Habit persistence in assets demand

Habit persistence is examined for six asset demand categories using U.S. data and a dynamic forward-looking model. We find habit persistence is greater for more liquid assets compared to riskier assets and may in part explain low holdings of riskier assets. Cash assets are found to be substitutes with other liquid assets under habit formation. Consistent with portfolio analysis, the riskier asset categories of money market mutual funds and bonds are found to be complements in use. The three more risky asset categories have budget elasticities greater than unity indicating that in the long run consumers are more likely to turn to these assets as their wealth increases.     

Smartphone bans and workplace performance

Experimental Economics - This paper constitutes the first economic investigation into the potential detrimental role of smartphones in the workplace based on a field experiment. We exploit the...     

Street Name Fluency and Housing Prices

This paper examines whether and how street name fluency affects housing prices using a rich sample of housing transactions in Sydney, Australia. We find street names with longer words are preferred, i.e., homes on street names with more letters are priced with a 0.6% premium. Homes with unique street names are sold 1.6% (or A$10,835) higher than those with more common names, implying disfluency and uniqueness preference. Moreover, homes with less fluent street names are valued more conditional on the street name is rare or the home is in the luxury price range. This is consistent with the consumption context effect in the psychology literature that in the context of special occasion high-end goods, lower fluency and grater uniqueness makes the products feel more desirable and valuable.

While we show disfluency preference on aggregate, we also find evidence of fluency preference by non-English speaking buyers and for new developments. Preferences for royal names or popular words proxied by Google Trends are also documented. Overall, our findings shed light on understanding how name fluency affects the investment decision of special occasion goods such as real estate.

     

Optimal zoning of managerial duopoly

This paper investigates optimal zoning of two managerial firms in an unconstrained linear city. Comparing with the case in which firms are not managerial type, the strategic delegation increases the incentives of one firm to locate farther from the rival. Then, a welfare function is introduced to highlight zoning regulation as an influential competition policy tool. Depending on the regulator's objective function and the timing of location choice, we provide a new mechanism that allows the regulator to attain the optimal locations of managerial firms and can lead to strong or weak competition.     

Engineering the revolution? Imagining the role of new digital technologies in infrastructure work futures

Contemporary imaginations of the impact of new digital technologies (NDTS) are dominated by utopian visions of a ‘revolution’ in productivity and efficiency, contrasted with dystopian views of declines of work and human skills, and distrust of artificial intelligence's efficacy. This article explores imaginations of digital futures in the infrastructure sector through case study research of a global engineering organisation. Drawing on a practice approach, a typology is generated from interviews with engineers and managers to reveal that three broad imaginations compete within the organisation: technodeterminism; technoscepticism; and human-centric, all with utopian and dystopian variants. Clear relationships exist between the diverse imaginary positions taken by employees with their different roles, biographies and levels of the organisational agency. Those with relatively higher levels of agency tended towards technocentric utopianism while those with lower levels of agency displayed a resolutely dystopian version. Conversely, while the outward-facing image of the organisation promotes a utopian imagination of a technologically driven future, those with the very highest levels of the organisational agency remain technosceptic. This means that real change is slow. However, an encouraging manifesto for the future is suggested by those who are innovating NDTS to reimagine alternative infrastructure futures through improved human-centric social outcomes.     

Corporate profit tax,firm entry with unemployment,and income inequality

In this paper, we provide a general equilibrium analysis of corporate profit tax on income distribution, unemployment, and wage inequality. With firm dynamics in industrial sector, we identify a new channel through which profit tax affects income and wage inequality: profit tax cut will widen not only the wage gap between skilled and unskilled labor, but also exacerbate the wage inequality of unskilled labor among different sectors. The welfare effect of profit tax cut depends on unemployment deepening (labor-distortion effect) and more manufacturing firms enter the market (business-creation effect), eroding the market share of incumbent firms (business-stealing effect).     

The US–China Phase One trade deal: An economic analysis of the managed trade agreement

In light of the recent tit-for-tat trade dispute between China and the US, interest in quantifying the effects of the so-called Phase One agreement has risen. To this end, this paper quantifies the impact of the asymmetric managed trade agreement using such a multi-country open-economy dynamic general equilibrium model. Besides assessing the direct implications for China and the US, this paper analyzes trade diversion effects. The model-based analysis finds noticeable positive (negative) impacts of the agreement for the US (China) as well as negative spillover effects for countries not directly affected by the managed trade deal due to trade diversion. The impact of possible future trade agreements is also examined.     

High reliability Human Resource Management (HRM): A system for high risk workplaces

High Performance Work Systems (HPWS) research is based on the search for the most suitable bundle of complementary practices appropriate for the organisation and its operating environment. We examine the contents of a HPWS in organisations seeking impeccable safety and reliability as their foremost ‘performance’ outcome. We propose a ‘High Reliability HRM’ framework, and examine the degree of implementation in a three case study of Australian state emergency services organisations. The findings highlight HRM practices inconsistent with the framework, and illustrated by rich interview accounts, we detail associated negative implications for employee behaviour and attitudes. We contribute to HPWS research by empirically examining how reliability-seeking organisations conceptualise and implement HRM systems. This study emphasises how inconsistency in HRM practice bundles can pose a threat to reliable service provision, a critical finding for emergency services and reliability-seeking organisations more broadly.     

Taxation,Network Externalities,Consumer Suffering,and Profit-Raising Entry: A Cautionary Note

Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade - Conventional wisdom is that higher competition, implying more active firms, benefits consumers but hurts producer surplus. Under unit taxation/subsidy,...     

Corporate social responsibility and bank liquidity creation

Under the stakeholder theory hypothesis, reputable corporate social responsibility (CSR) banks are expected to attract more loans and deposits, which in turn strengthens their ability to create liquidity. Our findings support this view. Further analyses reveal that the positive effect of CSR on liquidity creation differs depending on bank size, bank capital, and type of financial crisis. In addition, deposit growth, loan growth, lending rate, and funding rate are potential channels through which CSR influences bank liquidity creation. The findings are not driven by an endogeneity issue.