Graph efficiency and productivity measures: an application to US agriculture

Hyperbolic measures of efficiency and productivity change with respect to a graph representation of production technology allow researchers to consider output and input dimensions simultaneously in measuring producer performance. Hyperbolic efficiency measures have been proposed, but empirical implementation has not followed, either in efficiency analysis or in productivity analysis. The objectives of this paper are to define hyperbolic performance measures on a graph representation of production technology, to motivate their use by stating some of their advantages over their radial counterparts, and to introduce a direct formulation to calculate them making use of Data Envelopment Analysis techniques. The ideas are illustrated by calculating hyperbolic efficiency and Malmquist productivity indexes for a US agricultural panel data set.     

Category management and consumer choice

This paper shows the results of an exploratory analysis of the structure of a complex product category: Wine. In complex categories, a usual strategy of consumers is the partitioning of alternatives into homogeneous subsets and the sequential eliminations of subsets until a product/brand is chosen from among few homogeneous alternatives in the last subset. To identify if there is such a kind of strategy and the product attributes involved is of great interest for the retailer. After a discussion of the different modelling alternatives of the choice process, the authors provide an application of the additive trees (ADDTREE) model to explore the hierarchical structure. The ADDTREE results provide a first overview of the competitive market structure of the wine category: competition becomes more intense as the wine category is partitioned by, first, the type of wine criteria and, second, the designation of origin (DO) criteria.     

Flexibility at the Margin and Labor Market Volatility in OECD Countries*

We study the business‐cycle behavior of segmented labor markets with flexibility at the margin (e.g., just affecting fixed‐term contracts). We present a matching model with temporary and permanent jobs (i) where there is a gap in the firing costs associated with these types of jobs and (ii) where there are restrictions in the creation and duration of fixed‐term contracts. We show that a labor market with ``flexibility at the margin'' increases the unemployment volatility with respect to one that is fully regulated. This analysis yields new insights into the interpretation of the recent volatility changes witnessed in the OECD area.     

Does involvement matter in online shopping satisfaction and trust?

Consumer involvement in online shopping can play a moderating role when explaining Web site effect on satisfaction and trust. This study proposes a set of hypotheses based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) of persuasion, a conceptual model that explains the formation of individual attitudes that are prompted by central and peripheral cues. The model proposes the use of central signals when the buyer is highly involved and peripheral signals when the buyer is less involved. Nevertheless, the results of this study would suggest that these relationships are not so clearly defined in the case of online buying, which implies that certain assumptions associated with the ELM need to be revised to take the particularities of the online context into account. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Strategic groups and performance in the Spanish hotel sector

This study uses the strategic group theory to identify business strategies and competitive advantages implemented by Spanish hotels, which are grouped together according to three variables (size, chain affiliation, and category) and the degree of development of the different business strategies. An analysis carried out with the aim of checking the potential existence of significant differences in performance among the strategic groups revealed that the highest performance levels are achieved by larger-sized, chain-affiliated, and higher-category hotels as well as by establishments which base their competitive advantage on category and capacity or size and internal management.     

Does self-regulation work? Experimental evidence of the reputational incentives of Self-Regulatory Organizations

Self-regulation (SR) is a common way of enforcing quality in markets (such as banking, financial services and several professions) and in a variety of public and private organizations. We provide experimental evidence of the reputational incentives of self-regulatory organizations (SROs) to publicly disclose versus cover-up fraud in an incomplete information environment. We find that observed behaviour is generally consistent with Bayesian equilibrium when subjects are informed about the relative likelihood of fraud detection by a ‘vigilant’ versus a ‘lax’ SRO type. In particular, a fraud disclosure equilibrium is supported when subjects are informed that the ‘vigilant’ SRO is more likely to detect fraud; otherwise, a cover-up equilibrium is supported. However, when subjects are not informed about the relative likelihood of fraud detection by the SRO types (as expected in real SR situations), no equilibrium is strongly supported. Our results suggest that in practice, the reputation-based incentives for effective SR may be inherently ambiguous and weak.     

Two-Sided Bounds for Ruin Probabilities when the Adjustment Coefficient does not Exist

In this paper, we derive two-sided bounds for the ruin probability in the compound Poisson risk model when the adjustment coefficient of the individual claim size distribution does not exist. These bounds also apply directly to the tails of compound geometric distributions. The upper bound is tighter than that of Dickson (1994). The corresponding lower bound, which holds under the same conditions, is tighter than that of De Vylder and Goovaerts (1984). Even when the adjustment coefficient exists, the upper bound is, in some cases, tighter than Lundberg's bound. These bounds are applicable for any positive distribution function with a finite mean. Examples are given and numerical comparisons with asymptotic formulae for the ruin probability are also considered.     

Measuring the Sustainability of Tourism in Manuel Antonio and Texel: A Tourist Perspective

This paper examines tourist perceptions of sustainability in Manuel Antonio/Quepos, Costa Rica and Texel, The Netherlands. It also reviews tourist opinions of site-specific sustainability aspects and assesses differences between tourist types and their perceptions of sustainability. The ecological dimension of sustainability was perceived the most important, followed by social-cultural and economic dimensions. Among tourists to Manuel Antonio/Quepos there was no distinctive difference between the last two dimensions while the economic dimension was far less important among Texel tourists. Loss of local lifestyles and processes of urbanisation were the most serious problems perceived in Manuel Antonio/Quepos. For Texel, a fewrespondents indicated problems such as increase of prices, urbanisation and loss of local lifestyles. Results demonstrate tourist awareness of sustainability issues and that in the long run this awareness might lead to changes in tourist preferences.     

Estimating household demand for housing attributes in rent-controlled markets

We estimate the household’s marginal willingness to pay for housing attributes in the rent-controlled sector, so where rents are not freely market determined. The application of hedonic price approaches to obtain estimates of the household’s value of housing characteristics is then invalid. We apply an alternative estimation approach based on residential mobility. In our application, we focus on the households’ willingness to pay for number of rooms as well as the willingness to pay to avoid a long commuting distance. Our estimates appear plausible. For example, for households in the rent-controlled sector are willing to pay about 7% of their household income for an additional room. The implied marginal costs of commuting are about €0.17–€0.23 per (one-way) kilometre.