The antecedents of complaint behaviour for Brazilian and French consumers of services

Using a cross‐cultural approach, this study investigates customer satisfaction after a service failure and recovery experience, considering (i) the influence of perceived justice on satisfaction; (ii) the impact of satisfaction on consumer repurchasing and complaint intentions; (iii) the moderating role of the customer cultural orientation; and (iv) the relevance of contextual variables. Based on a survey of 298 consumers from Brazil and France, the results indicated that (i) distributive and interactional justice influenced satisfaction; (ii) satisfaction was a significant predictor of repurchase intentions; (iii) satisfaction influenced third‐party, private and voice responses; and (iv) the level of the customer relationship, the severity of the failure and the responsiveness of the firm were significant contextual variables. Moreover, the individual‐level analysis suggested that only power distance cultural orientation was a significant moderator.     

Population age structure and household portfolio choices in Italy

Based on the exceptional ageing of the Italian population, this paper aims to contribute to the current debate on population ageing and financial markets. To this end, we use the data taken by the Bank of Italy Survey of Household Income and Wealth over the period 1995–2006, and we analyse the average household portfolios in relation to age and net wealth (NW). Our analysis rests on a clustering of assets according to risk, which is different from the one used in Guiso and Jappelli (Guiso, L., and T. Jappelli. 2002. The portfolio of Italian households. In Household portfolios, eds. L. Guiso, M. Haliassos, and T. Jappelli. Cambridge: MIT Press). We find that age has affected financial choices of Italian households over the whole decade, but the portfolio age profile has significantly evolved over time with important differences across wealth quartiles. Overall, our analysis highlights a tendency towards a hump-shaped age profile of the allocation in risky assets for the most NW levels.     

Credibility of Rules and Economic Growth: Evidence from a Worldwide Survey of the Private Sector

A business environment characterized by "incredible" rules suchas unclear property rights, constant policy surprises and reversals,uncertain contract enforcement, and high corruption most likelytranslates into lower investment and growth. The literatureon growth and policies has suggested different ways to measurethe relevant uncertainties. This article proposes a new measurementapproach based on firm-level surveys and an indicator of the"credibility of rules." Using data from a private sector surveyconducted in 73 countries and covering more than 3,800 enterprises,standard cross-country growth and investment analysis indicatesthat low credibility of rules is associated with lower ratesof investment and growth. The survey was designed to capturelocal entrepreneurs' views of the predictability of changesin laws and policies, of the reliability of law enforcement,of the impact of discretionary and corrupt bureaucracies, andof the danger of policy reversals due to changes in governments.Confidence in the reliability of the survey results opens manyavenues for further research that could exploit the micro dimensionsof this data set.     

Bivariate FIGARCH and fractional cointegration

We consider the modelling of volatility on closely related markets. Univariate fractional volatility (FIGARCH) models are now standard, as are multivariate GARCH models. In this paper, we adopt a combination of the two methodologies. There is as yet little consensus on the methodology for testing for fractional cointegration. The contribution of this paper is to demonstrate the feasibility of estimating and testing cointegrated bivariate FIGARCH models. We apply these methods to volatility on the NYMEX and IPE crude oil markets. We find a common order of fractional integration for the two volatility processes and confirm that they are fractionally cointegrated. An estimated error correction FIGARCH model indicates that the preponderant adjustment is of the IPE towards NYMEX.     

Political Variables in Cross-country Growth Analysis

The recent boom in cross-country growth analysis has renewed the empirical interest in political sources of economic growth. A large number of studies have tested political variables in growth regressions and a very heterogenous set of variables has been proposed to measure economically relevant differences in the political systems of countries. This paper distinguishes five categories of relevant political variables: democracy, government stability, political violence, policy volatility, and subjective perception of politics. For each of these categories, the specification, testing method, and results of the most relevant studies are presented and are critically discussed. The paper concludes that measures of democracy are least successful and measures of policy volatility and subjective perception of politics most successful as explanatory variables in cross-country growth regressions.