Antecedents to Online Purchasing–An Exploratory Comparison of Anglo versus Hispanic Consumers in the United States

ABSTRACT

This exploratory research investigates whether or not Anglo versus Hispanic consumers in the United States (US) differ with respect to purchase behavior on the Internet. As a new, ground-breaking innovation, the Internet represents an entirely new medium of exchange. In this study, we address whether or not the Internet has been adopted to the same extent and in the same way(s) among Anglo and Hispanic US consumers. Anglos and Hispanics represent the two largest segments of the US population and, curiously, little if any marketing research has compared and contrasted these two groups with respect to using the Internet to make commercial purchases. Extant theory and research in electronic commerce provide a basis to suggest that there may, in fact, be differences across these two US sub-cultures. Our findings reveal that the two groups do actually differ in this regard; the data also offer insights into these differences.     

Satisfaction statements and the study of angling in the United Kingdom

Abstract

Using a slightly modified version of a list of satisfaction statements developed by Hawes (1978), and a piloted interview guide, a study was undertaken of a quota sample (N = 304) of coarse, sea, and game anglers in the United Kingdom (U.K.). Results indicated that there is a common range of satisfactions sought from the three types of angling. These included active factors such as adventure and excitement, uncertainty and chance to develop a skill, and a group of factors concerned with mental relaxation, such as peace of mind, chance to be alone, and enjoy nature. Contact with friends was also found to be important. At the same time important differences exist in the blend of satisfactions looked for by coarse, game, and sea anglers.

For sea anglers the active factors of “uncertainty and adventure and excitement” are more important to the group as a whole than the peaceful factors of “peace of mind” and “alone in a peaceful spot.” In coarse and game angling, “active” and “peaceful” factors are intermingled in the most prevalent statements.

Likewise, differences exist in the blend looked for by the “under” compared with the “over” 24 years of age. For the under 24s, the active statements “adventure and excitement” and “chance to develop a skill” are more important to the group than peaceful factors, whereas for the over 24s, active and peaceful factors are again intermingled in the most prevalent statements. Differences exist between the findings in this study and those in North America. Escape behavior was stated far less in the U.K. study as a reason for participation than in similar North American studies.     

On smoothing macroeconomic time series using the modified HP filter

In business-cycle research, smoothing data is an essential first step to evaluate the extent to which model-generated moments stand up to their empirical counterparts. We put to test McDermott’s (1997) modified version of Hodrick and Prescott’s (1997) smoothing filter. On the one hand, our simulations suggest that relative to other filters, the modified HP-filter replicates better artificially generated series with known properties. On the other hand, using true data we find that autoregressive properties of smoothed series are not affected by the choice of smoothing HP filters, but the same does not hold when it comes to multivariate analysis. The later result is especially strong for annual data. We report results for a large set of countries.     

Dispositional and organizational sources of job satisfaction: a cross-national study

ABSTRACT

Job satisfaction has proven to be a resilient contributor to employee motivation, productivity, organizational commitment, absenteeism, and turnover. Utilizing cross-national data from five Asian countries/settings and the United States we examine the impact of organizational and psychological factors on job satisfaction. This study contributes to the literature by showing that while organizational factors, such as performance appraisals and leadership behaviours are important sources of job satisfaction, what matters most is whether individuals perceive themselves to be efficacious in their jobs. Self-efficacy was found to be the strongest determinant of job satisfaction in both, the U.S., and the Asian contexts. Based on cultural characteristics of power-distance and collectivism, this study also examines cross-national differences in the level of public employee job satisfaction.     

The Impact of Social Comparisons on Reciprocity*

In this paper, we investigate how social comparison information about referent others (i.e., learning what similar others do, and how they are treated) affects reciprocal relationships. Using three‐person gift‐exchange games, we study how employees’ reciprocity towards an employer is affected by pay comparison information (what co‐workers earn) and effort comparison information (how co‐workers perform). We find strong evidence of the effects of effort comparison: employees are more willing to reciprocate by choosing high effort in response to a high wage if they observe others doing so. In our setting, we find somewhat weaker evidence of the effects of pay comparison.     

Product Category Pricing and Future Price Attractiveness: 99-Ending Pricing in a Memory-Based Context

Two experiments were used to examine the impact of 99-ending pricing on memory-based comparisons with a multiple product set. Results indicate that when a target is priced above/below a stimulus set, use of 99-ending prices for the highest and lowest prices in the stimulus set lessens target price attractiveness compared to when the highest and lowest prices are 00-ending. Attractiveness of targets priced within the stimulus set was not impacted by the use of 99- versus 00-ending pricing. Overall, participants appear to use an assimilation/contrast approach based upon left-digit processing in determining target price attractiveness.     

Forecasting Inflation with the Hybrid New Keynesian Phillips Curve: A Compact-Scale Global VAR Approach*

ABSTRACT

In this article, the multihorizon predictive power of the Hybrid New Keynesian Phillips Curve (HNKPC) is analysed by making use of several close- and open-economy specifications for the headline inflation of six developed countries. The key element is the use of direct measures of inflation expectations – Consensus Forecast – embedded in a compact-scale Global VAR (GVAR) environment, becoming the baseline open-economy HNKPC (OE-HNKPC) specification. These OE-HNKPC point forecasts are evaluated using the Root Mean Squared Forecast Error (RMSFE) statistic and statistically compared with several benchmarks, including traditional atheoretical models. Several OE-HNKPC as well as a closed-economy HNKPC (CE-HNKPC) specifications are also analysed. The results indicate that in four out of six countries, the CE-HNKPC is the best forecasting model, whereas for the same countries, a parsimonious OE-HNKPC is the second-best alternative, and in most cases, outperforming traditional statistical benchmarks. The RMSFE is obviously affected by the unanticipated effects of the Great Financial Crisis (GFC), spoiling out the performance of a number of competing forecasts. However, when considering an evaluation sample just before the crisis, both the CE-HNKPC and the parsimonious OE-HNKPC still come out as the best forecasting models. Furthermore, these preferred models also do an excellent job tracking inflation better than the best atheoretical models during the GFC.     

Long run money demand in the EU: Evidence for area-wide aggregates

Long-run properties of EU-wide money aggregates are analysed. For each of the three aggregates considered-Currency, M1 and M3H-it is possible to obtain cointegrating relationships with GDP and interest rates (long or short term market interest rates). Results are not improved when traditional aggregates, obtained by aggregating existing national aggregates, are extended by the inclusion of various measures of Cross-Border Holdings. Specific attention is also paid to aggregation issues and the relative performance of area-wide and national equations. The results show that aggregation bias is not a major problem and that the relatively good area-wide performance is largely a consequence of a statistical averaging effect.gf.gfagan.hg.eunet.deBoth authors are in the Stage Three Division of the Monetary, Economics and Statistics Department of the European Monetary Institute. The authors would like to thank colleagues at the EMI and participants at an EMI conference on EU money demand, held in 1995, for helpful comments and suggestions. Comments received from participants in the 1997 Econometric Society European Meeting and in the Workshop on Money Demand at Berlin Humboldt Universität in 1997 are also gratefully acknowledged. The final version benefited from comments by the editors and two anonymous referees. Opinions expressed in the paper are only those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the EMI.     

Constructing Bounds on Per Capita Income Differentials across Countries

The results of purchasing power parity (PPP)-based comparisons of income across countries can be quite sensitive to the choice of index number formula. Tighter bounds on per capita income differentials can be constructed either by assuming homothetic preferences, or by estimating a demand system. Both approaches are used to construct bounds on per capita income differentials across the OECD countries. The paper concludes by discussing the strengths and weaknesses of each approach.
JEL Classification C 43; F 31; O 47     

Simple Stepwise Tests of Hypotheses and Multiple Comparisons

Holm's (1979) step-down and Hochberg's (1988) step-up procedures for tests of multiple hypotheses are simple to apply and are widely used. Holm's procedure controls the familywise error rate (FWE), while Hochberg's is more powerful. This paper investigates a step-down procedure (labelled CS) of Seneta & Chen (1997) which is a sharpening of Holm's, takes into account the degree of association between test statistics, and also controls the FWE. Computation for the CS procedure may be minimized by using the procedure as an adjustment to Holm's. The computational steps are detailed, and the adjustment is then illustrated by an application to a text-book example of multiple comparisons, in which step-wise procedures are shown to perform better than the usual Tukey T -comparison. Simulation investigations in a standard comparison with a control setting show that the CS step–down procedure is more powerful than Hochberg's step-up procedure and the procedure of Simes (1986), especially in regard to error rate, and not much less powerful than an optimal, but very specific, step-up procedure of Dunnett & Tamhane (1992).