Does mismeasurement explain low productivity growth?

The “mismeasurement hypothesis” holds that the recent slowdown in recorded productivity growth merely reflects a fall-off in our ability to measure productivity rather than an actual deceleration in economic growth, in large part reflecting benefits people gain, but don’t pay for, from using new technology applications. If this hypothesis is valid, we should see that national drops in productivity growth are connected to usage of these services, we should be able to ascertain large gains in surplus related to them, growth in the technology sector should be sharply understated, and labor incomes should be swelling relative to output. None of these arenas show evidence that recent miscounts of aggregate productivity are notably large compared to the past.     

China MOC： steel prices to keep low in China

China＇s fragmented lead and zinc industries are expected to undergo consolidation within the next five years as small-sized miners and smelters are increasingly being forced out of business due to plummeting product prices, an industry analyst told Interfax on November 12.     

Revisiting low price guarantees: Does consumer versus retailer governance matter?

Retailers often use low price guarantees (LPG) as a signal to attract consumers and increase sales. Consumers interpret LPGs as a signal that a particular retailer is committed to low prices. However, if more and more retailers employ LPGs, their effectiveness as a price signal wears off. As a result, retailers adapt increasingly extreme guarantees to get an advantage over the competition. Retailers, for instance, are experimenting with taking on the responsibility of looking for lower prices and automatically refunding consumers when a competitor offers a lower price for the same product. This research shows that automatic price protection of this sort might backfire under certain conditions. Three studies show that LPGs alone are not enough to signal low prices and that retailers combining large refunds with a retailer-enforced LPG obtain less favorable reactions than those implementing other types of LPGs.     

The persuasive impact of reported group opinions on individuals low vs. high in need for cognition: Rationalization vs. biased elaboration?

A laboratory experiment examined the extent to which the reported opinions of others influence persuasion in individuals low vs. high in need for cognition (NFC). Reported opinions influenced the attitudes of high‐ and low‐NFC respondents in the direction of the majority position. However, for high‐NFC respondents, the effect was entirely mediated by the evaluation of topic‐relevant arguments (i.e., biased elaboration). On the other hand, the influence of reported opinions on the attitudes of low‐NFC respondents was not mediated by the argument ratings. Instead, their evaluations of the topic‐relevant arguments were actually mediated by their attitudes toward the proposal (i.e., rationalization). These results are discussed in terms of the multiple‐roles postulate of the elaboration‐likelihood model (ELM) and the “consensus implies correctness” inference of the heuristic–systematic model (HSM). © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.