Trick or Treat? Econ Ed Month Meets Halloween

In combination with October being Econ Ed Month and the arrival of Halloween 2023 in just a few days, Turner Business decided to produce a couple of blogs dealing with Halloween-related research affiliated with the Turner College's Center for Economic Education, which is led by Turner College economist Frank Mixon. Both of these studies involve the trick-or-treating tradition that characterizes the last day of October each year. The first extends a 1996 book titled Accounting for Tastes by 1992 Nobel Prize–winning economist Gary Becker (1930-2014) that discusses the usefulness of societal norms, which are those common values of a group that influence an individual’s behavior in ways that reduce the need to spend both public and private resources on the protection of property. Until Becker’s book there was no generally accepted approach to the growth and decay of societal norms.

Mixon and his coauthors Tessa Pousson of Loyola University - New Orleans and Jared Loftus of the University of Southern Mississippi published a 2005 article appearing in Applied Economics Letters that explores the decay of social norms using an economic model of the production of social order in the context of edicts employed by cities/municipalities that govern trick-or-treating activities on Halloween. More specifically, the article examines the factors that lead modern-day city mayors and/or city councils to issue edicts regarding the “rules” for trick-or-treating (e.g., start time, end time, age limit, etc.) on Halloween when their political predecessors relied on social norms to govern trick-or-treating. The analysis suggests that such edicts are more likely to occur in densely-populated cities, cities with more heterogeneous populations, cities with higher proportions of single-parent families, and cities with higher home ownership rates. At the time of the study, almost 20 percent of U.S. cities employed these trick-or-treating edicts. Clearly, then, norms and social conventions can and do erode (i.e., lose their effectiveness).

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Grant Hits Ground Running as New Turner College Marketing Intern

The Turner College's new marketing intern Lizzy Grant , a senior marketing major from Newnan who previously attended Gordon State College, where she played varsity soccer, and is scheduled to graduate from the Turner College in May of 2024, has hit the ground running in her new position. She recently played a large role in the creation of a video tour of the Synovus Center, the main campus home of the Turner College. The video helps to guide new students on where to go in the building and who they can talk to if they help. The video showcases the Student Services Center, the main lobby, and more. The video is played as part of a loop on video screens placed throughout the Synovus Center. Lizzy's list of activities at CSU is impressive. She is the Treasurer of the Turner College's Marketing Club, the President of Marketing for the Turner College's chapter of the Financial Management Association, and an Ambassador for the Turner College. She is also the Treasurer of her s

Jung Exploring Influence of Confucianism on Luxury Brand Performance in China, Japan and South Korea

In a recent chat with Turner Business , Turner College professor of marketing Sungwoo Jung made the point that luxury brands are gaining the degree of influence in many developing countries that they enjoy now in developed countries. He has been pondering this issue as part of his international marketing research program, which typically focuses on advertising, pioneering advantages and multi-cultural analysis. Currently, Jung is concentrating his energies on a cross-cultural analysis of brand equity that highlights luxury brands’ performance. His research finds that China, Japan and South Korea have each seen an increase in market share for luxury brands in recent years. As Jung explained to Turner Business , “These three countries share a common philosophical background – Confucianism.” With that point in mind, Jung and his coauthors are currently engaged in an investigation of how Confucianism influences consumer behavior in these three Asian countries, and how that behavior im

Turner College Grad Publishes Academic Study on Corporate Culture and Strategy

Former Turner College student Tamara Todorova , now an associate professor of economics at American University in Bulgaria (AUB), recently published a study on corporate culture and strategy. Todorova earned an MBA from the Turner College in 1996 and then went on to earn a doctorate in international economics from the University of Economics - Varna in 2001. She has been on the faculty at AUB since August of 2000. Todorova's study, which appears in the current issue of the International Journal of Business Performance Management , investigates how corporate culture helps to economize on the transaction costs of internal organization. As she explains, the dimensions of corporate culture that assist in this task include increasing trust and reducing intrafirm opportunism. Todorova's study demonstrates that setting common goals and a common direction reduces the sizeable costs of internal organization. Tamara's prior research appears in Economics of Transition , International

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