On the welfare benefits of an international currency

Is it beneficial for a country's currency to be used internationally? And, if so, can we quantify the benefit? Since the emergence of the euro, there has been great interest in the consequences of a transfer of the dollar's premier international role to the euro. This paper presents a novel model-based approach towards assessing the welfare benefits associated with the international use of a country's currency. Apart from the familiar benefits associated with seigniorage, residents of the issuing country experience an increase in the purchasing power of their currency both at home and abroad. In the calibration exercise carried out in this paper, we find the benefits of an international currency to be quantitatively significant. The welfare gain for the Euro area in having the euro internationally used ranges from 1.9% to 2.3% of consumption depending on relative inflation rates. The rest of the world is not indifferent as to which currency circulates as the dominant international currency. Conditional on their currency not being used internationally, their preference is for the dominant international currency to be the one with the lowest inflation rate.     

Mean square error estimation in multi-stage sampling

Summary: Suppose for a homogeneous linear unbiased function of the sampled first stage unit (fsu)-values taken as an estimator of a survey population total, the sampling variance is expressed as a homogeneous quadratic function of the fsu-values. When the fsu-values are not ascertainable but unbiased estimators for them are separately available through sampling in later stages and substituted into the estimator, Raj (1968) gave a simple variance estimator formula for this multi-stage estimator of the population total. He requires that the variances of the estimated fsu-values in sampling at later stages and their unbiased estimators are available in certain `simple forms'. For the same set-up Rao (1975) derived an alternative variance estimator when the later stage sampling variances have more ‘complex forms’. Here we pursue with Raj's (1968) simple forms to derive a few alternative variance and mean square error estimators when the condition of homogeneity or unbiasedness in the original estimator of the total is relaxed and the variance of the original estimator is not expressed as a quadratic form.  We illustrate a particular three-stage sampling strategy and present a simulation-based numerical exercise showing the relative efficacies of two alternative variance estimators. Received: 19 February 1999     

Dark tourism through the lens of attachment theory and domestic tourists

This study explores the factors that affect domestic tourist attachment to dark tourism destinations by developing a hybrid model using several methods, including structural equation modeling (SEM) and fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP), predicated on attachment theory. The study collected data from 60 tourism experts and 622 domestic tourists. The study found that tourist motivation, national identity, tourism impacts, and destination attachment are all crucial factors that explain domestic tourist behavior towards dark tourism. The results of the mediation analysis indicate that destination attachment mediates the relationship between tourist motivation, national identity, and negative tourism impact with tourist satisfaction. The FAHP results show that place identity has the highest influence while place dependence has the lowest influence in shaping domestic tourists' selection of dark tourist destinations. The study's findings provide valuable insights for tour operators and destination managers to meet domestic tourists' expectations of dark tourism, adding to the existing knowledge related to the factors that impact dark tourism.     

Extreme exclusion and relative deprivation in subsistence marketplaces: A study in a refugee settlement in Nakivale,Uganda

We study how refugees in a settlement face extreme marketplace exclusion through three phases of qualitative research. Overlaying the context of subsistence marketplaces, such exclusion is accentuated by refugee status, fleeing from unimaginable suffering. We interpret our findings in terms of relative deprivation, or the state of feeling deprived relative to some social reference, often used to understand how consumers feel deprived in terms of their relative financial status. We extend relative deprivation theory in research, introducing extreme marketplace deprivation. Whereas most relative deprivation research emphasizes social comparisons to other people, our study of the refugee settlement demonstrates the adverse effects of intrapersonal relative deprivation, that is, feeling deprived relative to one's past. We develop a theoretical framework to demarcate types of extreme marketplace deprivation, classifying these experiences in terms of consumption and livelihood along three facets (material, social, and psychological). We derive implications for consumer affairs.     

Does diversity matter? A fresh inquiry into the energy,economy and environment nexus

ABSTRACT

The article extends the literature on the nexus among economy, environment and energy by incorporating an index of electricity generation diversity in production and emission functions. The index is mathematically equivalent to Herfindahl–Hirschman index. The index captures substantial information regarding the ongoing energy transition at the global level. The results obtained through pooled mean group estimation, on a dataset of fairly diversified group of countries, indicate that if diversity index increases by a percentage point, per capita income increases by 2.4% and per capita emissions are reduced by 0.71%. This is against the conventional wisdom in favour of specialization. The study has found some interesting long-run causal pathways. Firstly, the causality runs from diversification to income. Secondly, there is a causality running from electricity consumption to specialization. Thirdly, bi-directional causality runs between emissions and specialization. The results have interesting policy implications. The study supports the growth hypothesis that the electricity consumption drives the economy. As this inevitably increases emissions, a better pathway is through diversification. The fossil fuel intensive pathway may have been the preferred choice in the past for countries with low electricity consumption; the diversified portfolio appears to be prudent in the future.     

Strategic alliances: a hospitality industry perspective

The article focuses on strategic alliance theory as it applies to the hospitality industry. Citing research as well as real-world examples, the authors integrate a variety of concepts and develop four propositions about the growing use of strategic alliances in the hospitality industry. These propositions include the following: P1: Hospitality alliances will evolve from equity joint ventures to collaborative joint ventures (non-equity) as competitor alliances will emerge. P2: Contractual agreements will evolve from simple franchise and management contracts to more complex resource-sharing, non-equity agreements. P3: Complex resource sharing between allying partners will help incumbent firms build relationships with partner firms that will lead to the development of competitor alliances. P4: Technology will help in the development of competitor alliances, which will also help to increase incumbent firms’ productivity and profitability.