Gender-Based Pricing in the Hairdressing Industry

This paper reviews the evidence and evaluates the claim that the hairdressing industry systematically discriminates on the basis of gender and compares the way in which courts in the UK and US have dealt with such allegations. We argue that "transaction costs" can be used to provide an alternative (perhaps more satisfactory) explanation for the pricing patterns observed than does price discrimination. Any decision to ban gender-based pricing will imply a difficult trade-off between economic efficiency and concerns for gender equality.     

Shaping Ethical Perceptions: An Empirical Assessment of the Influence of Business Education,Culture, and Demographic Factors

Recent events at Enron, K-Mart, Adelphia, and Tyson would seem to suggest that managers are still experiencing ethical lapses. These lapses are somewhat surprising and disappointing given the heightened focus on ethical considerations within business contexts during the past decade. This study is designed, therefore, to increase our understanding of the forces that shape ethical perceptions by considering the effects of business school education as well as a number of other individual-level factors (such as intra-national culture, area of specialization within business, and gender) that may exert an influence on ethical perceptions. We found significant effects for business education, self-reported intra-national culture, area of specialization within business, and gender for some and/or all areas of ethics examined (i.e., deceit, fraud, self-interest, influence dealing, and coercion). One of our most encouraging findings is that tolerance for unethical behavior appears to decrease with formal business education. Despite the prevalent stereotype that business students are only interested in the bottom line or that business schools transform idealistic freshman into self-serving business graduates, our results suggest otherwise. Given the heightened criticism of the ethicality of contemporary managerial behavior, it is heartening to note that, even as adults, individuals can be positively affected by integration of ethics training.     

Growth in regions

We use a newly assembled sample of 1,528 regions from 83 countries to compare the speed of per capita income convergence within and across countries. Regional growth is shaped by similar factors as national growth, such as geography and human capital. Regional convergence rate is about 2 % per year, comparable to that between countries. Regional convergence is faster in richer countries, and countries with better capital markets. A calibration of a neoclassical growth model suggests that significant barriers to factor mobility within countries are needed to account for the evidence.     

Investigating the moderating effect of information sources on cruise tourist behaviour in a port of call

The aim of the study is to examine how destination knowledge acquired by cruisers through different information sources (online versus others) can moderate destination image formation and the relationship of image–satisfaction–behavioural intentions in a port of call. A multiple group analysis with partial least square method was carried out using data collected from a major tourism destination in Spain: Valencia. The findings revealed knowledge acquired through different information sources is a moderator of the image–satisfaction and satisfaction–behavioural intention relationships. The destination image formation is also significantly different from one group to the other. The findings of this study have a number of practical implications.     

Does Community Participation Produce Dividends in Social Investment Fund Projects?

Social investment funds (SIFs) aim to strengthen local capacity for design, implementation, and maintenance of social and economic infrastructure projects and to increase community participation in ways that will promote their sustainability and effectiveness. We explore key features of recent SIFs, intended to promote decentralized, participatory decision-making, and management of projects, in SIF-led education projects in Honduras. We investigate empirically whether efforts to implement a participatory approach improve the outcomes of these projects and community members’ perceptions of their effectiveness. The findings identify elements of the participatory methodology which were associated with increased household and community participation and better household opinions of the projects and also show a link between participation and the probability of children’s regular school attendance.     

A Note on Farmers' Retirement and Succession Considerations: Evidence from a Household Survey

Retirement and succession considerations of family farm operators in Maryland are considered in this paper. Retirement decisions are found to be mainly determined by personal considerations, and only secondary importance is given to succession considerations. However, the relative importance of succession considerations is positively related to the importance of the farm enterprise relative to other income-generating activities of the family. The conclusion is that retirement and succession decisions in family farms are not separable.     

Competition Effects of Supermarket Services

This article investigates the competition effects of supermarket services using fluid milk as a case study. A simultaneous equation model for services and price competition is estimated with scanner data from fifteen supermarket chains using two alternative measures of services, namely store size and principal components of in-store services. Empirical results show that increasing services results in economies of scope, greater supermarket chain-level demand, lower price elasticity of demand, and enhanced market power, leading to higher milk prices and quantity sold. We conclude that, as result of service competition, supermarkets differentiate themselves from competitors and successfully attract less price-sensitive consumers.     

A framework to measure integrated risk

A framework underlying various models that measure the credit risk of a portfolio is extended in this paper to allow the integration of credit risk with a range of market risks using Monte Carlo simulation. A structural model is proposed that allows interest rates to be stochastic and provides closed-form expressions for the market value of a firm's equity and its probability of default. This model is embedded within the integrated framework and the general approach illustrated by measuring the risk of a foreign exchange forward when there is a significant probability of default by the counterparty. For this example moving from a market risk calculation to an integrated risk calculation reduces the expected future value of the instrument by an amount that could not be calculated using the common pre-settlement exposure technique for estimating the credit risk of a derivative.