Search results

This chapter examines the economics of alternative healing in Brazil.

Two narratives are selected from extensive observations and interviews over a period of years. The presentation chronicles the accounts of people experiencing physical symptoms who sought further advice from friends and relatives after visits to conventional medical providers failed to cure them.

In response to a recommendation from one of those consulted, one person went to a spirit “received” by a Kardecist/Spiritist healer-medium while the other obtained treatment from an otherworldly being at an Umbanda center. The respective “therapeutic” procedures are described and analyzed in terms of the beliefs and the worldviews of each of the traditions. If satisfied with the outcome, the patient fulfills an implicit bargain with the otherworldly being(s) and its religious group by adopting their beliefs and practices. This conversion is “payment” for the healing services rendered.

Since some treatments are successful and others are not, the implications of this exchange is that many Brazilians may change their religions several times during their lifespan. As a result of this behavior individuals circulate among the several religious groups that are always in competition with each other.

The analysis provides a distinctive insight into, and original way to understand, alternative health care in Brazil.

We present a model that allows us to compare the effects that frictions involved in immigration and international outsourcing have on the skilled–unskilled wage inequality. We show that, for any given level of contractual friction in the production of intermediate goods, the wedge between the wages of the skilled and unskilled workers widens as the frictions in immigration wear out. The skilled–unskilled wage gap, for any given level of friction in immigration, is sensitive to variations in contractual frictions in intermediates that affect international outsourcing.

We are grateful for the privilege of editing this book and organizing the conference that it celebrates. We thank our universities, departments, and organizations for their generous support, the many people who helped organize the conference, and the reviewers acknowledged below. Most of all, we thank our presenters, participants, and authors for their interest and energy.

The history of the field of entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurship program at Saint Louis University is discussed, along with the descriptions of the Gateways to Entrepreneurship Conferences and the creation of the Advances in Entrepreneurship, Firm Emergence, and Growth (AEFEG) series given in relation to those national- and campus-level contexts. The growth and development of the AEFEG series is discussed and the editorial contributors are noted, which could be of use to those interested in editorial roles and processes. Based on these elements, the chapter concludes with observations on the field of entrepreneurship and some ideas about its future.

A significant share of U.S. subsistence consumers is both poor and functionally low-literate. A key question that marketers and public policy makers must ask is how vulnerable these consumers are to the persuasiveness of marketing communications. We address this question by identifying who subsistence consumers in the United States are likely to be, exploring what it means to be vulnerable, with an emphasis on cognitive vulnerability; examining two theoretical frameworks for analyzing subsistence consumer vulnerability (elaboration likelihood model and persuasion knowledge model); and offering several propositions incorporating the select cognitive constructs of self-esteem, locus of control, and powerlessness.