Hat Deutschland ein Marktmachtproblem?

The long-term development of market power and business concentration is attracting considerable international attention. This is being driven by an intersectoral increase in market power — particularly in the USA but also in other countries — as observed in current empirical research. This is seen as a cause for macroeconomic developments. The Monopolies Commission — which has the mandate in Germany to report on business concentration — concluded in its current report that although the concentration of turnover in Germany has recently been relatively constant, the price-cost markups of companies have risen significantly after the crisis. In addition, indirect corporate links via institutional investors represent a potential competition problem.     

Alliances and the innovation performance of corporate and public research spin-off firms

We explore the innovation performance benefits of alliances for spin-off firms, in particular spin-offs either from other firms or from public research organizations. During the early years of the emerging combinatorial chemistry industry, the industry on which our empirical analysis focuses, spin-offs engaged in alliances with large and established partners, partners of similar type and size, and with public research organizations, often for different reasons. We seek to understand to what extent alliances of spin-offs with other firms (either large- or small- and medium-sized firms) affected their innovation performance and also how this performance may have been affected by their corporate or public research background. We find evidence that in general alliances of spin-offs with other firms, in particular alliances with large firms, increased their innovation performance. Corporate spin-offs that formed alliances with other firms outperformed public research spin-offs with such alliances. This suggests that, in terms of their innovation performance, corporate spin-offs that engaged in alliances with other firms seemed to have benefitted from their prior corporate background. Interestingly, it turns out that the negative impact of alliances on the innovation performance of public research spin-offs was largely affected by their alliances with small- and medium-sized firms.     

General Purpose Technologies and local knowledge accumulation — A study on MNC subunits and local innovation centers

This research looks into the innovative activities of subunits of large non-U.S firms in the U.S from 1969 to 1995, suggesting that the innovations in the subunits of multinational corporations are closely linked to their specializations in General Purpose Technologies (GPTs). GPTs enable recombining knowledge from different domains on an international scale, and that the specialization of innovations in GPT fields within a subunit is positively associated with the innovative capacity at large, along with the degree of technological diversification of that specific subunit. As firms expand geographically to tap into local innovation centers to develop new growth alternatives, specialization of GPTs in these firms actually facilitates further geographical dispersion of innovative activities across locations. Lastly, additional specializations of innovations in GPT fields within the host innovation centers does help in attracting innovation activities of firms from a wider range of industries.     

The effect of exposure to sexual appeals in advertisements on memory,attitude, and purchase intention: a meta-analytic review

Researchers have often attempted to answer the question, ‘Does sex sell?’ In this article, we present a meta-analysis of studies that used an experiment to test the effect of sexual appeals in ads on memory, attitude, and purchase intention. Our analysis revealed a significant positive effect for sexual appeals on ad recognition and recall (weighted Cohen's d = .38, p < .001), but the effect on brand recognition and recall was not significant (d = .09, p = .30). We also found that the effect of sexual appeals on attitude towards the ad was not significant (d = ?0.07, p = .26); however, additional analysis showed that males (d = .27, p < .01) evaluate ads with sexual appeals significantly more positively than females (d = ?.38, p < .001). Finally, we found a small significant negative effect on brand attitude (d = ?.22, p < .05), but no effect on purchase intention (d = .01, p = .94).     

The State Strikes Back: the end of economic reform in China? by Nicholas R. Lardy

Business Economics -     

Local Conditions and Debt in Collections

Using credit reporting firm records on 7 million individuals in the United States, we first demonstrate that debt in collections varies significantly across the country; specifically, the South and West regions have higher shares of individuals with debt in collections than other regions. Second, we identify local factors that are strongly related to debt in collections. Results from our regression models show that neighborhoods with higher rates of debt in collections are more likely to have (1) lower health insurance coverage; (2) lower home values and homeownership rates, (3) a higher share of delinquent and underwater mortgages, (4) lower household incomes, and (5) a higher share of African Americans and Latinos. While our analysis does not identify the causal mechanisms that determine financial distress, the analyses developed here can facilitate research on such mechanisms.     

Betrayal in buyer–seller relationships: Exploring its causes,symptoms, forms,effects, and therapies

Building on literature in social psychology that discussed betrayal in interpersonal relationships, this article explored betrayal in buyer–seller relationships using data collected from a survey conducted among 109 buyers and 115 sellers in the United States. The results indicated that betrayal was a complex, multifarious, and dynamic phenomenon, consisting of a sequence of phases, namely causes, symptoms, forms, consequences, and therapies, with multiple issues being involved at each phase. Our study also revealed that the views of buyers differed from those of sellers in terms of how various relational characteristics contributed to the emergence of betrayal episodes, what behavior and attitudes helped to diagnose partner betrayal, in which forms the betrayal acts were manifested, how the victims of betrayal felt, and how betrayal problems could be handled in a working relationship. In fact, the various dimensions in each of the betrayal phases examined were consistently more frequently mentioned by buyers than sellers.     

Consumer food safety perceptions and self‐reported practices in Greece

A substantial proportion of foodborne illness is associated with food prepared in households. The primary understanding of how foods are handled in private homes comes mostly from questionnaire based studies and direct observation. The aim of this survey was to examine consumers' perceptions and knowledge of safe food handling practices in Greece. More specifically, their attitudes, opinions and self‐reported practices were studied. Data were collected from a total of 399 consumers living in Greece by the use of a self‐administered on‐line survey. The questionnaire consisted of four positive and five negative statements according to the 5‐point Likert scale, which grouped into three constructions using principal component analysis in order to investigate food safety perceptions of consumers. Furthermore, the survey included 11 demographic questions, two close‐ended questions (type yes/no) and four questions that are related to self‐reported food‐handling practices. The results showed that the most commonly known bacterium causing food‐related illness according to respondents' knowledge is Salmonella (99.7%), followed by Escherichia coli (73.9%) and Listeria (58.4%). The overall consumers' score concerning food safety was 32.8 ± 5.37 (full score was 45). No significant differences to the mean score of food safety knowledge were found according to gender, age or the incidence of foodborne illness over the past 12 months. Knowledge and awareness of safe food handling practices was enhanced at higher education levels, while homemakers were found to have deficiencies at this level. Information obtained from consumers can be used to shape educational programs and determine where food safety educational efforts would be most effective and the needed content of the messages.     

Impact of international entry choices on the nature and type of innovation: Evidence from emerging economy firms from the Indian bio-pharmaceutical industry

As emerging economy multinational enterprises (EMNEs) enter foreign countries in search of new markets, seeking to expand their knowledge bases, research on the type and nature of innovation activity is needed to address the impact of EMNEs’ choices related to international expansion. Building on prior literature on entry mode and location choices, as well as on organizational learning, we argue that how and where an EMNE expands internationally will impact the nature of its innovation. We carry out empirical analysis on a sample of 167 Indian bio-pharmaceutical firms for the period from 1997–2017. Our findings suggest that greenfield ventures foster innovation in core technologies, while cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) foster innovation in non-core technologies. In addition, locating subsidiaries in high income countries encourages product innovations, while locating in low income countries encourages process innovations. Our findings contribute to the growing literature on differences in learning outcomes of EMNE internationalization.     

The untold story of commodity futures in China

We investigate the behavior of commodity futures risk premia in China. In the presence of retail-dominance and barriers-to-entry, the term structure and momentum premia remain persistent, whereas hedging pressure, skewness, volatility, and liquidity premia are distorted by time-varying margins and strict position limits. Furthermore, open interest, currency, and inflation premia are sensitive to institutional settings. The observed premia cannot be attributed to common risks, sentiment, transactions costs, or data-snooping, but are related to liquidity, anchoring, and regulation-induced limits-to-arbitrage. We highlight the distinctive features of Chinese futures markets and assess the challenges posed to theories of commodity risk premia.