Joint Quantity/Quality Management of Groundwater

Economic literature on groundwater managementhas traditionally been split into two areas: there are papers that evaluate different schemes of dynamicaquifer management, considering that pumping costs vary with stock but ignoring water quality. On the other hand, there are papers that considercontamination problems caused by specificpollutants. This paper presents two alternative models for joint quantity-quality management, and it shows that existing models are in fact special cases of these. The framework isdynamic and considers both the stock of waterquantity and a stock measure of water quality. Optimal taxes are derived, and shown to be different from those in existing quantity-only or quality-only models. Implementationproblems are briefly discussed.     

Pricing, learning, and strategic behavior in a single-sale model

Summary. We analyze an infinite horizon model where a seller who owns an indivisible unit of a good for sale has incomplete information about the state of the world that determines not only the demand she faces but also her own valuation for the good. Over time, she randomly meets potential buyers who may have incentives to manipulate her learning process strategically. We show that i) the seller's incentives to post a high price and to experiment are not necessarily monotonic in the information conveyed by a buyer's rejection; and ii) as the discount factors tend to one, there are equilibria where the seller always ends up selling the good at an ex-post individually rational price. Received: January 6, 1999; revised version: July 15, 2000     

Rituals of cruise consumption and the 'new' middle class: desiring and 'devouring' maritime cruises

The consumption of maritime cruises is one of the most striking facets of the phenomenon of a new middle class emergence in Brazil. This study investigates the use of maritime cruises by emerging middle-class consumers to enact their new social status. Specifically, the research looks at ritualistic behaviour performed by consumers before, during, and after a cruise. The research uses a multi-method design characterised by a combination of ethnography and group discussions. The study contributes to enlarge McCracken’s typology of consumption rituals, showing how emerging consumers use the cruise as a rite of passage, during which they perform rituals of preparation, production, possession, and divestment. It also sheds light on specific rituals performed by consumers in order to transfer meanings from the cruise to their own selves. Finally, the findings suggest that consumption rituals in the context of social ascent may not have the transformative power of traditional rites.     

The Value of Customer Cocreated Knowledge during the Innovation Process

Customer cocreation during the innovation process has recently been suggested to be a major source for firms' competitive advantage. Hereby, customers actively engage in a firm's innovation process and take over innovation activities traditionally performed by a firm's employees. Despite its suggested importance, previous research has revealed contradictory findings regarding its impact, the nature of involved customers, and the channels of communication that enable cocreation. To provide a more fine‐grained picture, customer cocreated knowledge is first delineated into its key value dimensions of relevance, novelty, and costs, and then their impact on various innovation outcomes is investigated. Next, the study examines the antecedent role of customer determinants; that is, lead user characteristics and customer–firm closeness, on these knowledge value dimensions. Finally, we explore how these effects are moderated by the type of communication channel used. An empirical validation of the conceptual model is performed by means of survey data from 126 customer cocreation projects. The data analysis indicates that customer cocreation is most successful for the creation of highly relevant but moderately novel knowledge. Cocreation with customers who are closely related to the innovating firm results in more highly relevant knowledge at a low cost. Yet, cocreation with lead users produces novel and relevant knowledge. These effects are contingent on the richness and reach of the communication channels enabling cocreation. Overall, the findings shed light on opportunities and limitations of customer cocreation for innovation and reconcile determinants originating in relationship marketing and innovation management. At the same time, managers obtain recommendations for selecting customers and communication channels to enhance the success of their customer cocreation initiatives.     

A PRIMER ON GLOBAL GAMES APPLIED TO MACROECONOMICS AND FINANCE

This paper shows how to solve global games applied to macroeconomics and finance. We ascertain the roles of public and private information for the determination of a unique equilibrium, and discuss the informative role of market prices. We examine the impact of public information on social welfare, comparing models with and without complementarities at the aggregate level.     

Contracting in a Market with Differential Information

Today’s technology allows firms to collect, store and use different types of data. This has prompted a wide discussion on the effects of access to data on competition and consumer welfare. This discussion has also been present in the energy sector in which advanced technology has allowed for the collection of detailed energy consumption data. Prompted by this discussion on the energy sector, this paper studies an industry where two firms have access to the same technology and compete in prices, but one of them has access to better information about customers. The better informed firm obtains a customer contact advantage, whereas the uninformed firm can still offer a menu of prices without being able to pre-identify the customers. We show that the better informed firm is able to exclude the uninformed firm from the market. This result provides policy insights on the usefulness of considering data access models that can ensure non-discriminatory behaviour.

     

From global start-ups to the borderless firm: Why and how to build a worldwide value system

Although the original concept of international new ventures included the geographic configuration of value activities, the subsequent development of the literature has gradually abandoned the concern about the geographic configuration of both input sourcing and output marketing to concentrate almost exclusively on the latter. Therefore, this paper argues that there is a need to re-focus the research so as to figure out how and why some companies are borderless. Borderless firms are defined as the result of the combination, early on, of geographically dispersed resources and capabilities, defying the home-base logic. A borderless firm presents the following characteristics (or a combination of them) from inception (or shortly thereafter): (i) value-added activities dispersed across different countries and regions; (ii) entrepreneurs not bounded by a home base; (iii) multinational founders and/or management teams; and (iv) a multinational workforce. To enquiry into this issue, the study uses five case studies of borderless firms. The results advance the understanding of the motives and processes behind the development, early on, of a borderless configuration of value activities.     

Outward FDI and Home Country Exports: Theoretical Approaches and Empirical Evidence

This article reviews the growing body of literature that empirically analyzes the impact of outward FDI on home country exports. Focusing the analysis on the various types of studies and identifying the methods used and the countries analyzed, this study allows us to identify gaps in the literature and make suggestions for future research. Future research efforts should focus on more disaggregated data, particularly at the firm and product levels, and adopt a multilateral approach, which is essential for a complete analysis of the relationship between FDI and exports.     

Where to vacation? An agent-based approach to modelling tourist decision-making process

Agent-based models (ABMs) are becoming more relevant in social simulation due to the potential to model complex phenomena that emerge from individual interactions. In tourism research, complexity is a subject of growing interest and researchers start to analyse the tourism system as a complex phenomenon. However, there is little application of ABMs as a tool to explore and predict tourism patterns. The purpose of the paper is to develop an ABM that increases knowledge in tourism research by (i) considering the complexity of tourism phenomenon, (ii) providing tools to explore the complex relations between system components and (iii) giving insights on the functioning of the system and the tourist decision-making process. A theoretical ABM is developed to improve knowledge on tourist decision-making in the selection of a destination to vacation. Tourists’ behaviour, such as individual motivation, and social network influence in the vacation decision-making process are hereby discussed.