Contrasting the Four Franchising Imperatives Across Hybridized Governance Models: A Preliminary Investigation

Although multiple-unit franchising is a popular and pervasive retailing strategy throughout the world, there is a paucity of prior research examining the factors influencing the achievement of the four franchising imperatives (i.e., unit growth, uniformity, local responsiveness, and system-wide adaptation) within the context of these hybridized arrangements. Exploratory interviews were conducted (16 franchisees), and results suggest master franchising realizes the strategic imperatives of unit growth, system uniformity, system-wide adaptation, and (partially) local responsiveness. Master franchising and area development arrangements enabled system uniformity, whereas incremental and area representative arrangements promoted system-wide adaptation. Implications for practitioners and future academic researchers are presented.     

Tertiary Performance, Field of Study and Graduate Starting Salaries

This paper analyses data from the University of Western Australia (UWA) Graduate Destination Survey linked to information from the University's Student Records System to explore the determinants of graduates' starting salaries over the years 2002 to 2004. While the details examined also include age, gender, language spoken at home, country of birth, disability status and high school attended, most emphasis is placed on the impact on starting salaries of students' academic performance and their field of study. The analyses show that the main determinant of graduates' starting salaries is the weighted average mark they achieve at university. The salary differentials associated with higher marks in the Australian labour market appear greater than those reported in similar studies of the US and the UK labour markets. Science graduates are shown to have relatively low starting salaries, casting a shadow over recent suggestions that the supply of this group be increased through lower fee regimes.     

Experimental evidence on coverage choices and contract prices in the market for corporate insurance

In this paper, we present experimental evidence on the effect adverse selection has on coverage choices and pricing in corporate insurance markets. Two sets of experimental data, each generated by experiments utilizing a specific parameterization of a corporate insurance decision, are presented to gauge these effects. In the first, subject behavior conforms to a unique equilibrium in which high risk firms choose higher coverage and contracts are priced accordingly. Insurers act competitively and convergence to equilibrium behavior is marked. In the second set, there is little evidence that subject behavior is consistent with either of the two equilibrium outcomes supported by the experimental setting—pooling by fully insuring losses and pooling by self insuring. JEL Classification C90, G14, G22 Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10683-006-9152-y.     

Impact of MiFID II tick-size regime on equity markets—Evidence from the LSE

This study investigates the impact of MiFID II on the London Stock Exchange. We find that a tick-size reduction leads to lower bid–ask spreads, lower trade values, reduced cost of trading at and beyond the best bid-offer, an acceleration of quote updates, an increase in aggressive trades and a reduction in price impact. Increased tick size widens spreads and increases trading costs. Step functions reveal that liquidity adjusts opposite to the tick change. To determine if impacts are proportional, we identify potential functions that predict cost changes with tick updates, implying that traders adjust their trade sizes according to the new tick levels.     

Loss ratio dynamics

Many studies of the insurance profit cycle use industry-level annual data and focus on the existence of an AR(2) process. We take a different approach by adopting the idea of possible hard and soft markets, but they are not necessarily cyclical in the classic sense. In addition to aggregated data, we use quarterly firm-level data to examine loss ratio behavior over time. This approach allows one to assess the firm-level heterogeneity in the insurance market. We further use a Markov switching model to assess the heterogeneity of response to economic variables. Using a K-means cluster approach, we examine the different clusters of firms and their different behavior over 2001q1−2020q4.