Product recall with symmetric uncertainty and multiunit purchases

A common view in retail electricity markets is that retailers discriminate based on consumers’ loyalty: loyal consumers pay more and switchers can (and do) select the cheapest offers) when they switch. The premium is colloquially known as a “loyalty tax” or “loyalty premium”. Reflecting this understanding Australia’s governments, regulators and consumer advocates have encouraged consumers to switch electricity retailers. Using a sample of 47,114 household electricity bills we test whether consumers that had switched in the previous 12 months (“switchers”) pay less than consumers who remained with their retailers (“remainers”) in the previous 12 months. We find that the annual bills of switchers are expected to be AU$48 (4%) lower than remainers and that the median switcher could reduce their bills by 21% by selecting the cheapest offer. Classifying retailers into tiers however provides some nuance to the main conclusion: the third tier of retailers (the new entrants with market shares of less than 3%) impose higher loyalty taxes than the other two tiers (incumbents and mid-sized retailers). The middle tier of retailers impose the lowest loyalty tax, and in fact for many consumers they may reward loyalty. These findings suggest that the loyalty tax is (typically) smaller than widely considered, it varies across tiers of retailers and even engaged consumers typically do not select the lowest priced offer. This raises the question of whether switchers are motivated by lower bills as well as other factors or whether the main challenge is search difficulties.

     

服务失败情境下转换成本对顾客忠诚的影响研究

有关顾客忠诚的研究检验了服务情境下转换成本对顾客忠诚的影响作用,然而,服务失败情境下转换成本对顾客忠诚的影响作用却很少被提及。研究讨论服务失败情境下正面转换成本和负面转换成本对顾客忠诚的影响作用,对美发行业经历过服务失败的顾客进行调查,并且运用结构方程模型进行实证研究,得出以下结论:服务失败发生以后正面转换成本对顾客忠诚具有显著的正向影响,负面转换成本对顾客忠诚有显著的负向影响,这些发现对服务企业具有重要的指导作用。     

Estimating the Impact of WTO and Domestic Reforms on the Indian Cotton and Textile Sectors: a General-Equilibrium Approach

The agreement to abolish the quotas on textiles and clothing introduced under the Multi‐fiber Arrangement (MFA) will create a new and much more competitive world market for India's exports of textiles and clothing. India's inefficient and costly policies, such as cotton export quotas, the hank yarn obligation, and the restrictive policies on foreign investment that have held back productivity in the Indian apparel sector, will impose serious costs. The authors consider the implications of reforming these policies in an open trading environment using a multiregion, applied general‐equilibrium model. They find that the costs of these policies to India increase substantially following abolition of the MFA; the benefits to India from domestic reforms are considerably enhanced when there is global free trade in textiles and apparel.     

服务质量、私人关系对顾客忠诚的影响研究

服务质量和顾客忠诚是企业获得竞争优势的法宝,而私人关系作为中国企业管理中独特的要素受到越来越多的关注,揭示三者之间的内在联系对于提升服务企业绩效及丰富相关管理理论十分重要。本文以服务行业为研究对象,研究服务质量、私人关系对顾客忠诚的影响。数据分析结果表明,企业的服务质量和顾客与服务人员私人关系都正向影响顾客对企业的忠诚,企业的服务质量有助于提升顾客与服务人员的私人关系,在企业一致性高的情况下,顾客与服务人员私人关系对顾客对企业忠诚有更大的影响。这些发现对于提升顾客忠诚有一定的借鉴意义,也有助于丰富中国情境下的本土化理论。     

B2C模式下转换成本对网上顾客忠诚影响实证研究

基于转换成本的视角,本文构建了一个影响网上顾客忠诚的概念模型。实证研究表明,网络程序转换成本、网络财务转换成本与网络关系转换成本这三种网络转换成本均正向影响网上顾客的行为忠诚度,只有网络财务转换成本和网络关系转换成本正向影响网上顾客的态度忠诚度。三种类型转换成本的构成因子对顾客的态度忠诚和行为忠诚的影响机理是不同的:利益损失成本、个人关系损失成本和品牌关系损失成本起着正向影响顾客态度忠诚的作用;评估成本、学习成本、利益损失成本和品牌关系损失成本起着正向影响顾客行为忠诚的作用。     

An empirical analysis of ‘acting white’

Using a newly available data set, which allows one to construct a novel measure of a student's social status, we demonstrate that there are potentially important racial differences in the relationship between social status and academic achievement. The effect is concentrated among students with a grade point average (GPA) of 3.5 or higher and more pronounced in schools with more interracial contact. Earlier studies showing a positive relationship between popularity and academic achievement for blacks are sensitive to the inclusion of more continuous achievement measures. We argue that the data are most consistent with a model of ‘acting white’ in which investments in education are taken as a signal of one's opportunity costs of peer-group loyalty, though imprecise estimates make definitive conclusions difficult.     

共创价值对顾客忠诚和员工工作绩效的影响

利用对420名消费者的问卷调查数据,运用结构方程模型实证分析了共创价值是如何影响顾客满意和员工工作满意度、进而如何作用于顾客忠诚和员工工作绩效水平的。结果表明:共创价值与顾客满意显著相关,并对顾客满意具有促进作用;顾客满意对顾客忠诚具有促进作用;共创价值与员工工作满意度显著相关,并对员工工作满意度具有促进作用;员工工作满意度对其工作绩效具有促进作用;顾客满意与员工工作绩效显著相关,并对员工工作绩效具有促进作用;员工工作满意度与顾客忠诚显著相关,并对顾客忠诚具有促进作用。     

Trade,foreign direct investment or acquisition: Optimal entry modes for multinationals

We examine multinationals' optimal entry modes into foreign markets as a function of market size, FDI fixed costs, tariffs and transport costs. Our results highlight why large countries are more likely to attract acquisition investment, while intermediate sized countries may be served predominantly through trade, even in the presence of high tariffs. Small countries are most likely to experience either FDI or no entry. We also show how these results vary with the competition intensity in the host country.FDI fixed costs, tariffs and transport costs are crucial not only in determining whether to engage in FDI or trade, but they are also shown to influence the acquisition choice as trade and FDI threats influence the acquisition price. Finally, we explore the welfare implications of tariff reductions for both the local firm and the multinational and investigate political motives to impose endogenous tariffs that influence not only the welfare of a local firm, but also the entry mode of the multinational.     

Technological Expectations And The Diffusion Of ‘Intermediate’ Technologies

The concept of ‘technological expectations’ has established itself as a key one in the smdy of innovation adoption. The article suggests that it may help explaining not just the adopters' timing decisions, but also their decisions regarding the kind of innovation they adopt. Innova tions that set the technological frontier face the competitive diffusion of some ‘intemdiate’ technologies. These may be either old technologies or ‘midrange’ ones. which purposefully lag behind the frontier, in order to impose lower adoption costs to their users.

Taking into account midrange innovations casts new light on the supply side of the diffu sion process. in terms of technological variety and selection effects. Drawing examples from the electronic colour pre-press industry, we highlight the equipment suppliers' anxious quest for the successful midrange innovation, able to hit the right txade-off between proximity to the frontier and adoption costs.     

企业虚拟品牌社区治理机制:结构探索和量表开发

在相关文献梳理与分析的基础上,界定了企业虚拟品牌社区治理机制的概念,通过半结构化访谈和开放式问卷调查等方式进行资料收集,并利用扎根理论进行编码,提炼出企业虚拟品牌社区治理机制的结构维度。在此基础上,遵循量表开发的标准模式和范式,通过对Haier智家社群、小米社区和花粉俱乐部的问卷调查,实现了对企业虚拟品牌社区治理机制结构模型和测量量表的验证。研究发现:(1)企业虚拟品牌社区治理机制是一个多维度概念,包括问责机制、关系规范、社区激励和网络惯例四个维度;(2)经过探索性和验证性因子分析的检验,本文所开发的企业虚拟品牌社区治理机制测量量表具有较高的信度和效度。本研究不仅拓展了治理机制在企业虚拟品牌社区情境中的理论研究,实现了对企业虚拟品牌社区治理机制概念内涵和结构维度的探索,而且首次开发了企业虚拟品牌社区治理机制的测量量表,为后续实证研究提供了有效测量工具。     

Information technology,transaction costs and the decision to 'make or buy'

Information and communication technology (ICT) has a wide ranging impact on business. One of the effects is on the 'make or buy decision'. This is analysed from the perspective of transactzon cost economm (TCE). On the one hand ICT reduces transaction costs by reducing search costs, by facilitating monitoring and control of performance and by yielding a greater flexibility of production, which reduces the transaction specificity of assets. These efiects, favour the decision to 'buy'. On the other hand, ICT reduces economies of scale, in some areas of production, which makes outside production i n a specializedfirm less attractive. Also, ICT may be used to impose switching costs between suppliers and buyers, thereby miszng transaction costs. But such ploys appear to be feasible only temporarily, with a pressure from users and competitors towards standardization and open systems. Thus the effects of ICT are diverse, but on the whole it tends to favour the option to contract out.     

What does the experience of German monetary union tell us about the theory of monetary union?

This paper summarizes the modern theory of monetary unions to identify in what circumstances such unions are supposed to impose low costs on, and give substantial benefits to, their members and then considers the case of the effect on Eastern Germany of German monetary and economic union. This union satisfied most of the conditions for low cost and high benefit, yet the initial impact of union was a severe fall in economic activity in Eastern Germany. The paper concludes that the conventional theory is deficient in ignoring the effects on the poorer member countries of a union of the expectations engendered by the creation of the union, and argues that an explicit regional policy is required in a union of members of widely different income levels.     

Costs of change and political polarization

We study a two-period model of policy-making where (i) changes of current policies impose costs on all individuals that increase linearly with the magnitude of the policy shift and (ii) political power changes over time. We show that policy polarization is minimal for intermediate marginal costs. In turn, welfare is a single-peaked function of the marginal cost. One interpretation is that societies with political institutions that impose positive but moderate costs on political reforms simultaneously achieve the highest welfare and the lowest policy polarization.     

Commitment and the adoption of a common currency*

In contrast to Mundell's inquiry on the optimality of currency areas, this article aims to understand under what circumstances a Pareto‐dominant monetary union will be established. Using a multicountry overlapping generations model, we highlight gains from monetary union arising from reduced transactions costs and lower inflation. Despite these gains, countries acting independently will impose barriers to exchange through local currency restrictions, thereby creating transactions costs and providing an incentive for inflation. Therefore, the gains from monetary union are most likely to be lost without collective effort.     

基于演化博弈的不安全行为的羊群效应研究

基于演化博弈理论,分析了高危行业员工跟随不安全行为的心理收益、生理收益和风险成本,不跟随时违反群体规范的成本,安全行为的收益,以及监管力度和法不责众的心理特征,从众心理等因素对不安全行为羊群效应的形成及演化的影响。研究结论表明,不安全行为羊群效应的产生与跟随不安全行为的收益及成本,监管力度等因素显著相关。并根据数值分析的结果,对不安全行为羊群效应的管控提出了建议,为安全生产中的群体不安全行为现象提供理论支持。     

Cooption and Repression in the Soviet Union

The Soviet ruling elite, the nomenklatura, used both cooption and political repression to encourage loyalty to the communist regime. Loyalty was critical both in defusing internal opposition to the rule of the nomenklatura and in either deterring or defeating foreign enemies of the Soviet Union. The cost of coopting people into the Communist Party was a decrease in the standard of living of members of the nomenklatura, whereas the cost of political repression was the danger that members of the nomenklatura would themselves be victimized. We assume that the nomenklatura determined the extent of cooption and the intensity of political repression by equating perceived marginal benefits and marginal costs. We use this assumption to construct an account of the historical evolution of policies of cooption and political repression in the Soviet Union.     

Who do we tip and why? An empirical investigation

An important question about social norms is whether they are created to increase welfare. This is addressed by examining the characteristics of tipped and non-tipped occupations. Tipping prevalence is negatively correlated with worker's income and consumer's monitoring ability and positively with consumer's income and closeness between the worker and the consumer. The results refute a common belief that tipping exists to improve economic efficiency by lowering monitoring costs. Tipping, however, is more prevalent when consumers feel empathy and compassion for workers and want to show gratitude for good service, suggesting that tipping might increase welfare if welfare includes psychological utility.     

社会互动与投资选择

个体的投资选择是否受到社会互动的影响?社会互动的作用机制是什么?采用2005年中国12城市投资者行为调查数据,本文发现,总体而言,社会互动推动了个体当前和未来期望对银行存款、外汇、股票、债券、期货、基金、借出、做生意、保险金、收藏品、房地产、理财产品、彩票等投资项目的参与。社会互动的积极作用主要是通过个体遵循参考群体成员的投资选择所体现的社会规范来实现的。此外,内生互动带来的感受交流和信息获得分别推动了个体当前对保险金和未来期望对债券的投资,而情景互动降低了个体未来参与股市的期望。     

Group lending and individual lending with strategic default

Papers that compare group lending and individual lending in the presence of strategic default suggest that unless group members can impose costly social sanctions on one another, or unless the bank uses cross-reporting mechanisms group lending may do worse than individual lending. In this paper, we show that if, (1) the amount that a successful borrower owes for his defaulting partner is optimally determined, and (2) the penalty is allowed to vary across group members, then even in the absence of any social sanctions or cross-reporting, (1) expected borrower welfare is strictly higher with group lending when both group lending and individual lending are feasible and (2) group lending is feasible for a greater range of opportunity cost of capital. These results are robust to collusion between borrowers.