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The purpose of this paper is to quantify the impact of Wal-Mart Supercenters (WMSs) on supermarkets’ profit margins using fluid milk in the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area in the USA as a case study.

The authors develop a two-stage dynamic entry game to model market competition in the pre- and post-WMS stages, and test the theoretical model using the method of simulated moments and milk scanner data from Dallas/Fort Worth supermarkets.

The empirical findings show that the entry of WMSs accounts for an average of about 16.29-25.69 percent decline in milk profit margins of nearby, or incumbent, supermarkets. Economies of scale and chain synergies are found to be five times more significant for WMSs than for incumbent supermarkets, granting Wal-Mart a significant competitive edge.

This paper quantifies the impact of WMS’s entry on incumbent supermarkets’ profit margins through a structural model of entry. In addition, this paper assesses the effect economies of scale stemming from the ability to provide shopping convenience to consumers as well as chain economies from operating stores near each other.

The purpose of this paper is to apply the Becker‐Murphy theory of rational addiction to the case of carbonated soft drinks. The research aims to reveal the rational addiction evidence of carbonated soft drinks and derive policy implications under this evidence. Consumers' rational addictive evidence for carbonated soft drinks provides a warning for the Chinese government to regulate the industry, due to its bad health consequences.

The authors empirically apply a time‐varying parameter model and scanner data set from 46 US cities.

Empirical results provide strong evidence that carbonated soft drinks are rationally addictive, thus opening the door to taxation and regulation. Taking rational addition into account, estimated demand elasticities are much lower than previous estimates using scanner data, which implies a limited role for taxes to curb consumption but a strong role to raise revenue to fund health promotion programs.

This is the first study to test the rational addiction nature of carbonated soft drinks, thus adding to the scarce economic literature on food addiction. Although the empirical results derived are based on soft drink consumption in the USA, China is experiencing a similar consumption increase in carbonated soft drinks as in the USA, in the examined period. Therefore, the lessons from the USA are also valuable for the public policy makers in China.

This chapter addresses the relationship between foreign interventions and the democracy of the intervened country. In other words, I discuss how foreign interventions have affected the quality of the democratic institutions of the country that is being intervened. Latin America has been chosen for this endeavour, and more specifically, three countries have been chosen as case studies: Nicaragua, Cuba and Brazil. Furthermore, I analyze two types of foreign interventions: military and economic interventions. Nicaragua, Cuba and Brazil have experienced both types of interventions. In order to do this comparison, I look at the predominant interventionists in Latin America: the United States and China.

This qualitative case study explored the information literacy acquisition of 23 students enrolled in a learning community consisting of an advanced English as a Second Language (ESL) writing class and a one-unit class introducing students to research at a suburban community college library in California. As there are no other known learning communities that link an ESL course to a library course, this site afforded a unique opportunity to understand the ways in which ESL students learn to conduct library research. Students encountered difficulties finding, evaluating, and using information for their ESL assignments. Strategies that the students, their ESL instructor, and their instructional librarian crafted in response were enabled by the learning community structure. These strategies included integration of the two courses’ curricula, contextualized learning activities, and dialogue. ESL students in this study simultaneously discovered new language forms, new texts, new ideas, and new research practices, in large part because of the relationships that developed over time among the students, instructor, and instructional librarian. Given the increasing number of ESL students in higher education and the growing concern about their academic success, this study attempts to fill a gap in the research literature on ESL students’ information literacy acquisition.

The Mexican government has been criticized for its implementation of neo-liberal economic policies that threaten to further impoverish indigenous populations. Given this, it is surprising that in 1997 some members of the Mixe people – one of the poorest indigenous groups in Mexico – condemned the implementation of a new government funding project that was specifically intended to alleviate hardship caused by free trade. The paper argues that objections to both free trade and the new funding program stem from the overarching problem the Mixe face, namely their systematic exclusion from decision-making processes and citizenship at the national level.