Bargaining and exclusivity in a borrower–lender relationship

This paper presents a stylized model of a borrower–lender relationship where funds are gradually invested in a project with uncertain return. We show that an exclusive financing relationship arises endogenously in equilibrium due to initial lender’s superior information on the project’s progress. The analysis also identifies a novel distortionary effect of exclusivity and the consequent loss of future rents on the ex-ante choices of the borrower. When she chooses the amount of funds to be initially invested in the project, the borrower chooses to overinvest making the future rent extraction by the initial lender as costly as possible. We would like to thank Alberto Bisin, Andrew Chen, Boyan Jovanovic, Hideo Konishi, David Mauer, Efe Ok, Mike Riordan, Charles A. Wilson, and seminar participants at Society of Economic Design 2002 meetings in New York and Southern Methodist University for helpful comments. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Is small beautiful? Understanding the contribution of small businesses in township tourism to economic development

The increased importance attached by policy-makers to the anticipated developmental effects of tourism in developing countries has been insufficiently examined by academic researchers, particularly in the context of the contribution of small firms in urban areas. This deficiency is addressed by providing a review of existing research followed by an analysis of interviews with 90 tourism business located within and outside the townships of Langa and Imizamo Yethu, Cape Town, South Africa. The findings reveal tensions between the different actors involved in township tourism. While the involvement of small, locally owned, businesses is beneficial, it is limited by conflicts of interest, lack of trust, limited social networks and little attachment to the township locality. The discussion highlights the complexity of tourism's role in economic development, which has significant implications for local policy-makers.     

Customer-sales employee encounters: a dyadic perspective

Although researchers have suggested that the performance of the salesperson during sales encounters is critical, many of the underlying mechanisms that govern the interaction between salespersons and customers are still unclear. In this research, we investigate sales encounters from a new approach based on the field of research of interpersonal perception. Results demonstrate that drivers of customer satisfaction may also be satisfying for the contact employee. Additionally, we find that customer satisfaction is not only determined by the customer’s own perceptions, but also by the perceptions of the employee. Similarly, employee satisfaction is driven by the customer’s perceptions. Finally, our study identifies that perceptions of employee performance and satisfaction do not only reflect the unique interaction between the customer and the employee, but also relatively stable characteristics of the employee.     

Promoting Interactive Decision Aids on Retail Websites: A Message Framing Perspective with New versus Traditional Focal Actions

Online retailers significantly benefit when consumers use interactive decision aids (IDAs). In this study, we investigate how to best design messages that promote IDA use. Using an extended message framing perspective, we propose that messages about consumers’ traditional action (searching) increase usage intentions more than messages about the new action (IDA use). Results from two experiments confirm that this holds across both high and low involvement categories and in particular when the traditional action frame is combined with a loss outcome. We also demonstrate that familiarity with the message's focal action mediates this effect.     

Accounting for heterogeneity in cross‐country bank efficiency comparisons

In this article, we investigate the significance of the heterogeneity problem in banking efficiency research by using stochastic frontier techniques. The cost frontier function is estimated on a sample of banks from new European Union members from Central and Eastern Europe and the Baltics (CEEB) for the 1998–2007 period. The results imply that environmental variables can only partly control for the presence of heterogeneity in the sample. By employing the ‘true’ random‐effects model as originally proposed by Greene (2005a, 2005b) , the unobserved heterogeneity that is typically associated with the complexity of the banking environment is additionally taken into account. This approach is found to result in considerably smaller differences in average country efficiency levels, which implies that CEEB countries represent a relatively homogeneous group in terms of bank performance.     

Unified GIS database on cycle tourism infrastructure

Bicycles are used in the Czech Republic for commuting to work and for leisure time activities. This is reflected in the cycle trail administrators' offer to make the existing network denser, design new routes, mark their courses and install a complementary cycle infrastructure.     

Meine Antwort an Herrn Prof. Dr. Karel Engliš

Ohne Zusammenfassung