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Consuming with a conscience is one of the fastest growing forms of political participation worldwide. Every day we make decisions about how to spend our money and, for the socially conscious, these decisions matter. Political consumers \"buy green\" for the environment or they \"buy pink\" to combat breast cancer. They boycott Taco Bell to support migrant workers or Burger King to save the rainforest. But can we overcome the limitations of consumer identity, the conservative pull of consumer choice, co-optation by corporate marketers, and other pitfalls of consumer activism in order to marshal the possibilities of consumer power? Can we, quite literally, shop for change? Shopping for Change brings together the historical and contemporary perspectives of academics and activists to show readers what has been possible for consumer activists in the past and what might be possible for today's consumer activists.Contributors Kyle Asquith, University of Windsor; Dawson Barrett, Del Mar College; Lawrence Black, University of York; Madeline Brambilla, Northeastern University; Joshua Carreiro, Springfield Technical Community College, Springfield, MA; H. Louise Davis, Miami University; Jeffrey Demsky, San Bernardino Valley College; Tracey Deutsch, University of Minnesota–Twin Cities; Mara Einstein, Queens College, CUNY; Bart Elmore, University of Alabama; Sarah Elvins, University of Manitoba; Daniel Faber, Northeastern University; Julie Guard, University of Manitoba; Louis Hyman, ILR School, Cornell University; Meredith Katz, Virginia Commonwealth University; Randall Kaufman, Miami Dade College–Homestead Campus; Larry Kirsh, IMR Health Economics, Portland, OR; Katrina Lacher, University of Central Oklahoma; Bettina Liverant, University of Calgary; Amy Lubitow, Portland State University; Robert N. Mayer, University of Utah; Michelle McDonald, Stockton University; Wendy Wiedenhoft Murphy, John Carroll University; Mark W. Robbins, Del Mar College; Jessica Stewart, Cornell University;Joseph Tohill, York University and Ryerson University; Allison Ward, Queen's University and McMaster University; Philip Wight, Brandeis University

Increasingly, consumers in North America and Europe see their purchasing as a way to express to the commercial world their concerns about trade justice, the environment and similar issues. This ethical consumption has attracted growing attention in the press and among academics. Extending beyond the growing body of scholarly work on the topic in several ways, this volume focuses primarily on consumers rather than producers and commodity chains. It presents cases from a variety of European countries and is concerned with a wide range of objects and types of ethical consumption, not simply the usual tropical foodstuffs, trade justice and the system of fair trade. Contributors situate ethical consumption within different contexts, from common Western assumptions about economy and society, to the operation of ethical-consumption commerce, to the ways that people's ethical consumption can affect and be affected by their social situation. By locating consumers and their practices in the social and economic contexts in which they exist and that their ethical consumption affects, this volume presents a compelling interrogation of the rhetoric and assumptions of ethical consumption.

The past decade has brought an increasing recognition to the importance of pension systems to the economic stability of nations and the security of their aging populations. During this time, the World Bank has taken a leading role in addressing this challenge through its support for pension reforms around the world. Old-Age Income Support in the 21st Century attempts to explain current policy thinking and update the World Bank’s perspective on pension reform. The Bank has been involved in pension reforms in nearly 60 countries, and the demand for its support continues to grow. This book incorporates lessons learned from recent Bank experiences and research that have significantly increased knowledge and insight regarding how best to proceed in the future. The book has a comprehensive introduction and two main parts. Part I presents the conceptual underpinnings for the Bank’s thinking on pension systems and reforms, including structure of Bank lending in this area. Part II highlights key design and implementation issues where it signals areas of confidence and areas for further research and experience, and includes a section on regional reform experiences, including Latin American and Europe and Central Asia. This book will be of interest to Bank clients, the international community, and anyone interested in pension systems and reform.

Contradictory to conventional economic theory, which foresees any increase in the size of government as inflationary, this article provides evidence that the reaction of price levels to changes in the size of government is nonlinear. The price levels do not necessarily increase in response to a rise in the size of the government but only up to a certain threshold or optimal level. Accordingly, this paper utilizes the dynamic panel threshold model to examine the threshold effects of government size (measured as government final consumption expenditure as a proportion of GDP) on inflation using a sample of 10 selected MENA countries from 1980 to 2019. The findings of this study stand out in several ways. First, the results support the nonlinear relationship between government size and inflation in the study area. Second, the government size’s estimated threshold level is equivalent to 12.46%. Third, government size negatively impacts inflation in the regime of small governments up to the threshold level. The impact turns positive once the government size goes beyond the threshold level in a regime of large size of government. These findings have ramifications for the conduct of fiscal policy. Policymakers in the MENA region can increase the size of government till it reaches the threshold level without exerting any upward pressure on price levels.

Prior to Mexico's entry to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), predictions of the consequent impact on the environment in that country ranged from the dire to very optimistic. This article investigates NAFTA's outcomes in terms of energy use and the emission of atmospheric pollutants. Specifically, has entry into NAFTA led to a convergence or divergence in indicators of emissions, environmental efficiency, and emissions‐specific technology in Mexico, the United States, and Canada? A battery of tests is applied to these indicators for energy use and carbon, sulfur, and NOx emissions in the three countries. The results show that the extreme predictions of the outcomes of NAFTA have not materialized. Rather, trends that were already present before the introduction of NAFTA continue and, in some cases, improve post‐NAFTA, but not yet in a dramatic way. There is strong evidence of convergence across the three countries toward a lower intensity of energy use and emissions per unit of GDP. Although intensity is rising initially for some variables in Mexico, it eventually begins to fall post‐NAFTA. Per capita emissions of sulfur and NOx also show convergence, but this is not the case for energy and carbon, and the latter variables also drift moderately upwards. The state of technology in energy efficiency and sulfur abatement is improving in all countries, although there is little, if any, sign of convergence and NAFTA has no effect on the rate of technology diffusion. However, total energy use and carbon emissions increase both pre‐ and post‐NAFTA and total NOx emissions increase in Mexico. Only total sulfur emissions are stable and falling in all three NAFTA partners.

To reach Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) countries (or states or provinces within countries) have two options: increasing these inputs used to \"produce\" the outcomes measured by the MDGs, or increasing the efficiency with which inputs are used. This study looks at whether improvements in efficiency could bring gains in outcomes. Two chapters use world panel data to analyze country level efficiency in improving education, health and GDP (and thereby poverty) indicators. Two other chapters use province and state level data to analyze within-country efficiency in Argentina and Mexico for improving education and health outcomes. Together, the four chapters suggest that apart from increasing inputs, it is necessary to improve efficiency in order to reach the MDGs. While this conclusion is hardly surprising, the analysis helps to quantify how much progress could be achieved through better efficiency, and to some extent, how efficiency itself could be improved.

In this article, trade is conceptualized as a cultural as well as an economic and political process. In this view, exporting connects market intelligence with production intelligence on either side of national, typically cultural, borders. These connections frequently imply alternative, mutually influencing, forms of communication and learning that have various implications for local development. A model of relational market intelligence is outlined as a way of understanding this dimension of exporting. The model integrates production and market intelligence while emphasizing alternative pathways of learning and communication. It is applied to the newly emergent trade that features the export of houses from British Columbia to Japan. Within an extended case-study research design framework, information is based on interviews with manufacturing firms and related organizations in British Columbia. Implications for local development in British Columbia are noted.

US strategic interests in the Middle East, with a special emphasis on energy resources, are examined. It is in the US's security interest to push ahead with the Arab-Israeli peace process in order to ensure the security of the Persian Gulf and the transit of oil.

Extract: Most studies of the welfare economics of groundwater have focused mainly on the dichotomy between optimal control of groundwater use and no control at all. This article argues that, under circumstances that generally prevail in semiarid zones, assigning property rights to groundwater and permitting the market to determine the allocation of water use can lead to a second-best solution. An argument is made that if potential users would be allowed to Coase-bargain with incumbent users on the issuance of new groundwater rights, the second-best solution is elevated to a Pareto-optiomal solution

The ultimate question is, will the new incentives provided by California's threat of warning requirements, risk information requirements, and penalties result in better food products, better information, and better satisfied consumers and at what cost At this point, it is too early to tell. Proposition 65 represents a major departure from established food safety laws. Where existing laws require limits on substances added to food, Proposition 65 potentially requires warnings if those limits still pose risks of cancer or reproductive harm. While existing food safety laws focus on substances added to foods, Proposition 65 potentially addresses exposures caused by naturally occurring toxins in foods. The act also extends the responsibility of private parties for developing risk information and enforcing food safety laws. The ultimate effect of Proposition 65 on food consumers and producers depends on how its provisions are implemented. At this time, uncertainty is great. This encourages potentially huge resource expenditures as the food industry and consumer groups seek to influence implementation and enforcement decisions.