Impact of star and movie buzz on motion picture distribution and box office revenue

This study contributes to research on the impact that consumer buzz has on movie distribution and box office success by examining the impact of buzz generated about the individual stars and about the movie itself. The results indicate that movie buzz is instrumental in boosting box office revenue throughout the theatrical release, not just in the later run, as has been suggested in previous studies. Star buzz can enhance box office receipts during the opening week and can contribute to the public's anticipation of the movie pre-release. However, early buzz can have a negative impact on revenue during subsequent weeks if the movie fails to resonate with the audiences. Model simulations reveal that, even for poorly received films, the overall impact of star buzz is positive because the initial revenue boost normally outweighs the later decline. Thus, this study empirically demonstrates the positive impact of star buzz on revenue, which helps shed light on the long-standing debate regarding the importance of star participation in the success of a movie.     

Some evidence on factor intensity and price rigidity

This paper establishes a new empirical finding: the degree of labor intensity and the degree of price flexibility are negatively correlated across industrial sectors in the U.S. economy. This finding suggests that varying factor intensity can potentially generate different degrees of price stickiness across sectors and remove the need to exogenously impose the latter. Of course, labor intensity is just one more feature—in addition to others like the durability of goods produced and the degree of competition—that can explain some of the heterogeneity in price durations across sectors.     

The role of the entrepreneurial team and the board of directors in the internationalization of academic spin-offs

This study addresses the roles of the entrepreneurial team and the board of directors in the internationalization of academic spin-off companies. The study is based on a quantitative analysis of 109 spin-offs from Norwegian academic institutions. The findings suggest that academic spin-offs are more likely to achieve both international strategic alliances and international sales with entrepreneurial teams having industrial experience that is both highly homogeneous (where each member has work experience in the same industry) and highly diverse (where each member has work experience in different industries) and board members that have diverse functional backgrounds. Firms that are less dependent on networking by board members to increase legitimacy and build relationships with potential foreign customers are more likely to achieve international sales.     

Interest group politics in a federation

The optimal degree of decentralization depends on the importance of inter-state externalities of local policies. We show that inter-state externalities are determined by the spatial distribution of interest groups within the country. Interest groups who have multi-state scope internalize inter-state externalities to a larger extent than the lobbyists with interests within a single state. We use variation in the geographic boundaries of politically-powerful industrial interests to estimate the effect of inter-state externalities on firm performance. Using firm-level panel data from a peripheralized federation, Russia in 1996–2003, we show that, controlling for firm fixed effects, the performance of firms substantially improves with an increase in the number of neighboring regions under influence of multi-regional business groups compared to the number influenced by local business groups. Our findings have implications for the literatures on federalism and on international trade as trade restrictions are a common source of inter-state externalities.     

What do Russians think about transition?1

We use data from the 2006 round of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey to describe perceptions of the Russian population about the transition process and the role of the state compared with that of free markets. We find that about one‐half of the Russian population is disappointed with transition and a large majority is in favour of high state regulation and state provision of goods and services. High demand for government regulation and increased state intervention coexists with a low level of trust in government institutions and recognition of high and rising levels of corruption. The findings are consistent with the theory developed by Aghion et al. (2009) . In an environment with poor social capital, private business imposes negative externalities on the society and society chooses to demand more state regulation and tolerate corruption to reduce these externalities. We also find that individual perceptions of social capital and corruption co‐vary with the demand for regulation, as predicted by the theory.     

Trademark Protection or Protectionism?*

This paper explores the extent to which discrimination against foreign applicants in the trademark registration process can be used as a “behind‐the‐border” barrier to imports. Prima‐facie evidence shows that in some developing countries the ratio of trademark registrations to applications is much higher for national than for foreign applicants, which is consistent with the notion of discrimination against foreign firms. A simple model is developed that suggests that incentives to discriminate are stronger when foreign firms manufacture products that are close in quality to the goods produced by domestic firms. This hypothesis is then tested and empirically confirmed in three of the four countries in our sample, suggesting that discretion and discrimination in the trademark registration process can sometimes be used as a protectionist tool.     

Socio-Institutional Environment and Innovation in Russia

This article investigates the impact of social capital and institutions on innovation outcome in Russian regions in 1997–2011. The novelty of the article also lies in the use of two metrics of innovation: the number of new technologies developed and patents filed. The findings provide strong support for the argument that social capital (proxied by social tension) and institutions (proxied by institutional potential) influence innovation activity. Furthermore, different types of innovation outcome are affected differently: the effect of social tension on technology development is significantly negative but insignificant with patenting, while institutional potential affects patenting negatively but its effect on technology development is insignificant.     

HOW DO SPOUSES SHARE THEIR FULL INCOME? IDENTIFICATION OF THE SHARING RULE USING SELF‐REPORTED INCOME

The paper applies the collective model to the analysis of intra-household inequality using one of the subjective-qualitative questions available in the RLMS (Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey) data, and provides a test for its assumptions. Interpreting the individual answers as reported budget scales we assume a correspondence between the budget level that household members report and their true income sharing. We first show that this assumption is supported by the data, and then use couples who report the same level of budget to identify the full sharing rule for the whole sample.