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In this article, we survey experiments that are directly related to monetary policy and central banking. We argue that experiments can also be used as a tool for central bankers for bench testing policy measures or rules. We distinguish experiments that analyze the reasons for non-neutrality of monetary policy, experiments in which subjects play the role of central bankers, experiments that analyze the role of central bank communication and its implications, experiments on the optimal implementation of monetary policy, and experiments relevant for monetary policy responses to financial crises. Finally, we mention open issues and raise new avenues for future research.

Purpose – In North America today, we are witnessing an unprecedented preoccupation with “excess” weight, with millions of people perceived to be part of the epidemic of obesity. While this chapter does not seek to contest medical evidence that average weights of North Americans have risen in recent years, nor deny the potential development of associated health problems, it offers a critique of the terminology invoked in these discussions and especially challenges the characterization of increased weight among the population as an “epidemic.” This chapter suggests that what we are witnessing is more appropriately understood as a moral regulation project premised on ideas of risk, contagion, and neoliberal discourses of health.

Methodology/approach – In arguing that the concern about obesity may be understood as an example of moral regulation, this chapter employs the work of Alan Hunt, as well as Deborah Lupton's insights on governmentality and health.

Findings – In reviewing the scholarly literature on obesity as well as Canadian public health initiatives, a discourse of risk and contagion is evident. The overweight and obese (and these are commonly conflated) are presented as dangerous to themselves and others.

Contribution to the field – In suggesting an alternative understanding of the obesity “epidemic” as a socially constructed and morally regulated phenomenon, this chapter aims to further discuss and reassess how those who are considered fat are understood and treated in North America.

Retailing thought and practice is premised on the assumption that consumers visit retailers to search for and acquire objects produced by manufacturers. In essence, we assume that the acts of consuming and producing are conducted by separate entities. This unspoken yet familiar premise shapes the questions retail scholars ask and the way retail practitioners think about their industry. Although this assumption accurately depicted retailing since the Industrial Revolution, its relevance is being challenged by a growing set of individuals who are equipped with new digital tools to engage in self-manufacturing. In this chapter, we examine self-manufacturing with a particular focus on the recent rise of desktop 3D printing. After discussing this new technology and reviewing the literature, we offer a conceptual classification of four distinct types of 3D printed objects and use this classification to inform a content analysis of over 400 of these objects. Based on this review and analysis, we discuss the implications of self-manufacturing for retailing thought and practice.

Ageing demographics are impacting employers around the world and, for many organisations, there are strong business reasons to develop strategies for managing the age profiles of their workplaces. Societal ageing is not necessarily bad news for business: older workers can be a valuable resource for employers in terms of skills, in-house knowledge and flexibility. Further, as populations age, businesses are delivering goods and services to an ageing market, and older workers can be a valuable resource. While ageing demographics can provide opportunities for the business community, there are significant challenges facing employers. For example, balancing the career interests and expectations of older and younger workers will necessitate new approaches to workforce planning, performance management and team building. As skilled workers become more scarce, employers need to also find ways to make better use of the talents and capabilities of older unemployed people. This chapter is written by representatives of employer networks in Europe and Asia. We discuss innovative approaches to age diversity of organisations on both continents. These include approaches to phased retirement, lifelong learning, flexible retirement and mentoring. In the final section, we suggest a research agenda which will generate practical knowledge for businesses which want to better manage workplace ageing. A business-focused research agenda includes improving the understanding of generations in the East and West, the intersection of age and other forms of diversity, lifelong learning, joblessness and providing the business case for businesses of different forms.

We develop a concept of the global factory, first introduced by Buckley and colleagues (2004, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2014), as a stand-alone construct associated with significant predictive capacity, discuss dynamics of success of the global factory, and identify and analyze social mechanisms deployed by the lead firm head office.

We conceptualize the global factory as a form of a flagship network and augment internalization theory with insights from interorganizational networks research to explore the dynamics of the global factory’s origination and functioning.

We clarify under what conditions a global factory-type network is more likely to emerge and describe social mechanisms generated by the lead firm head office to help the global factory sustain itself and thrive. We argue that in order to benefit from potential efficiencies of the global factory, the lead firm head office must deploy combinations of social mechanisms. We further argue that the role of the lead firm head office is that of a joint value orchestrator and a social broker, in addition to the controlling intelligence function.

Future work on the global factory should include further conceptualization of social mechanisms deployed by the lead firm, exploration of operating mode heterogeneity within the global factory, and large-scale empirical research.

Lead firm managers should embrace the role of the joint value orchestrators and implement social mechanisms described in this chapter to facilitate smooth operation of the global factory.

Global factory governance further increases multinationals’ geographic reach and market power; yet, it is not a universal recipe for market success, and therefore global factories’ power to shape the global economy should not be overestimated.

By linking the global factory to networks literature, we have suggested a novel way to view the concept and articulated more fully its underlying assumptions. Further research on the global factory will help advance our understanding of the dynamics of the global economy and the role of multinationals, their head offices, and their managers in shaping the economy.

Recent research in mainstream economics, before as well as since the 2008 crisis, has stressed the importance of growing current account imbalances among countries, particularly the imbalances between the United States and some Asian countries. While some have seen in these imbalances proof of the efficient work done by liberalized financial markets, as well as a sign of the great dynamism of the US economy, others have warned about the possible threats to the global economic stability arising from potential speculation against the dollar. These latter writers see the international imbalances as a contemporary version of the Triffin Dilemma. In this paper, we argue that both views are mistaken because they both focus on net capital flows. Recent research suggests, on the contrary, the importance of international gross capital flows related to financial liberalization. However, our argument goes further in order to demonstrate that the analysis of the consequences of international gross capital flows were already at the core of the Triffin dilemma, as well as in wider debates about the inherent instability of the international monetary power of individual countries, before and after World War II.

South Africa has long been an intriguing subject of study, particularly for scholars from the United States. The intensification and dismantling of the apartheid state offers a wealth of material to political scientists and social movement theorists. As the African country with the highest White population, race relations are always in the foreground, as they are in most studies of U.S. urban (and suburban) policy, while they are only just beginning to be taken as a serious ‘issue’ in European social science. U.S. scholars may occasionally look at South Africa as if it were a distorted mirror.¹ Depending on one's perspective, as well as the focus of the study, South Africa can be taken as a hopeful symbol of reconciliation or as a warning of the great difficulty in overcoming decades of oppression and systemic inequality. This chapter focuses on the generally overlooked aspect of suburbanization in South Africa, which, surprisingly enough, in certain respects looks very much like U.S. suburbanization.