On dynamic selection of households for direct marketing based on Markov chain models with memory

A simple, dynamic selection procedure is proposed, based on conditional, expected profits using Markov chain models with memory. The method is easy to apply, only frequencies and mean values have to be calculated or estimated. The method is empirically illustrated using a data set from a charitable foundation. The results reveal some interesting features with respect to the time-dependent behavior of certain subsets of households, whereas the profitability increases by about 9% by using the method compared to a benchmark of sending a mailing to all households.     

The changing relationship between earnings expectations and earnings for value and growth stocks during Reg FD

Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg FD) altered the voluntary disclosure practices of firms with publicly traded securities, thereby affecting relationships between value and growth stock expectations and actual earnings. The results show that earnings forecasts for both stock groups are biased but that bias is less after the introduction of Reg FD. In fact, the difference in pre/post FD forecast bias is larger for growth stocks, suggesting that before Reg FD, analysts did not just misinterpret news but consciously tried to maintain relationships with growth firm managers. However, Reg FD limited these relationships severing the monetary advantage that might be gained from manipulating forecasts.     

Respondent uncertainty in a contingent market for carbon offsets

The main objective of this paper is to provide additional empirical evidence of what explains respondent uncertainty in contingent valuation (CV) and how this in turn affects stated willingness to pay (WTP). Air travelers asked to pay a carbon travel tax to offset carbon emissions from flying were asked how likely it is that they will actually pay if the tax is voluntary. When changing the market compliance imperative from a mandatory carbon tax to a voluntary contribution, a third of all air travelers consider it unlikely they will actually pay their stated WTP amount. An ordered probit estimation approach is applied to identify the sources of respondent uncertainty. Besides the bid price, respondent sense of responsibility and belief in the effectiveness of the voluntary carbon market are among the main reasons for the experienced uncertainty.     

Marketmaking in the Laboratory: Does Competition Matter?

This paper is the first experimental study of the effects of competition and adverse selection on the performance of market maker (MM-) markets. Information distribution may is either symmetric or heterogeneous. MM-markets are either monopolistic (the specialist markets), or competitive (the multi MM-market). Welfare comparisons are with respect to a continuous double auction (DA-) market. Informed subjects receive an imperfect signal of the true state of the world. We find three main results. First, competition among market makers significantly reduces the bid-ask spread, and increases transaction volume. Second, competition among market makers induces competitive undercutting, yielding net trading losses for market makers as a group in most periods. Third, from the perspective of uninformed traders, a competing MM-regime is optimal, since it minimizes their expected trading losses.     

Intertemporal market division:: A case of alternating monopoly

In this paper, we report on an equilibrium with market dominance that exists in a simple two-firm model that features neither entry barriers nor sophisticated punishment strategies. This equilibrium induces an intertemporal market division in which the two firms alternate as monopolists - despite the fact that the model also sustains a Cournot duopoly. Even when initially both firms are active in the market, the alternating monopoly reveals itself rather quickly. Moreover, it Pareto dominates the Cournot equilibrium - as it is close to the cartel outcome. Several examples of what well may be such alternating monopolies are presented.     

Economic diversification of a single-asset tourism city: evidence from Antalya†

It is often argued that the growth of single-asset tourism places is fragile because it is vulnerable to economic fluctuations and is based on specialization and localization economies that lead to an ever stronger lock-in process of path-dependent urban economic development and, in the end, slow growth. In this paper, it is doubted whether a high urban tourism growth implies an ever stronger specialization and an ever stronger lock-in. This paper shows that the growth of tourism stimulates the growth of related and unrelated industries and generates a diversification of the economy, even though some other sectors are crowded out. Antalya (Turkey) is selected as a case-study area not only because its economy is dominated by tourism (it is a good example of a single-asset tourism city), but also because its economy shows a tendency to economic diversification at the sectoral level. This diversification tendency is shown by means of a shift-share analysis and Herfindahl indexes.     

NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT: PERSPECTIVES ON PERFORMANCE AND THE USE OF PERFORMANCE INFORMATION

Performance information is a key‐element of NPM, but politicians and managers rarely use this information. On the basis of three case studies, this paper seeks to explain the use of the newly developed performance information. The paper argues that there is a distinction between the customer perspective and the citizen perspective on performance. NPM implies a customer and an internal perspective on performance. These perspectives may be relevant to managers, but politicians are primarily interested in a citizen perspective and a financial perspective. Two situations are identified in which governmental organizations more actively use performance information with a customer perspective and an internal perspective (as implied in NPM): (1) a crisis in the organization's internal processes with political and/or financial consequences and (2) loose coupling of the performance reports to politicians and to managers, which stimulates the information use by both politicians and managers.     

Semi-core equivalence

Summary. The main requirements for equivalence of the core of an economy and the Walrasian equilibrium allocations are largeness and the freedom to form almost arbitrary coalitions in the Edgeworthian barter processes. We investigate whether constraints on coalition formation and coalitional barter alter these insights. Our notion of the semi-core imposes a restriction on the collection of formable coalitions that does not affect the fundamental equivalence property. Using our concept of the contract-core we show that additional constraints on coalitional barter can only be alleviated within an environment with sufficiently many formable coalitions: besides a contract-core equivalence theorem we show certain non-equivalence results.Received: December 11, 1995; revised version: September 17, 1996This revised version was published online in February 2005 with corrections to the cover date.     

The Real of Community,the Desire for Development and the Performance of Egalitarianism in the Peruvian Andes: A Materialist–Utopian Account

The paper proposes a materialist–utopian perspective for explaining the persistence of community in the Andes by drawing upon Lacanian theory and the thought of the Peruvian Marxist José Carlos Mariátegui. What characterizes the Andean comunidad are not notions of belonging and identity, but the existence of a fundamental antagonism (what I call the ‘Real of community’). The argument unfolds ethnographically. Usibamba, a peasant comunidad in the central Peruvian Andes, is known as a highly egalitarian and disciplined comunidad. However, a disjunction exists between deep‐seated aspirations of justice and egalitarianism and the particularistic interests of families and individuals. This disjunction manifests itself in a contradictory, schizophrenic regime of discipline and negotiation that produces ‘split subjects’. Desiring development and the staging of theatrical performances of egalitarianism enables Usibambinos to deal with this disjunction and to present an image of unity and determination. I conclude that the comunidad persists through ‘impossible political acts’ brought about by a residual but growing category of landless comuneros who constitute ‘the part of no part’, the uncounted or unnamed.