Common pool resources and contextual factors: Evolution of a fishermen's cooperative in Calcutta

The CPR school has successfully rebutted Hardin's pessimistic Tragedy of the Commons model. However, in recent years, critics have focussed on the inward orientation and lack of contextual analysis characterising the writings of the CPR school.Oakerson [A Model for the analysis of common property problems. Working Paper R86-13. Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University, 1986] and Ostrom [Governing the Commons. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990] have detailed the list of variables that have to be studied to understand the mechanics of collective action. However, these factors are internal to the community. Recent critics' point out that the actions of individual agents are also influenced by the alternatives embedded outside the system. These variables are collectively labelled contextual factors.In our paper, we have analysed the case of a fishermen's cooperative in the Calcutta Metropolitan District to show how the historic and economic context shapes targets of resource users and affects the feasibility of alternative courses to achieve the target by determining opportunity and transaction costs of actions. This indicates the importance of contextual factors in explaining the formation and evolution of the resource regime.     

The Interaction of Financial Attitudes and Financial Knowledge: Evidence for Low-Income Hispanic Families

We add to the literature on the association of financial knowledge and financial attitudes with financial outcomes by focusing on predominantly low-income Hispanic families. We examine (i) saving for emergencies, for college, and in 401(k) plans, and (ii) ownership of a home, land or rental property, and an investment account. We find that financial knowledge is strongly related to our savings measures and to owning an investment account. Financial attitudes play less of a role, but assume some importance when interacted with financial knowledge. Self-reported financial knowledge in addition to factual financial knowledge is associated with favorable financial outcomes. Our results are important for the upward economic mobility of a demographic group that has received less attention in the literature.     

Impact of Payment Technology on Seasonality of Currency in Circulation: Evidence from the USA and India

Journal of Quantitative Economics - This paper examines the impact of payment technology on seasonality in currency in circulation. We specify that total transaction in a period follows a Gompertz...     

Estimating the demand for reserve assets across diverse groups of countries

This paper takes a fresh look at the determinants of the holding of reserves with the aim of highlighting similarities and differences among emerging markets (EMs), advanced economies (AEs), and low‐income countries (LICs). We apply two panel estimation techniques: fixed effects (FE) and common correlated effects pooled mean group (CCEPMG). FE regression results suggest that precautionary savings’ motives, both current account‐ and capital account‐related, are generally the most important determinants of reserves’ holding for all country groups. Nonetheless, there is considerable heterogeneity across country groups and over time. The intertemporal motive, a novelty of this paper, has gained importance everywhere. The CCEPMG results confirm the importance of precautionary motives and suggest that current account motives matter only for EMs and LICs and capital account motives matter for all groups while being more relevant for EMs. The CCEPMG results also point to the importance of taking into account the heterogeneous impact of unobserved common factors that affect coefficient estimates and the dynamic process through which reserves adjust to changes.     

Online Review Helpfulness: Role of Qualitative Factors

Consumers are increasingly reading online reviews before making any purchasing decisions. The significance of online reviews has only grown over the years. Though in the past, scholars have emphasized the impact of quantitative factors (e.g., review ratings) on online reviews, only recently have they begun to explore the role of qualitative aspects of online reviews. Content readability and associated sentiments in text provide two important qualitative cues that influence the helpfulness of online reviews. However, the extant literature has overemphasized the linear association between these aspects and the helpfulness of reviews. Using the elaboration likelihood model and the classic ideal point concept, the current work asserts that after an ideal point is attained, lucid and sentimental reviews diminish in utility (i.e., helpfulness of an online review for consumers decreases). This may happen because consumers are wary of fraudulent reviews. This study proposes that if experienced reviewers give such extreme reviews, then consumers might still draw utility from these reviews. In other words, this study explains the moderating role of reviewer experience, which heuristically influences consumers’ trust of online reviews, thus making even too simplistic or extremely sentimental reviews helpful.     

Marketing and society: Preface to special section on volunteerism, price assurances, and direct-to-consumer advertising

We discuss the reasons why this call for papers was issued and describe the process of selecting the three articles presented in this special section. We argue that maximizing stakeholder welfare and not just consumption maybe a new goal for marketing that will be consistent with emerging societal trends. Three articles on volunteerism, price assurances, and direct-to-consumer advertising result from our call and are presented in this section. This introduction is an overview of the three articles.     

Credit market imperfections, income distribution, and capital accumulation

Summary. This paper builds a model in which the distribution of income matters for capital formation, and uses it to analyze the effects of a simple policy intended to create a more equal distribution of income on the severity of certain credit market imperfections and, through this channel, capital accumulation. A neoclassical growth model is developed in which some capital investment must be externally financed, and external finance is subject to a standard costly state verification (CSV) problem. In particular, some fraction of the population is capitalists, who have access to risky but high return capital production technologies. Successful capitalists leave bequests to their offspring, thereby permitting them to internally finance some fraction of their own investment projects. However some external finance is also required. This is provided by workers who save out of labor income. As is well known, the greater the capability of capitalists to provide internal finance, the less severe is the CSV problem. Thus bequests mitigate credit market frictions and, in that sense, promote financial market efficiency and capital accumulation. However, they also perpetrate income inequality. The structure is used to show that a policy that taxes the bequests of capitalists, and transfers the proceeds to workers, necessarily reduces the steady state capital stock. Indeed, when this effect is sufficiently strong, these redistributive tax/transfer schemes can reduce the total (wage plus transfer) incomes of workers, as well as their welfare. Thus some simple policies intended to redistribute income can be highly counterproductive.Received: June 3, 1996; revised version: February 4, 1997This revised version was published online in February 2005 with corrections to the cover date.     

The debt hangover: Renegotiation with noncontractible investment

This paper analyses the incentives of the equityholders of a levered company to undertake noncontractible investments. This noncontrability is shown to seriously impede the efficiency of any renegotiation process in the debt overhang problems. Conditions for obtaining a fully efficient level of investment choice are derived.     

When customers are members: Customer retention in paid membership contexts

This article seeks to gain an understanding of how members’ characteristics relate to lapsing behavior in paid membership contexts. Literatures such as social identity theory are used to propose hypotheses that are tested using a hazard rate model on archival data pertaining to 7,798 members of an art museum. The results indicate that the hazard of lapsing is lowered with increasing duration, participation in special interest groups whose goals are related to those of the focal organization, gift frequency, and increasing interrenewal times. Conversely, members who have downgraded their membership level in the past, those who have participated in special interest groups whose goals are unrelated to those of the focal organization, and those who received their membership as a gift are more likely to lapse. C. B. Bhattacharya is an assistant professor of marketing at the Goizueta Business School of Emory University. His Ph.D. in marketing is from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. His research interests include brand loyalty and brand health, customer retention, and organizational identification and disidentification. He has published in theJournal of Marketing, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Marketing Letters, and other journals. During the past few years, students in his marketing research course have addressed real problems for over 30 nonprofits. In 1995, he received The Emory Williams Distinguished Teaching Award, which is the highest teaching honor conferred by Emory University.