Addressing privacy predicaments in the digital marketplace: A power‐relations perspective

The utilization and governance of the internet and adjacent disruptive technologies have created numerous challenges to ensuring consumer online privacy. This study employs the power–responsibility equilibrium theory to explore emerging online privacy issues in the data‐driven marketplace. This exploratory study, based on semi‐structured interviews, explains why online shopping consumers are increasingly worried about their privacy and why they behave in a manner that could be detrimental to the consumer–vendor relationship. The findings suggest that deficiencies of corporate privacy responsibility and regulatory protection have deprived consumers of privacy empowerment. These deficiencies have also accentuated perceived privacy contract violations to trigger privacy concerns and subsequent defensive responses. We identify enhancement of consumer privacy empowerment and assuagement of privacy contract violations as two separate mechanisms of addressing online privacy issues. We also highlight the importance of addressing power and responsibility dynamics for maintaining a healthy information‐exchange environment.     

Socially responsible mutual fund exit decisions

This paper studies, for the first time, socially responsible (SR) mutual fund exits. We analyse a sample of 534 U.S. SR equity mutual funds in the period 2003–2017, in which 182 exit events occurred (53 liquidations, 109 mergers within the same family, and 20 mergers across different families). The results obtained indicate that both liquidations and mergers are more likely among smaller funds that suffer net money outflows in the previous year to the event. At the family level, mergers are more frequent in outperforming families with a larger number of funds, whereas liquidations occur in families with a lower number of funds. When comparing mergers within the same family with mergers across different families, we observe that the former share more drivers with liquidations than the latter. In addition, we observe that religious and environmental funds are more likely to suffer exit events than other SR fund types. Finally, other interesting findings point out that mergers financially benefit investors in merged SR mutual funds and the financial outcomes of acquiring fund investors are not jeopardized.     

Fear Of Missing Out Scale: A self-concept perspective

Fear of missing out (FOMO) is an emerging topic in consumer psychology. However, the theoretical foundations of FOMO are underdeveloped and extant FOMO scales confine the construct to the context of social media. Without a theoretical foundation and a new FOMO scale, the future development of research on this promising phenomenon is limited. This article provides a new conceptualization of FOMO and a new FOMO scale. Using self-concept theory, the authors propose that FOMO is an emotional response to perceived psychological threats to one's self-concept. Because the self-concept involves a private and a public self, FOMO involves two dimensions: a personal FOMO and a social FOMO. Accordingly, a new scale was developed. The results of four studies support the validity and reliability of the two-dimensional scale. This new conceptualization and scale will enable consumer researchers to examine FOMO in a broader set of contexts, test the relationship between FOMO and related constructs, and develop a nomological network around the construct.     

The Euro System as a Laboratory for Neoliberalism: The Case of Spain

Since the 1970s, neoliberalism has evolved from ideology to political agenda, from political program to public policy, and from public policy to a system that replaces democratic control over economic policy with a system of elite economic management. This process of change has been possible due to the endorsement of a meta‐political theory that destroys democracy and legitimizes technocratic despotism, financial deregulation, the debasement of labor into a new proletariat, and the purging of constitutional politics. In this article, we analyze this profound transformation of social and legal relations in the “euro system” and, specifically, in the regressive policies that have emerged from the “crisis” in Spain, a peripheral country of the European Union. The problems in contemporary Europe are a direct consequence of the neoliberal version of European economic unity. Their solution will depend on the capacity of the member states to create a social Europe that strengthens institutional democracy and develops universal systems of social protection. This, in turn, will depend on the ability of citizens to remodel state institutions in accordance with new social goals that place life at the center.     

Can traffic light nutritional labels induce healthier consumer choices? Experimental evidence from a developing country

In a context of increasing health problems related to bad dietary habits in developing countries, simplified nutritional label formats may be a promising policy alternative. The aim of this study is to assess whether the multiple traffic light (MTL) system can improve the nutritional quality of consumer decisions. We conducted a selection experiment in Peru, where participants were offered a choice between three alternatives in two different food categories (crackers and beverages). Individuals were randomly assigned products with MTL labels on them. Our results reveal that exposure to MTL labels significantly increases the probability of avoiding the least healthy options and of choosing the healthiest items among the alternatives provided. These effects are large in magnitude and seem to be driven by individuals that are female, report average or above average dietary habits, and lack basic nutritional knowledge. However, our findings also suggest that the effectiveness of MTL labels may be sensitive to the specific characteristics of the set of options provided. These findings contribute to the emerging experimental literature on MTL labels in two ways. First, we provide evidence that this system can be effective in inducing consumers to make healthier choices in real‐life situations. Second, we explore which individuals are more likely to benefit from exposure to MTL labels, as well as potential limitations to their effectiveness. Overall, our results provide new insights on how to assess the issue of bad nutrition in emerging economies.     

Property rights on First Nations reserve land

This paper examines the economic effects of existing private property rights on First Nations reserves. We focus on three regimes of land tenure: lawful possession, designated land and permits. These land regimes have been used to create individual landholdings and grant secure and transferable rights of use of reserve land. Using confidential census microdata and rich administrative data, we find evidence of a positive relationship between the use of these tenure regimes and homeownership rates, housing conditions and band's public spending. We also observe a positive relationship with average income. However, this last result is driven by the inflow of a non-Indigenous population not by improvements in Indigenous households’ income or on-reserve employment. Our findings thus suggest that while reforms to individual property rights on reserve have some positive effects, their scope remains limited and they are unlikely to constitute a transformative tool to alleviate poverty on reserve.     

Volatility transmission between stock and foreign exchange markets: a connectedness analysis

ABSTRACT

This paper empirically investigates volatility transmission among stock and foreign exchange markets in seven major world economies during the period July 1988 to May 2018. To this end, we first perform a static and dynamic analysis to measure the total volatility connectedness in the entire period (the system-wide approach). Second, we make use of a dynamic analysis to evaluate the net directional connectedness for each market. To gain further insights, we examine the time-varying behaviour of net pair-wise directional connectedness during the financial turmoil periods experienced in the sample period Our results suggest that slightly more than half of the total variance of the forecast errors is explained by shocks across markets rather than by idiosyncratic shocks. Furthermore, we find that volatility connectedness varies over time, with a surge during periods of increasing economic and financial instability.     

When in peril, retrench: Testing the portfolio channel of contagion

The impact of past gains and losses on international investors' risk aversion is an important factor in the propagation of financial shocks across countries. We first present a stylized model illustrating how changes in investors' risk aversion affect portfolio decisions and stock prices. We then examine empirically the behavior of international mutual funds. When funds' returns are below average, they reduce their exposure to countries in which they were overweight and vice versa. An index of “financial interdependence” that reflects the extent to which countries share overexposed funds helps explain the pattern of stock market comovement across countries and the pattern of contagion during crises.     

Inflation,growth, and distribution: The Brazilian economy after the post war

Abstract

Following Marglin and Bhaduri (1990 Marglin, S.A., and Bhaduri, A. “Profit Squeeze and Keynesian Theory.” In S.A. Marglin and J. Schor (eds.), The Golden Age of Capitalism. Reinterpreting the Postwar Experience. Oxford: Clarendon, 1990. [Google Scholar]), the purpose of this paper is to investigate empirically the interaction between income distribution and growth of aggregate demand during the 1951–89 period in Brazil. Applying Hein and Vogel’s (2008) methodology we conclude that the Brazilian economy showed a profit-led demand regime. In a context of high inflation, high concentration of markets, and wage control, retained profits were the main source to finance new capital. In this sense, we found a large sensitivity of investment relative to the wage share, a result that is compatible with a consumption pattern based on high income, which supported the growth trend with low wages observed during the period.     

LATIN AMERICAN EXCHANGE RATE DEPENDENCIES: A REGULAR VINE COPULA APPROACH

This study implements a regular vine copula methodology to evaluate the level of contagion among the exchange rates of six Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru) from June 2005 to April 2012. We measure contagion in terms of tail dependence coefficients, following Fratzscher's (1999) definition of contagion as interdependence. Our results indicate that these countries are divided into two blocks. The first block consists of Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and Mexico, whose exchange rates exhibit the largest dependence coefficients, and the second block consists of Argentina and Peru, whose exchange rate dependence coefficients with other Latin American countries are low. We also found that most of the Latin American exchange rate pairs exhibit asymmetric behaviors characterized by nonsignificant upper tail dependence and significant lower tail dependence. These results imply that there exists contagion in Latin American exchange rates in periods of large appreciations, whereas there is no evidence of contagion during periods of currency depreciation. This empirical regularity may reflect the “fear of appreciation” in emerging economies identified by Levy‐Yeyati, Sturzenegger, and Gluzmann (2013). (JEL C32, C51, E42)