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This chapter analyses buyer behaviour, taking an outside-inside view of the organization. It looks at buyer behaviour from the perspective of a marketing manager. Part A describes some simple data about the brands a consumer has recently bought. The analysis of this type of purchase-history data helps marketers to understand how typical their brand is relative to other brands in their market and in other similar markets. Part B of the chapter provides a brief discussion of research techniques for generating insight into consumer behaviour. It suggests two clear messages to marketing managers — make the brand salient, and make it available to as many target customers as possible.

This chapter shows how to estimate the required return for a closely held firm. It begins by reviewing the required return for a public firm. It then focuses on additional adjustments required to adapt the method for use on a closely held firm. This approach deals specifically with the lack of liquidity and diversification of the owner and the lack of market information for small firms. Finally, the chapter shows how the discount rate should be estimated for a closely held firm.

This chapter lays out the logic and the structure of the book. The book follows a trajectory that begins by examining the underlying causes of change of our economic environment and that does not stop until readers have a firm grasp on the right strategic and investment steps to take in the new business world: a world that will merge as a result of the changes brought about by the falling cost of information. The introduction explains that the framework that the book has developed for creating extraordinary returns is consistent with the emergence of perfect information and with the economics of perfect economics. Many of the parts of the economics of perfect information are developed over the course of the book. For instance the book establishes the economic validity of three lessons that the author observed from practical business experience—as an executive at PepsiCo, Royal/Dutch Shell and AT&T, as a senior investment banker, as a strategy consultant and as an entrepreneur—but that would have been considered heresies in traditional mainstream economics. These three heresies are: aspiring to achieve extraordinary returns in a world of perfect information; asserting that profit power is an economic concept, that it can be wielded ethically and reliably in a competitive setting, and that it can improve returns for others as well. And thirdly, daring to reveal that, contrary to mainstream economic doctrine, perfect information does not bring about perfect markets; even worse, that perfect information is the source of an entire new class of market failures or imperfections.

This chapter examines whether a proper market for information can exist. It offers arguments against the features information products that make them unsuitable for sale: that information does not really get “used” or destroyed when it is “consumed” and that it is likely to get revealed in its users’ actions. It also suggests that the proper functioning of the information market is governed by the fact that ownership of information can be protected by copyright laws and that private information does not get revealed in people’s actions.

This chapter describes the regulation of market information. It begins with an overview of the market data that exchanges and other market centers publish, including transaction reports and last-sale data, quotations, and limit orders. It also discusses differences in the information published by various types of market center–e.g., order-driven, quote-driven, and hybrid trading systems, market makers, and dark pools. It then considers various policy arguments for regulation, including competition among market centers, the fragmentation and internalization of order flow, and the risk of adverse selection and market impact. The chapter ends with a discussion of the US and EU regulatory framework that governs the dissemination of market information with respect to equity securities (such as the US National Market System), debt securities, exchange-traded derivatives, and in the wake of the recent financial crisis, swaps and over-the-counter derivatives.

Chambers bundled the activities of voice and places to meet with a range of other services. This chapter gives the first long-term and detailed analysis of how these evolved. It covers commercial arbitration, debt collection, dealing with information and enquiries, certification of commercial documents, conciliation in labour disputes, providing labour market information and help with recruitment, commercial examinations, and filling other gaps. Some limited attempts at combinations are analysed in Northwich and Macclesfield; and efforts by chambers of trade and trade protection societies to regulate shopping hours, employment conditions, and trade credit. The modern chamber bundle is assessed for breadth and durability.

This chapter examines competitive pricing of information and how information firms respond to the behavior of decision markers. It analyzes information products that are considered complements or substitutes and describes how firms formulate competitive pricing under these two scenarios. The analysis reveals that the basic properties of information have a significant qualitative impact on how sellers of information compete or avoid competition. This chapter also highlights the difficulty of regulating information markets.

This chapter discusses the changing political economy of policy in the United States. It reviews the political and economic logic of debates over telecom competition policy, such as the debates over “net neutrality,” content, and information-market policies. The United States is the initial focus of the chapter so as to keep the analysis manageable. The chapter suggests that the United States remains the leading market for a wide swath of information and communication technology (ICT) solutions, and also examines the political economy of initial American choices in response to modularity at the inflection point. It shows that it is a challenge to find a political formula in the United States that allows for easy clearance of digital rights, reasonable fair use, and efficient charging and disbursement of fees for uses of copyright.

This introductory chapter discusses the theme of this volume which is about the marketing of information and the information industry. This volume examines the economics of information and the problems faced by information sellers. It investigates what information companies should do in order to create and sell information profitably and considers the application of the concepts of strategic analysis to the information industry. This volume also explores the evolution of the information business and explains that characteristics that define information products and services.

This chapter engages with debates over the nature and timing of retail revolution, offering fresh insights from the perspective of the grocery trade. Attention focuses on three areas. First, the importance of ‘traditional’ forms of service‐based retailing and the way in which it related to ideas of sociability. Second, the skills and attributes required of the shopkeeper who sold in this way, and particularly the importance of credit as a mechanism for securing goods and facilitating sales. Third, the emergence of ‘new’ retail practices, including cash sales and fixed prices. The chapter argues that ‘modern’ and traditional practices often went on hand‐in‐hand, procedures being moulded to the changing needs of consumers, and that retailers were active in promoting their wares rather than simply passively responding to shifting demand.

This chapter considers the history and future of information markets. It suggests that the advent of language played a key role in major technological developments and highlights its efficiency in connecting the members of society. It also discusses the role of the Internet in allowing millions of people to interact with each other, sharing voice and text but also pictures, video and other rich media. This chapter also considers the evolution of the World Wide Web into a knowledge medium, where new content emerges from users’ collective contributions.

Much has been written about the impacts of labor market volatility on societies, organizations, and individuals. One example relates to career transitions. Multiple career transitions into, and through, labor markets are now experienced by citizens throughout the world, across lifetimes, with the shape of these career transitions transformed from the stereotypically one-off to those that are various and complex. This chapter focuses on the nature of support required by individuals to navigate increasingly volatile labor markets by examining the interplay between career practice and career pathways in the 21st century. In particular, the chapter considers how career practice is adapting to new challenges and how social justice is being accommodated. The chapter also examines the pivotal role of labor market information and explores the impact of occupational identity transformation on career development, where individuals are confronted with unavoidable change to their work processes within organizations.

Chapter 4 explores oil from the viewpoint of global markets and market failure, and examines the EU’s attempt to build international market institutions for creating a global level playing field, and improving market information, mitigating supply shocks, and supporting infrastructure. It is hypothesized that the EU’s actions abroad follow the same liberal market paradigm as at home. The EU’s external policy tools are similar to those that are used within the EU’s jurisdiction. The fact that energy-related sanctions have been used in the context of political and military crises, but not to achieve energy-related goals, suggests that it is preferences, and not just power, that shape the EU’s approach to international relations. The EU’s focus on regulatory policies is more than merely a second-best choice of tools; regulatory power is its preferred approach to international political economy.

We briefly enumerate the winners of the Bank of Sweden Prize who have contributed to the beginning of the Economics of Information, and discover that their order in awards is misleading. Thus begins our argument that it was Friedrich Hayek and the neoliberal economists who made the critical first moves, and the orthodox neoclassical economists responded. We include a brief primer on neoliberalism to understand why this was so.

This chapter deals with several reform initiatives taken since 2012—the demand-side financing innovations, the reforms that have been undertaken or proposed in the Craftsmen Training Scheme (CTS) and the Apprentices Act of 1961, the National Skills Qualification Framework, the Labour Market Information System, and the National Employability Enhancement Mission—in great detail.