasticity of demand help figure demand and help the firms choose about pricing in distinctive business portions. Monopolistic price discrimination might be practiced if the demand elasticity of distinctive business sector fragments is known/ assessed. Price elasticity of demand and supply helps to focus the feasible offering of the occurrence of a tax or a change in the tax rate (Das, S., 2005). Buoyancy in tax venues might be judged on the basis of income and price elasticity. This information is very useful for the economists included in providing estimates of tax revenue and proposes new taxes or changes in tax rates in the government (Das, S., 2005). 2.2  Income elasticity of demand Income elasticity of demand is the responsiveness of consumer demand to a change in wage this helps economists with classifying goods as substandard (the higher the income the lower the consumption) or normal (the higher the income the higher the consumption) (Das, S., 2005). Income elasticity of demand helps extend the interest for goods that a nation might require as the economy develops to higher and higher per capita wage levels. Demand for certain essential components of food are relatively inelastic after a certain level of income is reached. Thus, demand for cereals (for example, oats) is inelastic once the population has crossed the poverty line. But the demand for grains may at present increment through the demand for meat (as animals have to be reared on fodder grains). Such information helps long-term national planning. 2.3  Cross price elasticity of demand Cross price elasticity of demand is the responsiveness of consumer demand to a change in a competitors price this helps economists in comprehension if goods are complements (demand for one leads to demand for another) or substitutes (demand for one means less demand for another) (Das, S., 2005). Cross price elasticity also help pricing and marketing strategies keeping in view the effect of changes in cost of substitutes, complementary items and competing items in the same want fulfilling category. Publicizing using elasticity is essential to decide about advertising outlays and alternative advertising campaigns of organizations. 2.4  Price elasticity of supply Finally price elasticity of supply is the responsiveness regarding supply with a change in price which helps economists comprehend suppliers capacity to increase stocks for example agricultural goods producers have a low price elasticity of supply because if demand suddenly increases they have limited capacity to increase supply because of the long time it takes to produce this supply (Das, S., 2005). 3.  DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CONSUMER SURPLUS PRODUCER SURPLUS Customer and Producer surplus are two huge parts of matters of trade and profit particularly concerning marketing and pricing (Michigan State University, 2001). Customer Surplus is the cost above business sector value that you might be ready to pay or expressed diversely it is the maximum price that you might pay for a thing – the genuine price for that thing. Producer Surplus is basically the contrast between what a producers is willing and able to supply or offer an item for and what they get for it (Whfreeman, 2005). Simple example about consumer surplus, such as I-phone, let’s say that you willing to pay a maximum of RM2,500 but when you get to the store you discovered that the I-phone only cost you RM2,000 in which case you bought it and received a consumer surplus of RM 500; RM2,500 – RM2,000 = RM 500. Another example for producer surplus, take a company like Apple, let’s say that they would be willing to sell I-Pod for RM 200 and that is the absolute lowest they would willing to sell for but they manage to sell them for a price of RM 300 in this case the producer surplus is RM 100; RM 300 – RM 200 = RM100. When you observed those figures carefully, you’ll see that a basic economic principle in that the higher a product is priced the higher the producer surplus will be but the lower consumer surplus will, eventually if the seller keeps raising its prices then the consumer surplus will become 0 at the point the consumer will not want to purchase that product anymore (Whfreeman, 2005). Therefore, there are certain factors that need to be comprehended deeply in order to understand more about this consumer and producer surplus. Firstly is the law of demand. The law of demand stated that consumers will buy more of something (for example, sugar) when the price is falls or cheaper. Secondly is the law of supply. The law of supply stated that the higher the price of a product the more of it sellers are willing to supply. The premise of this comes essentially from producer surplus. Higher product price increases producer surplus thus they are willing to sell more of it because of the positive surplus (Michigan State University, 2001). The concepts of producer and consumer surplus help economists make welfare (normative) judgement about different methods of producing and distributing goods (Khan Academy, 2014). The differences between consumer and producer surplus are consumer surplus measures the gains to consumers from trade, whereas producer surplus measures the gains to producers from trade. Both consumer and producer surplus can measure a nation’s prosperity more accurately than GDP (gross domestic product). These concepts can help us to understand why markets are an efficient way to organize trade. Figure 5Graph of total surplus of Consumer and producer (e.g. books) (Source: Gachette, B. (2007) Principles of Microeconomics.) Based on the Graph of total surplus of consumer and producer as shown in Figure 5, both consumers and producers are better off because there is a market in this good, there are gains from trade. These gains from trade are the reason everyone is better off participating in a market economy than they would be if each individual tried to be self-sufficient. Consumer surplus is the difference between the value to buyers of a level of consumption of a good and the amount the buyers must pay to get that amount. Consumer surplus is the welfare consumers get from the good. Consumer surplus can be estimated from the demand curve for a good (Pepperdine University, 2010). The term producer’s surplus first shown up in A. Marshall’s Principle [11, p. 811, f.2], taking shape as the area between the competitive equilibrium price and the supply curve, a curve that slopes upwards as a result of placing the firms in order of diminishing efficiency as shown on figure 5. Marshall seems to stretch out the terms in order to comprehend all the surpluses a man determines as producer, including a â€Å"worker’s surplus† arising from the sale of his personal services and a â€Å"saver’s surplus† arising from the services of his capita (Mishan, E. J., 1968). 4.  EFFECTS OF ELASTICITY ON CONSUMER SURPLUS PRODUCER SURPLUS In economics, elasticity is the ratio of the proportional change in one variable with respect to proportional change in another variable (Gachette, B., 2007). Price elasticity, for example, is the sensitivity of quantity demanded or supplied to changes in prices. Elasticity is usually expressed as a negative number but shown as a positive percentage value. One typical application of the concept of elasticity is to consider what happens to consumer demand for a good (for example, apples) when prices increase. According to Gachette, B. (2007), as the price of a good rises, consumers will usually demand a lower quantity of that good, perhaps by consuming less, substituting other goods, and so on. The greater the extent to which demand falls as price rises, the greater the price elasticity of demand. However, there may be some goods that consumers require, cannot consume less of, and cannot find substitutes for even if prices rise (for example, certain prescription drugs). Another exampl e is oil and its derivatives such as gasoline. For such goods, the price elasticity of demand might be considered inelastic. Furthermore, elasticity will normally be different in the short term and the long term (Das, S., 2005). For example, for many goods the supply can be increased over time by locating alternative sources, investing in an expansion of production capacity, or developing competitive products which can substitute. One might therefore expect that the price elasticity of supply will be greater in the long term than the short term for such a good, that is, that supply can adjust to price changes to a greater degree over a longer time (Pepperdine University, 2010). This applies to the demand side as well. For example, if the price of petrol rises, consumers will find ways to conserve their use of the resource. However, some of these ways, like finding a more fuel-efficient car, take longer period of time. Thus, consumers may be less able to adapt to price shocks in the short term than in the long term (Hairies, L., 2005). However, there would be another effect of consumer surplus when the producer takes advantage of consumer surplus such as setting prices. In an organization (producers/ sellers) can identify groups of consumer within their market who are willing and able to pay different prices for the same product, then producers/sellers might engage in price discrimination. The price that the consumer willing to pay, thereby turning consumer surplus into extra revenue. This often happen in local fitness gym either in your area or other places whereby different fitness gym offers different prices with the same products. Another good example that can be seen the effect of consumer and producer surplus is the Airlines companies itself, such as Air Asia Airlines. Air Asia Airlines using their famous tagline â€Å"Now everyone can fly† is one of the cheapest and affordable prices Airlines in Asia. By extracting from consumers the price they are willing and able to pay for flying to different destinations are various times of the day, and exploiting variations in elasticity of demand for different types of passenger service. If you noticed that, often the price of tickets flights is cheaper when you book the flight earlier either weeks or months in advance. The airlines are prepared to sell tickets more cheaply then because they get the benefit of cash-flow at the same time making sure that each seat are being filled. The nearer the time to take off, the higher the price of the tickets flights. Thus, if a businessman is desperately to fly from Kota Kinabalu, Sabah to Kuala Lumpur, Peninsular Malay sia within 24 hour time, his or her demand is said to be price inelastic and the corresponding price for the ticket will be much higher. Therefore, this is one of the way Airlines such as Air Asia Airlines exploit their monopoly position by raising the prices in markets where demand is inelastic, at the same time extracting consumer surplus from buyers and increasing profit margin. 5.  SUMMARY In conclusion, elasticity is an important concept in understanding the incidence of indirect taxation, marginal concepts as they relate to the theory of the firm, distribution of wealth and different types of goods as they relate to the theory of consumer choice and. Elasticity is also significant in any discussion of welfare distribution, in particular consumer surplus, producer surplus, or government surplus. Furthermore, the concept of elasticity has an extraordinarily wide range of applications in economics. In particular, an understanding of elasticity is useful to understand the dynamic response of supply and demand in a market, in order to achieve an intended result or avoid unintended results. For example, a business considering a price increase might find that doing so lowers profits if demand is highly elastic, as sales would fall sharply. Similarly, a business considering a price cut might find that it does not increase sales, if demand for the product is price inelastic. Therefore, an economic signal is any piece of information that helps people makes better economic decisions. 6.REFERENCES Das, S. (2005) The Concept of Elasticity in Economics. Available at: http://www.montgomerycollege.edu/~sdas/elasticity/broaderusage.htm (Accessed 20 February 2014). Gachette, B. (2007) Principles of Microeconomics. Available at: http://www.aiu.edu/publications/student/english/Principles%20of%20Microeconomics.html (Accessed 21 February 2014) Haines, L. (2005) Elasticity is Back: Oil and Gas Investor. Heakal, R. (2003). Economics Basics: Elasticity. Investopedia Available at: http://www.investopedia.com/university/economics/economics4.asp (Accessed 21 February 2014). Hodrick, L. S. (1999) Does Price Elasticity Affect Corporate Financial Decisions? Journal of Financial Economics. Mishan, E. J. (1968). What is Producer Surplus? The American Economic Review, Vol. 58, No. 5. Khan Academy (2014) Consumer Producer Surplus. Available at: https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/microeconomics/consumer-producer-surplus (Accessed 20 February 2014). Michigan State University (2001) Consumer and Producer Surplus. Available at: https://www.msu.edu/course/ec/201/brown/pim/pdffiles98/csps98.pdf (Accessed 21 February 2014). Pepperdine University (2010) Chapter 4: Surplus and Efficiency. Available at: http://faculty.pepperdine.edu/jburke2/ba210/PowerP1/Ch4.ppt (Accessed 20 February 2014). Quant Lego (2013) Economics Basics: A Tutorial. Building Blocks For Financial Quant Skills. Available at: http://www.quantlego.com/knowledge/economics-basics-tutorial/5/ (Accessed 21 February 2014). Whfreeman (2005) Chapter 6: Consumer and Producer Surplus. Available at: http://www.whfreeman.com/college/pdfs/krugman_canadian/CH06.pdf (Accessed 21 February 2014).

The Good Earth by Pearl Buck :: The Good Earth Pearl S Buck

The Good Earth Essay   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Good Earth by Pearl Buck provides an excellent form of archetypal structure. It shows how nature is clean and pure, while the mechanistic world is corrupt and evil. There are many ways that it can be proven, yet only three are really stressed throughout the novel. The three stressed throughout the novel the entire time are, nature providing, money corrupting, and how the law of the land is the only right way. That was why, in The Good Earth, the archetypal structure, nature versus the mechanistic world was portrayed throughout the entire novel.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Basically, the entire story told the reader that nature is always providing. A way that nature provided for Wang Lung was, "And in the field the wheat seed sprouted and pushed delicate spears of wet green above the delicate brown Earth" (pg, 43). Wang Lung got his fields this way by plowing and farming for many years. By doing this, Wang Lung did his part so nature helped him out. Wang Lung had told a man, not of his superiority, "É Good harvest means good seasons" (pg, 47). This showed how well acquainted Wang Lung was with his land. He was so in-tune with nature that he could tell if it was going to be a good year or not. Thus, throughout the entire novel, nature always provided for Wang Lung and his family.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Another archetypal structure used in the novel was showing how money corrupts. A statement made in the novel concerning this was, "ÉAnd everyone knew now that Wang Lung owned this land, and in his village there was talk of making him head" (pg, 58). This statement was said around the time that Wang Lung started realizing how powerful he was. So after hearing this, Wang Lung got big headed, causing the money to make him corrupted. One line said in the book really sums up how money corrupts, "And am I always to look like a hind when we have enough to spare?" (pg, 186). This occurred when they were living in the Great House and everyone was spoiled. It seems hard to believe that a family brought up from nothing, to have everything, would be so spoiled and ungrateful for all they have. Even in todayÕs world money corrupts, but Pearl Buck does a good job of showing it in The Good Earth.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One of the other ways for stressing archetypal structure is stating that the law of the land is the only way. The Good Earth by Pearl Buck :: The Good Earth Pearl S Buck The Good Earth Essay   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Good Earth by Pearl Buck provides an excellent form of archetypal structure. It shows how nature is clean and pure, while the mechanistic world is corrupt and evil. There are many ways that it can be proven, yet only three are really stressed throughout the novel. The three stressed throughout the novel the entire time are, nature providing, money corrupting, and how the law of the land is the only right way. That was why, in The Good Earth, the archetypal structure, nature versus the mechanistic world was portrayed throughout the entire novel.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Basically, the entire story told the reader that nature is always providing. A way that nature provided for Wang Lung was, "And in the field the wheat seed sprouted and pushed delicate spears of wet green above the delicate brown Earth" (pg, 43). Wang Lung got his fields this way by plowing and farming for many years. By doing this, Wang Lung did his part so nature helped him out. Wang Lung had told a man, not of his superiority, "É Good harvest means good seasons" (pg, 47). This showed how well acquainted Wang Lung was with his land. He was so in-tune with nature that he could tell if it was going to be a good year or not. Thus, throughout the entire novel, nature always provided for Wang Lung and his family.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Another archetypal structure used in the novel was showing how money corrupts. A statement made in the novel concerning this was, "ÉAnd everyone knew now that Wang Lung owned this land, and in his village there was talk of making him head" (pg, 58). This statement was said around the time that Wang Lung started realizing how powerful he was. So after hearing this, Wang Lung got big headed, causing the money to make him corrupted. One line said in the book really sums up how money corrupts, "And am I always to look like a hind when we have enough to spare?" (pg, 186). This occurred when they were living in the Great House and everyone was spoiled. It seems hard to believe that a family brought up from nothing, to have everything, would be so spoiled and ungrateful for all they have. Even in todayÕs world money corrupts, but Pearl Buck does a good job of showing it in The Good Earth.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One of the other ways for stressing archetypal structure is stating that the law of the land is the only way.