Trade Costs and Changes in Canada's Trade Pattern

This paper measures the size and composition of non‐tariff trade costs such as transport, wholesale, and network costs incurred in Canada's merchandise trade using Statistics Canada's latest ‘trade margins’ statistics. It examines how changes in these trade costs have influenced Canada's merchandise trade pattern and the course of economic integration. Our results show that as tariffs have been substantially reduced and largely abolished, costs associated with transport and distribution services now appear much larger than remaining customs duties; therefore, liberalisation in services might be the next key step in promoting greater merchandise trade. Further, reducing transport and other trade‐related costs has helped ‘reverse’ the ‘home market effect’, expanding Canada's domestic demand and production for exports of differentiated products.     

The market viability of European mass tourist destinations. A post-stagnation life-cycle analysis

First generation European mass tourist resorts, defined as those that developed in the north of the continent up to and including the first half of this century, have shown a variety of responses to impending decline within the post-stagnation phase of their life-cycle, much as predicted in the tourist area life-cycle (TALC) model. There have been winners and losers, as some destinations have diversified their local economies and others have accepted gradual contraction, whereas a select few have maintained a competitive edge through product investment and reorientation to new markets. For the second generation of European mass tourist resorts, those high density tourist areas that emerged in the Mediterranean in the 1960s, the evolutionary life-cycle has, to date, been of a much shorter duration. The period from exploration to stagnation has lasted a mere 30 years, sometimes less. The nature of these resorts, whereby rapid development has created a tourism monoculture, means that the onset of decline has far more dramatic implications to local economies when compared with first generation resorts. Unfortunately, although strategic planning initiatives are now (belatedly) being practised, it is likely that rejuvenation will only be short-lived due in most cases to the inherent structural weaknesses of these resorts. Their legacy is one of overdevelopment and environmental scarring, they rely too heavily on price as a marketing tool in an increasingly quality conscious market, and the powers of promotion and distribution remain largely in the hands of northern European mass consolidators (tour operators), with little commerical incentive for customer loyalty. This paper thus predicts a pessimistic post-stagnation scenario for most second generation Mediterranean mass market resorts. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Improving public services by sharing the right information

This article looks at the role that information sharing plays in supporting new models of public service delivery. It sets out the barriers to information sharing, attempts to overcome them and considers some of the factors involved in shaping a new direction for information sharing, such as changing public expectations and the rapidly changing regulatory environment.     

The Effects of Contextual and Wrongdoing Attributes on Organizational Employees’ Whistleblowing Intentions Following Fraud

Recent financial fraud legislation such as the Dodd–Frank Act and the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (U.S. House of Representatives, Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, [H.R. 4173], 2010; U.S. House of Representatives, The Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, Public Law 107-204 [H.R. 3763], 2002) relies heavily on whistleblowers for enforcement, and offers protection and incentives for whistleblowers. However, little is known about many aspects of the whistleblowing decision, especially the effects of contextual and wrongdoing attributes on organizational members’ willingness to report fraud. We extend the ethics literature by experimentally investigating how the nature of the wrongdoing and the awareness of those surrounding the whistleblower can influence whistleblowing. As predicted, we find that employees are less likely to report: (1) financial statement fraud than theft; (2) immaterial than material financial statement fraud; (3) when the wrongdoer is aware that the potential whistleblower has knowledge of the fraud; and (4) when others in addition to the wrongdoer are not aware of the fraud. Our findings extend whistleblowing research in several ways. For instance, prior research provides little evidence concerning the effects of fraud type, wrongdoer awareness, and others’ awareness on whistleblowing intentions. We also provide evidence that whistleblowing settings represent an exception to the well-accepted theory of diffusion of responsibility. Our participants are professionals who represent the likely pool of potential whistleblowers in organizations.     

Investigating cost non-attendance as a driver of inflated welfare estimates in mixed-logit models

Choice models are used by applied economists for many purposes, such as non-market valuation or estimating willingness to pay for novel food and product attributes. Mixed-logit models allow researchers to account for preference heterogeneity and complex decision-making processes when modelling choices. In mixed-logit models, parameters of monetary attributes such as prices typically are assumed to follow a negative lognormal random distribution to ensure that the marginal utility of a price increase is strictly negative. However, this practice can cause means and standard deviations of welfare estimates to ‘explode’ to unfeasibly large levels, as the model assumes there are some marginal utilities of cost approaching zero. This paper examines whether cost non-attendance, which occurs when respondents ignore costs in stated-preference studies, could be a cause of inflated welfare estimates when a lognormal cost parameter is used. A two-class equality-constrained latent-class model is proposed, in which the cost parameter is fixed at zero for a cost non-attender class and is specified as a random lognormal parameter for cost attenders. This proposed model produces mean welfare estimates that are 17 times lower than a mixed-logit model with a lognormal cost parameter, and 10% lower than a model with a non-random cost parameter. These results suggest that cost non-attendance can result in inflated welfare estimates when employing a lognormal cost parameter, and that accounting for cost non-attendance could be a simple, parsimonious solution to this problem.     

A driver focused truck crash prediction model

This paper advances a driver focused truck crash prediction model. The model investigates the contribution of driver factors on the number of state reportable crashes in which the driver was involved. The findings suggest that the following factors are significantly related to the likelihood of a crash occurrence: driver age, weight, height, gender, and employment stability as well as previous driver and vehicle violations and past crashes. The results have significance regarding the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration imperative to improve safety.