Purpose: The purpose of this study is to consolidate existing research on 'service networks' and to frame this literature as a new 'context for learning'. Research from inter-organizational learning is used to qualify this consolidation and advances from inter-organizational learning are used to operationalize how service network actors in this…

As higher education continues to face declining enrollment and financial pressures from decreased funding, colleges and universities must find innovative ways to differentiate themselves from competing institutions through niche marketing initiatives in an effort to continue meeting the needs and wants of the shifting population of students. Niche…

Despite overall declines on college enrollment, various accredited and unaccredited providers of postsecondary education delivery are thriving. This success is driven by the economics of the internet and a market structure that allows students to choose and pay for them. Burck Smith, who is the founder of StraighterLine, a company that helps…

Children construct meaning from their economic experiences in the form of naive theories and use these theories to explain the relationships between their actions and the outcomes. Inevitably, due to their lack of economic literacy, these theories will be incomplete. Through curriculum design that acknowledges and addresses these naive theories,…

Is the era of personal computing ending, or is it only just beginning? Certainly, cyberlife seems to have become more intensely personal over the last few years, partly because it has also become so much more social. The rise of the new consumer-oriented ubiquitous computing will reshape--and reduce--users' reliance on enterprise IT. Much of the…

Information Technology (IT) has spawned the growth of novel and innovative market mechanisms (such as online auctions) and associated businesses (such as eBay and Priceline) that were not feasible without the capabilities and reach of these modern information technologies. Previous studies on designing trading mechanisms for online markets…

Trade, the Internet, and product innovation have greatly enlarged the number of goods (N) in the consumer's choice set. The welfare effect of the growth in N has been extensively discussed in the specialized literature, but very little has filtered down to our textbook models of a competitive equilibrium. These focus on the Pareto-optimal…

The family is examined as a focal unit of production and a home production activity model is developed. An interdisciplinary approach is used which puts the broad range of family activities on a continuum from production to consumption. (Author/SK)

Concern in the United States for adequate public school education in mathematics dates back at least to the response to Sputnik in 1957, but at that time focused on preparing a cadre of students for quantitatively demanding careers in science and engineering. More recently, however, there has been increasing appreciation of the value of broadly…

It is suggested that the interplay of demands and resources over time governs not only the well-being of family members but also the behavior of these members vis-a-vis the larger society. (Author/FF)

We examine an economy whose consumers have different discount factors for utility, possibly not exponential. We characterize the properties of efficient allocations of resources and of the shadow prices that would decentralize such allocations. We show in particular that the representative agent has a decreasing discount rate when, as is usually…

This competency-based preservice home economics teacher education module on community consumer resources is the second in a set of four core curriculum modules on consumer approach to homemaking education. (This set is part of a larger set of sixty-seven modules on the Management Approach to Teaching Consumer and Homemaking Education [MATCHE]--see…

The Audiovisual Materials Evaluation Committee prepared this report to guide elementary and secondary teachers in their selection of supplementary economic education audiovisual materials. It updates a 1969 publication by adding 107 items to the original guide. Materials included in this report: (1) contain elements of economic analysis--facts,…

The change in the percentage of personal consumption expenditures for recreation was investigated. Transportation, food, housing, and medical care expenditures were also examined. Results indicate that the proportion of personal consumption expenditures for transportation, food, and housing did not increase while recreation and medical care…