A note on collusion and resale price maintenance

This paper advances a new, anti-collusive, explanation of resale price maintenance. By imposing a price floor, an upstream firm increases the non-cooperative profits of downstream firms and makes collusion relatively less profitable. As a result, collusion may be destabilized and the price floor enables a manufacturer to prevent collusive behavior among downstream firms. This finding contrasts with the popular view that resale price maintenance fosters collusion.     

Malaysia: the making of a grand design

Anthony Stockwell is Professor of Imperial and Commonwealth History at Royal Holloway, University of London. He was President of the Royal Asiatic Society in 2002–2003 and is currently a Vice-President. His publications include British Policy and Malay Politics during the Malayan Union Experiment (1979) and, as editor, British Documents on End of Empire: Malaya, 1942–1957 (three parts, 1995). He has been joint editor of the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History since 1990. This is a version of a lecture delivered to the Royal Society for Asian Affairs on 26 February 2003.     

Shaping the online fat acceptance movement: talking about body image and beauty standards

Over the past decade, in Canada and the United States, blogs have become a popular and important space for fat women and their allies to create and further develop discursive strategies to contest the gendered anti-fat discourses perpetuated by the media, governments and the field of medicine and institutions of public health (e.g., Elliot, C. (2007). Journal of Canadian Studies, 41, 134–149. Gimlin, D. (2002). Body work: Beauty and self-image in American culture. Berkeley: University of California Press; Herdon, A. M. (2006). Social Semiotics, 15, 127–141. Rice, C. (2007). Women's Studies International Forum, 30, 158–174. Currently, popular discourses pertaining to fat people, particularly women, tend to range from larger bodies implicating a ‘moral deficit’ to a ‘risky behaviour’ to ‘political discrimination’ where elements from each discourse shape how fat women's bodies are read within the broader culture (Fikkan, J. L., & Rothblum, E. D. (2011). Sex Roles, 66, 575–592. Kwan, S. (2009). Sociological Inquiry, 79, 25–50. These messages in positioning the thin body as the ideal body are embedded in neoliberal discourses around citizenship that, in emphasizing personal responsibility, encourage (sometimes) punishing regimens of strict diets and exercise, and perpetuate an image of responsible citizenship as an extension of modern interpretations (Herdon, 2006). Using content and thematic analysis, we systematically analyze how four female self-identified fat acceptance (FA) bloggers discuss beauty standards and body image as a means to challenge these discourses. Findings suggest bloggers import elements from LBGTQ movements to extend dominant discursive strategies, model alternative forms of fat embodiment, and address the economic marginalization of fat women in industry. Moreover, through discussions on beauty and body image, bloggers use online spaces to contest anti-fat discourses and to develop discursive strategies that move beyond the binary of fat as a lifestyle choice, and body size as biologically or genetically determined that dominate the fat acceptance movement.