Consumer arbitrage in cross‐border e‐commerce

In today’s internet markets consumers can search for, find and compare prices worldwide. Online, information circulates faster than offline and arbitrage opportunities such as the ones arising from currency shocks are easily unveiled. In this paper, we estimate for the first‐time exchange rate elasticities for cross‐border e‐commerce transactions. Exploiting a new high‐frequency database on international transactions of parcels, we find that a 1% appreciation of the domestic currency increases e‐commerce imports by 0.7%. Comparing the result with traditional estimates in offline markets, this implies a 50% exchange rate pass‐through online.     

Employed Job Search among Young Workers: Do Women Still Search Differently than Men in the Internet Age?

Using data from the 2008–2011 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, this study explores the job search methods and strategies utilized by young workers. Although women are found to be marginally less likely to engage in on-the-job search than men, when they do they are equally likely to use the internet. The most important gender difference identified is that marriage serves as a strong inhibiting factor to search, both online and offline, for women but not so for men. In terms of search methods, men and women show almost identical patterns of usage. While there is substitution between online and offline search within particular method categories, employed searchers are generally using the internet as a complement to rather than as a replacement for more traditional offline search methods.     

Analysis of price competition and strategic implications for heterogeneous market structure

This paper examines strategic competition behavior in heterogeneous market structure where both conventional offline and online firms coexist in equilibrium and draws strategic implications with some remarks on welfare. Research on the price competition between conventional offline and online firms has been done through empirical approaches; however, the results are conflicting. This paper reconciles the existing conflicting empirical findings on price levels between conventional offline and online firms through a theoretical approach. We find that as the online market matures, prices in both conventional and online firms drop, and the price in the online firm can be higher than that in a conventional offline firm. Furthermore, if convenience associated with the online increases, the online price tends to exceed the conventional offline price.     

The condition of the Turking class: Are online employers fair and honest?

Critics of online labor markets claim that employer abuses are endemic in these markets. Surveying a sample of workers, I find that, on average, workers perceive online employers to be slightly fairer and more honest than offline employers.     

Financial education via television comedy

We show that television may be able to deliver rudimentary financial literacy in a cost-effective manner. In a controlled experiment, Cambodian garment factory workers were randomly assigned to one of three treatments: no video (baseline), slideshow and comedy TV show. After the intervention, to examine whether individuals were able to internalize the information that was provided, participants were asked to answer a set of questions on financial knowledge and attitudes. Our results show that participants randomly assigned to the comedy show are significantly more likely to report that they are interested in obtaining more information on savings accounts and are also significantly more likely to open a savings account in the next 6 months. This method of delivery may prove effective particularly for the disadvantaged sections of the population in remote regions of Cambodia.     

The emergence of hybrid-electric cars: Innovation path creation through co-evolution of supply and demand

Hybrid-electric vehicles have experienced a significant rate of growth in the last 10 years. This is remarkable, since the automotive sector is typically averse to the more radical technological change of engines. The internal combustion engine has been around for more than 100 years after all.In this paper we describe and explain the emergence of electric engines in the automobile market after 1990. We explicate the role of techno-economic mechanisms alongside social and regulatory mechanisms (including the social meaning of an engine). The co-evolutionary analysis is novel in the integrated conception of actor perspectives, feedback effects and competition between products. We find three sources of lock-in through path dependency: from demand, supply as well as the regulatory side. We conclude that automotive engines were significantly locked into a trajectory of internal combustion technology due to techno-economic mechanisms, which produced inertia despite social pressures. The creation of an alternative path, on the other hand, initially stalled. Various stakeholders were unsuccessful in marketing their electric or hybrid-electric vehicles in the 1990s, such as Peugeot/Citroen with various electric models, or Audi with their Duo in 1997. However, after 2000 we find that sustaining efforts of California's Air Resources Board and Toyota were triggering creation of a new innovation path of hybrid-electric engines.     

An experimental test of a committee search model

The objective of this paper is to design a laboratory experiment for an infinite-horizon sequential committee search model in order to test some of the implications obtained by the model in Albrecht et al. (2010) (AAV). We find that, compared with single-agent search, the search duration is longer for committee search under the unanimity rule, but is shorter for committee search in which at least one vote is required to stop searching. In addition, according to estimates from round-based search decisions, subjects are more likely to vote to stop searching in committee search than in single-agent search. This confirms that agents are less picky in committee search. Overall, the experimental outcomes are consistent with the implications suggested by the AAV model. However, despite the prediction from the AAV model, we could not obtain a significant outcome in relation to the size order of the probabilities of voting to stop searching in committee search for the various plurality voting rules.     

基于事件史分析的高校毕业生工作搜寻持续时间研究

高校毕业生工作搜寻持续时间具有明显的时间分布特征,并且受到人力资本、社会资本和工作搜寻三个方面因素的影响。我们一方面可以通过分析这些影响因素最终造成搜寻时间长短的不同来评判工作搜寻行为,另一方面也可以通过分析这些影响因素导致的工作搜寻质量上的不同来衡量高校毕业生的工作搜寻行为。     

E-commerce and the market structure of the recorded music industry

In this article, we study the impact of the development of e-commerce on the concentration of the recorded music industry in France, for the period 2003–2010. First, we find that over the whole period, CD sales, measured at the distributor level, are less concentrated online than offline. Second, we find that sales concentration online has increased between the early period of e-commerce (2003–2006) and the later period (2007–2010).     

Spatial economic analysis of early detection and rapid response strategies for an invasive species

Economic impacts from invasive species, conveyed as expected damages to assets from invasion and expected costs of successful prevention and/or removal, may vary significantly across spatially differentiated landscapes. We develop a spatial–dynamic model for optimal early detection and rapid response (EDRR) policies, commonly exploited in the management of potential invaders around the world, and apply it to the case of the Brown treesnake (Boiga irregularis) in Oahu, Hawaii. EDRR consists of search activities beyond the ports of entry, where search (and potentially removal) efforts are targeted toward areas where credible evidence suggests the presence of an invader. EDRR costs are a spatially dependent variable related to the ease or difficulty of searching an area, while damages are assumed to be a population-dependent variable. A myopic strategy in which search only occurs when and where current expected net returns are positive is attractive to managers, and, we find, significantly lowers present value losses (by $270 m over 30 years). We find further that in the tradeoff between search costs and damages avoided, early and aggressive measures that search some high priority areas beyond points of entry even when current costs of search exceed current damages can save the island more ($295 m over 30 years). Extensive or non-targeted search is not advised however.     

Pricing competition: a new laboratory measure of gender differences in the willingness to compete

Experiments have demonstrated that men are more willing to compete than women. We develop a new instrument to “price” willingness to compete. We find that men value a $2.00 winner-take-all payment significantly more (about $0.28 more) than women; and that women require a premium (about 40 %) to compete. Our new instrument is more sensitive than the traditional binary-choice instrument, and thus, enables us to identify relationships that are not identifiable using the traditional binary-choice instrument. We find that subjects who are the most willing to compete have high ability, higher GPA’s (men), and take more STEM courses (women).     

Is it my money or not? An experiment on risk aversion and the house-money effect

The house-money effect, understood as people’s tendency to be more daring with easily-gotten money, is a behavioral pattern that poses questions about the external validity of experiments in economics: to what extent do people behave in experiments like they would have in a real-life situation, given that they play with easily-gotten house money? We ran an economic experiment with 122 students to measure the house-money effect on their risk preferences. They received an amount of money with which they made risky decisions involving losses and gains; a randomly selected treatment group received the money 21 days in advance and a control group got it the day of the experiment. From a simple calculation we found that participants in the treatment group only spent on average approximately 35 % of their cash in advance. The data confirms the well documented results that men are more tolerant to risk than women, and that individuals in general are more risk tolerant towards losses than towards gains. With our preferred specification, we find a mean CRRA risk aversion coefficient of 0.34, with a standard deviation of 0.09. Furthermore, if subjects in the treatment group spent 35 % of the endowment their CRRA risk aversion coefficient is higher than that of the control group by approximately 0.3 standard deviations. We interpret this result as evidence of a small and indirect house money effect operating though the amount of the cash in advance that was actually spent. We conclude that the house money effect may play a small role in decisions under uncertainty, especially when involving losses. Our novel design, however, could be used for other domains of decision making both in the lab and for calibration of economic models used in micro and macroeconomics.     

Forest carbon sequestration and China’s potential: the rise of a nature-based solution for climate change mitigation

ABSTRACT

A growing interest has recently been placed on the potential of nature-based solutions to help mitigate climate change, reflecting the importance of natural ecosystems as sources and sinks for greenhouse gases. Forests are of the hot debate – that sequester and also emit carbon dioxide (CO₂). In this paper, we estimate the forest carbon sequestration potential for China. We show that, as the government plans, by 2020, the size of China’s forest carbon stock will reach 12.87 billion tons, among which 5.73 billion tons will be from afforestation and reforestation (A/R). From the up-to-date data on AR activities (by 2018), we find that only 80% of the target sinks have been met. Scenario analysis shows that the carbon sequestered by the forests in 2020 is equivalent to 13%-17% of the industrial CO₂ emission that year, with 6%-8% by A/R, 4%-6% by forest-management, 3%-4% by reduced-deforestation-and-forest-degradation, and 1% by wood-product-sink.     

Internet Technology and the Extensive Margin of Trade: Evidence from eBay in Emerging Economies

Online platforms such as eBay offer technologies that make it easier for firms to export. This paper dissects a new firm‐level dataset that covers sales made through eBay by sellers based in 21 emerging economies to provide a new lens through which to look at the effect of trade costs on the extensive margin of trade. Comparing eBay sellers with “offline” firm‐level data from the World Bank's Exporter Dynamics Database allows us to test whether the observed trade patterns on eBay fit with the trade‐liberalization predictions of heterogeneous‐firm models. We find that eBay firms export to more destinations, suggesting low destination‐specific fixed costs on eBay. We then show that the distribution of export destinations across eBay sellers is well approximated by a balls‐and‐bins model of frictionless trade, suggesting eBay indeed lowers fixed export costs. Finally, we compare the gravity of eBay with that of offline trade and find geographic distance, languages, and trade agreements to matter less for online trade.     

Discounting the Distant Future: An Experimental Investigation

We use a laboratory experiment to elicit discount rates over a 20-year time horizon using government savings bonds as a payment vehicle. When using a constant (exponential) discount rate function, we find an implied average discount rate of 4.9 %, which is much lower than has been found in previous experimental studies that used time horizons of days or months. However, we also find strong support for non-constant, declining discount rates for longer time horizons, with an extrapolated implied annual discount rate approaching 0.5 % in 100 years. There is heterogeneity in discount rates and risk preferences in that people with more optimistic beliefs about technological progress have higher discount rates. These findings contribute to the debate over the appropriate discount rate to use in comparing the long-term benefits of climate change mitigation to the more immediate costs.     

The impact of customer reviews and advertisement efforts on the performance of experience goods in electronic markets

When searching products online, costumers are facing a multitude of information signals of product quality they need to process – both separately and jointly – for relevance and reliability. A potentially reliable informations source is past experience of customers expressed in online reviews. In this article, we analyse the impact of customer reviews and additional signals of quality on buying behaviour in electronic markets. To empirically estimate and separate the effects, we use data from the Apple App Store covering 5792 daily observations from 2015. We find clear evidence to suggest that reviews and ads have a significantly positive influence on download rates. We also find empirical evidence to suggest that a considerable degree of interaction is important in explaining variations in market performance, especially between customer average ratings and unanimity of customer reviews.     

Sexual economic theory & the human mating market

In this study, we apply economic principles to the heterosexual human mating market using data on the socio-demographics, biology, attractiveness, sexual behaviour, and reproductive history of 3,261 Australian online dating participants. More specifically, by using survey participants attractiveness ratings as a proxy for market value, we are able to quantitatively explore theories of sexual economics (SET), which conceptualizes sexual access as an economic resource supplied by women in the human mating market. Our study tests this theory further by incorporating heterosexual market substitutes (namely, 953 bisexual and pansexual individuals) to more accurately integrate the relevant supply and demand forces impacting market value and the commodity of sexual access. We find not only that bisexual and pansexual women (but not men) enjoy a market premium (7.3% higher; p < 0.001) relative to their heterosexual counterparts, but that, contrary to SET, women’s market value in our sample does not diminish with age. We further find that in line with theory and evidence from evolutionary studies, men with (proxied) resources realize a higher market value (6.1% higher for every increased level of educational attainment; p < 0.001) than those without. In conclusion, SET is just one possible model that seeks to understand the complex multi-dimensionality of modern human sexuality and reproduction through an economics lens. As the internet and online dating now provide a low-cost conduit for human mating market participants, so to can it facilitate further large sample scientific studies of mating market dynamics such as this.     

Backing out of private pension provision: lessons from Germany

Financing pensions in the EU is a challenge. Many EU countries introduced private pension schemes to compensate declining public pension levels due to reforms made necessary by demographic change. In 2001, Germany introduced the Riester pension. Ten years after introduction the prevalence rate of this voluntary private pension scheme approximates 37 %. However, numerous criticisms raise doubts that the market for Riester products is transparent. Using the 2010 German SAVE survey, this article investigates terminated and dormant Riester contracts on a household level for the first time. Respectively 14.5 and 12.5 % of households who own or have owned a Riester contract terminated or set dormant their contract. We find that around 45 % of terminated or dormant Riester contracts are caused at least partly by product-related reasons, which is significantly higher than for endowment life insurance contracts. The uptake of a new contract after a termination is more likely if a termination is product-related. Nevertheless, after a termination 73 % of households do not sign a new contract, which can have serious long-term consequences for old-age income. Households with low income, low financial wealth or low pension literacy are more likely to have terminated or dormant contracts. Low income and low financial wealth households also have the lowest prevalence rate of Riester contracts and are at higher risk of old-age poverty.     

Does price dispersion increase with quality? Evidence from the online diamond market

This article empirically investigates the relationship between price dispersion and price level. Searches seem more valuable for products of high quality, but buyers may have little incentive to search since such products are less frequently purchased. The extent of price dispersion is examined using a sample of around 160 000 diamonds offered for sale online. Estimates from a two-stage econometric strategy show that price dispersion increases significantly with quality. An explanation is that buyers of high-quality gemstones pay little attention to the price of these diamonds and even more so if they perceive high prices as signals of quality and rarity of the diamonds they intend to purchase.     

Consumer decision making,E-commerce and perceived risks

This article studies how adoption and usage behaviour of the Internet and online shopping, respectively influence the preference to use electronic commerce to purchase different types of products. We empirically model the preference for electronic commerce when consumers have to buy different types of products and thus face different types of risks (Cox and Rich, 1964 Cox, D and Rich, S. 1964. Perceived risk and consumer decision making-the case of telephone survey. Journal of Marketing Research, 1: 32–9. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Unlike previous research, we find that consumers who have previously shopped online, display stronger preferences to buy products on the Internet irrespective of the perceived level of product-specific risks of online shopping. This article provides an interesting and novel insight into how both adoption and usage of electronic commerce impact on the attitude and risk perception of buying less predictable (more risky) products on the Internet.