Putting Austerity to Bed: Technical Progress,Aggregate Demand and the Supermultiplier

ABSTRACT

The paper investigates the determinants of private investment and economic growth from a theoretical perspective. We start with a critical analysis of the crowding-out effect and we present a new version of the Sraffian Supermultiplier: a model that accounts for both the multiplier and accelerator effects. We focus on different types of fiscal policies: generic ones and ‘mission-oriented’ ones that set a new direction for the economy. We show that mission-oriented policies have the potential to generate the largest positive effect on investments and output growth as well as on innovation processes and labour productivity growth.     

Sony Online Entertainment: EverQuest® or EverCrack? Oxford Style Debate Presented at Tenth Annual International Conference Promoting Business Ethics

Part C of this three part series is the presentation from the Oxford style debate held at the Tenth Annual International Conference Promoting Business Ethics between Laura Hartman, J.D., and Dr. Moses Pava on topics related to the EverQuest^? v. EverCrack case (Part B). In a traditional Oxford style debate, two debaters take opposing viewpoints and the third debater argues the neutral position. At the Conference, the modified format featured the two debaters presenting diametrically opposing views – corporate responsibility versus personal responsibility. This modified format was also used during the Ethics Awareness Week (Part A), with University professors presenting the debate before the student body. Ms. Hartman’s position focused on the personal responsibility by Mr Woolley while Dr. Pava opined that Sony Online Entertainment had corporate responsibility toward Mr. Woolley and all other individuals similarly situated.     

Ordering,revenue and anchoring in art auctions

We estimate the effect of ordering by value on revenues in sequential art auctions held by Sotheby's and Christie's. We exploit a pre determined rotation of which of these two houses holds their auction first during auction week in New York City. When the house that goes first has relatively expensive paintings compared to the other house, we find that the sale premium for the week is around 21% higher relative to the mean sale premium, and the fraction of paintings sold during the week is around 11% higher. We provide evidence that this is due to an anchoring effect.     

Measurements and determinants of multifaceted poverty in South Africa

Poverty, despite being a multifaceted concept, is commonly measured in either absolute or relative monetary terms. However, it can also be measured subjectively, as people form perceptions on their relative income, welfare and life satisfaction. This is the first study that uses the National Income Dynamics Study data to analyse poverty across various objective and subjective methods. The paper finds that while respondents' poverty status varies across methods, blacks remain the racial group most likely to be defined as poor by at least one method. The multivariate analysis reveals that the impact of some explanatory variables, such as experience of negative events, frequency of crime victimisation, health status and importance of religious activities, is mixed across methods.     

Retailers’ Price Positioning and the Motivational Profiling of Store‐Brand Shoppers: The Case of Spain

In recent years, retailers have worked to advance store‐brand strategies, leading to greater success and higher congruence with the retailer's positioning. In this new competitive context, this research aims to characterize store‐brand shoppers in terms of motivation and benefits sought, as well as analyze, on the basis of congruence theory, the moderating role of a retailer's price positioning on store‐brand shopper characterizations. The empirical study combines survey and household panel information related to leading retailers in Spain; the findings reveal that store‐brand shoppers are motivated by their price sensitivity, whereas they are less sensitive to service quality and name brands. However, the retailer's price positioning exerts a moderating effect on shopper profiles: In less price‐oriented retail chains, store‐brand purchases seem motivated less by price and more by quality, brand awareness, and brand reputation.     

Oil price shocks and volatility spillovers in the Nigerian sovereign bond market

This paper investigates volatility spillover in the Nigerian sovereign bond market arising from oil price shocks, using Vector Autoregressive Moving Average ‐ Asymmetric Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (VARMA‐AGARCH) model. The paper covers the period March 22, 2011 to April 14, 2016 and makes use of the daily data of the Nigerian Sovereign Bond, Brent oil and West Texas Intermediate (WTI), respectively. We endogenously and sequentially detect structural break points using the test of Bai and Perron (2003) framework. In order to accurately estimate the model, we modify it by incorporating the break points into the VARMA‐AGARCH model, a process which if ignored would lead to model misspecification. The results obtained demonstrate a significant cross‐market volatility transmission between oil and sovereign bond market with ample sensitivity to structural breaks. The study also computes optimum weight portfolio and hedge ratio both with and without structural breaks and results equally indicate sensitivity to structural breaks.     

Threats to Biodiversity and their Implications in Protected and Adjacent Dispersal Areas of Kenya

This study identified threats against biodiversity and conservation in Kenya, and their prevalence across protected areas. The susceptibility of protected areas to the threat factors was also assessed. Ten threat factors were identified from information obtained through interviews with protected area officers. The most prevalent threat factors were the bush meat trade, poaching, prevalence of human–wildlife conflicts, human population density and encroachment, and loss of migration corridors and dispersal areas. Most of the protected areas were susceptible to more than half of the threat factors. All marine protected areas, a majority of forested and protected areas popular with tourists were highly susceptible to most of the threat factors. The findings suggest that biodiversity and most of the protected areas in Kenya are currently faced with various threats. Forest ecosystems, marine protected areas and wetlands need urgent and focused conservation strategies to safeguard them and their biodiversity. Tourism is, however, not a major primary threat; paradoxically some of the other threats identified may be a threat to Kenya's tourism industry.     

A preliminary comparative analysis of 3D body scanner,manually taken girth body measurements and size chart measurements

In an attempt to provide a technological solution to the influx of cheap imports in South Africa and bridging the technology divide between Africa and the rest of the world, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research procured a three‐dimensional body scanner from the Textile and Clothing Technology Corporation, in the US. The pilot study was aimed at introducing the technology to the South African consumers, and to compare the scanned data with the manually taken measurements. A convenience sample of 56 females in South Africa was interviewed using a structured questionnaire. Interviews were used to capture views on acceptance of the technology, prior to being scanned. Scanning garments made from a stretchy fabric were designed and sewn in four sizes of small, medium, large and extra large. A covariance, one sample t‐test and paired t‐ tests were used for data analyses. Almost all respondents felt comfortable with the designed scanning garments and the scanning process. The scanner measurements were generally more numerical in value than the manual measurements for a body part as expected, although the disparity was on the higher side than expected. The discernible difference between means of scanned data and standard values in the currently used sizing charts highlighted the long overdue need to update the sizing charts using a national anthropometric database generated locally.     

Non-consequentialist voting

Standard theory assumes that voters’ preferences over actions (voting) are induced by their preferences over electoral outcomes (policies, candidates). But voters may also have non-consequentialist (NC) motivations: they may care about how they vote even if it does not affect the outcome. When the likelihood of being pivotal is small, NC motivations can dominate voting behavior. To examine the prevalence of NC motivations, we design an experiment that exogenously varies the probability of being pivotal yet holds constant other features of the decision environment. We find a significant effect, consistent with at least 12.5 percent of subjects being motivated by NC concerns.     

Spirituality In (and Out) of the Classroom: A Pragmatic Approach

This paper is divided into two sections. In the first section, I discuss “what is spirituality?” and in the section that follows, I examine some of the implications of my definition to the teaching of spirituality in an undergraduate business ethics course. For the purposes of this paper, spirituality is defined as the planned experience (the inner feeling) of blending integrity and integration through 1 – acceptance (of the past), 2 – commitment (to the future), 3 – reasonable choice, 4 – mindful action, and 5 –continuous dialog (both internal and external). This definition is a work-in-progress and offered mainly as a point of departure rather than a final destination.