Recasting Economic Inequality

Arguing that it is necessary to refine the study of Indian inequality by studying patterns of inter group disparity, this essay highlights the salience of caste for this purpose. Outlining the imperatives of an economic enquiry into contemporary caste inequality, the essay critically reviews the small body of the theoretical and empirical work, attempting to highlight the different theoretical perspectives that underlie the literature.     

Adapting to succeed? Leveraging the brand equity of best sellers to succeed at the box office

Many movies are based on best-selling novels. While book adaptation is an often used strategy in the motion picture industry, it has received little academic attention. Using a multi-method approach, this research investigates the drivers behind the success of book-based movies. In Study 1, we analyze over 700 movies and find that book-based movies perform better at the box office on the opening weekend than non-book movies. However, this superior performance dissipates after the opening weekend. Further, the opening weekend performance of book-based movies is positively driven by book equity, book-movie similarity, and recency between the book??s peak equity and movie release. After the opening weekend, many of these book-related variables cease to have an impact, and the effect of movie-related variables (e.g., reviews) increases. Because Study 1 documents that book-movie similarity positively impacts the movie??s performance, contrary to prior findings that content similarity has negative or null impact on performance of a movie sequel, we undertake a second study to reconcile the discrepancy. Study 2 finds that content similarity results in satiation and therefore hampers the movie success for sequels; however, when a movie is adapted from a book, due to experiential modality change (i.e., from book format to film format rather than film to film), content similarity increases the movie??s chance of success.     

The Impact of Caring Climate,Job Satisfaction,and Organizational Commitment on Job Performance of Employees in a China’s Insurance Company

This research uses structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the direct and indirect relationships among caring climate, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job performance of 476 employees working in a Chinese insurance company. The SEM result showed that caring climate had a significant direct impact on job satisfaction, organizational command, and job performance. Caring climate also had a significant indirect impact on organizational commitment through the mediating role of job satisfaction, and on job performance through the mediating role of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. In addition, job satisfaction had significant direct impact on organizational commitment, through which it also had a significant indirect impact on job performance. Finally, organizational commitment had a significant direct impact on job performance.     

Idiosyncratic Risk Matters!

This paper takes a new look at the predictability of stock market returns with risk measures. We find a significant positive relation between average stock variance (largely idiosyncratic) and the return on the market. In contrast, the variance of the market has no forecasting power for the market return. These relations persist after we control for macroeconomic variables known to forecast the stock market. The evidence is consistent with models of time‐varying risk premia based on background risk and investor heterogeneity. Alternatively, our findings can be justified by the option value of equity in the capital structure of the firms.     

Evaluating Retraining Programs in OECD Countries: Lessons Learned

Are retraining programs for the unemployed more effective thanjob search assistance? Governments of the member countries ofthe Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development haveconsiderable experience with retraining programs in a varietyof industrial settings. Evaluations of these programs show thatthe results are disappointing, however. This article discussesthe factors associated with retraining programs for two typesof workers: those laid off en masse and the long-term unemployed.Evaluations indicate poor results for both groups: retrainingprograms are generally no more effective than job search assistancein increasing either reemployment probabilities or postinterventionearnings, and they are between two and four times more expensivethan job search assistance.      

Determinants and impacts of subcontracting: evidence from India’s unorganized manufacturing sector

There are two divergent perspectives on the impact of subcontracting on firms in the informal sector. According to the benign view, formal sector firms prefer linkages with relatively modern firms in the informal sector, and subcontracting enables capital accumulation and technological improvement in the latter. According to the exploitation view, formal sector firms extract surplus from stagnant, asset-poor informal sector firms that use cheap family labour in home-based production. However, direct, firm-level evidence on the determinants and impact of subcontracting is thus far lacking in the literature. We apply a modified Heckman selection model to Indian National Sample Survey data on informal manufacturing enterprises (2005–2006). We find that home-based, relatively asset-poor, and female-owned firms are more likely to be in a subcontracting relationship. Further, we perform selectivity-corrected Oaxaca-Blinder Decomposition and calculate treatment effects to show that subcontracting benefits smaller firms, firms in industrially backward states and rural firms; it is harmful for larger firms, firms in industrially advanced states, and urban firms. Our results suggest that the effects of subcontracting are more complex than those predicted by the divergent perspectives. Policy-makers need to engage with this complexity.     

What Do We Know about Trade Promotions? Contributions,Limitations, and Further Research

The trade promotion area remains seriously under-researched compared with its share of the overall marketing mix budget. This review attempts to provide an up-to-date account of what we know about trade promotions. For eight major topics we elaborate on what that topic means in the context of trade promotions, why it has been deemed important, what empirical findings have emerged in that area, and proposeareas for future research.     

Indian economy and Indian private equity

India's gross domestic product has been growing at more than 8% in the past few years, making it the fourth‐largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity. According to a Goldman Sachs report, India could become the second‐largest economy in the world by 2050. The key growth drivers are investments in infrastructure, domestic consumption, and a hub for global outsourcing. This is further supported by growth‐oriented policies by the government. The favorable environment has led to the growth of the private equity market. India received approximately U.S. $17.5 billion of investments in private equity in 2007, making it the number‐one destination in Asia. Indian private equity has been mainly focused on providing growth/expansion capital to the company as compared to buyouts in the developed markets. © 2008 ICICI Bank Limited. Printed with permission.     

Perceptions of Proper Ethical Conduct of Male and Female Russian Managers

This study examined the impact of gender on perceptions of various business practices by male and female Russian managers. Female managers considered various activities such as doing personal business on company time, falsifying time/quality/quantity reports, padding an expense account more than 10 percent, calling in sick to take a day off, and pilfering organization materials and supplies more unethical than male managers. Female managers also perceived the acceptance of gifts and favors in exchange for preferential treatment more unethical than male managers.