THE ECONOMIC AND BEHAVIORAL CONSEQUENCES OF ONLINE USER REVIEWS

Online user reviews have become an increasingly relevant informational tool during product search and adoption. Recent surveys have shown that consumers trust and rely on online reviews more than they do on website recommendations and experts opinions. As a new way of driving consumer purchasing intentions, online user reviews have therefore come under scrutiny by researchers. The objective of this paper is to offer an overview of the literature regarding the impact of online user reviews on economic indicators (e.g., sales, marketing strategies) and on consumer behavior. Furthermore, following the growing interest of academics and professionals alike on the topic, the present work provides an exploratory analysis of the consequences of online reviews on individual rating behavior – empirical regularities showed that online rating distributions tend to be concentrated on extreme values, possibly because of rating biases. As consumers and firms incorporate the heuristic cues from such distributions into their decision-making processes, biased ratings might lead to suboptimal choices. This overview presents established results (e.g., the impact of volume on product sales) and insights as issues for future research.     

Promotion and Prevention Contracts in Industry Level Firm to Firm Dyad

ABSTRACT

Purpose

This article aims to introduce and distinguish two features of contract design – prevention and promotion contracts – and compares their effects on opportunism within the distributor–supplier relationship. It also examines the moderating role of ex post contract enforcement strategies.     

试论可再生能源技术在绿色建筑中的应用

随着我国建筑行业的不断发展,为了迎合节能、环保需求,绿色建筑开始出现。对于绿色建筑来说,要想体现出环保意识,需要在建筑中添加可再生能源,这样不仅符合当前我国绿色发展的理念,还能减少对环境的污染,可以更好地保护环境。论文针对可再生能源技术在绿色建筑中的应用展开分析。     

Precautionary retirement and precautionary saving

The paper analyzes the lifetime utility maximization problem of an agent who chooses her saving and timing of retirement in the presence of labor income risk in a simple setting where a pure redistributive pension scheme is in place. In this context, a precautionary motive for retirement, which pushes old workers to replace an uncertain labor income with certain pension payments, and to retire early is identified. The conditions for precautionary retirement and saving to arise are then characterized and interpreted in two settings. In the first setting, utility only depends on income, and a sufficiently low level of absolute prudence is necessary for precautionary retirement. A sufficiently high level is necessary however for precautionary saving, which can coexist with precautionary retirement only for intermediate values of absolute prudence. In the second setting, agent utility also depends on leisure, and three conditions allow the precautionary motive for retirement and saving to jointly operate: prudence, an index of absolute prudence sufficiently low and cross-prudence in leisure.     

Earnings Instability and Tenure

We study the effect of tenure on earnings instability in Italy using the reforms of temporary employment contracts, which affected the average tenure of workers differentially across cohorts. We develop a model of earnings dynamics, and we exploit the variation of tenure and instability over time and across birth cohorts to estimate policy‐relevant parameters. Our results indicate that each year of tenure on the job reduces earnings instability by 11 percent; the drop is faster in the first three years of the match. Workers on a temporary contract have an earnings instability up to 100 percent higher than workers on a permanent contract.     

工业4.0驱动:基于制造企业智能化的股权结构实证研究

从投资者结构角度研究企业层面工业智能化的驱动力，用委托代理理论分析股权结构对企业智能化投资的影响。以中国制造业上市公司为研究样本，实证检验股权结构对企业智能化投资的关系。研究结果表明，从股权集中角度看，一定的股权制衡很有必要，一股独大不利于企业智能化投资；从企业性质看，公有企业更愿意进行智能化投资，个人私有的第一大股东不太愿意进行智能化投资；从激励角度看，高管薪酬与智能化投资之间的关系不明确，说明目前的薪酬激励制度不够合理；从地区文化角度看，越是发达的地区企业越容易接受智能化投资。     

基于银行理财顾客特征的产品模式创新研究

基于“感知利益”与“感知风险”权衡视角构建了银行理财顾客识别模型,将银行理财顾客划分为感知高利益—高风险敏感型顾客群体、感知低利益—高风险消极型顾客群体、感知低利益—低风险冷漠型顾客群体、感知高利益—低风险积极型顾客群体.应针对不同类型顾客群体的感知利益与感知风险对于购买意愿综合影响作用的差异、感知利益与感知风险构成维度重要程度的差异及人口统计特征和购买理财产品特征的差异,采取不同的提升感知利益且降低感知风险的创新产品模式.     

Planning in Turbulent Times: Exploring Planners' Agency in Jerusalem

This article explores the role of planning in the deeply divided and politically polarized context of Jerusalem. The overall argument developed throughout the article is that the relation between planning and politics is a non‐hierarchical set of interactions, negotiated within specific historical, geographical, legal and cultural contexts—in other words, orders don't come down from the politicians to be slavishly followed by planners. In this respect our findings, based on in‐depth interviews with Israeli planners, suggest that the case of Jerusalem represents a particularly dramatic illustration of the fact that the function of planning expertise can only be understood in relation to the surrounding socio‐political environment. Furthermore, contrary to conventional wisdom, planners in Jerusalem are not destined to either complicity or irrelevance in the face of political imperatives; planners' agency, however, does not simply reflect their mastery of specific professional knowledge and tools, but also their ability to act strategically in relation to the context in which they operate.