Consumer satisfaction and loyalty: Two main consequences of retailer personality

This article investigates the impact of retailer personality on consumers' satisfaction with and loyalty to the retailer, measured through attitude and future behavioral intentions. Data were collected on a convenience sample of 372 customers of a specific retailer. Using partial least squares analysis (PLS), we show that four traits (“congeniality”, “originality”, “conscientiousness” and “preciousness”) have a direct or indirect impact on one of the dependent variables studied. Hence, this article proposes a model of the consequences of retailer personality and suggests that retailer personality is an important concept that practitioners should consider when running their satisfaction and loyalty programs.     

An Econometric Study of Quits Rate Trends in the United States since the Great Recession: Cyclical Movement or Structural Change?

This paper attempts to identify the possible reasons behind a drop of the quits rate in the period since the Great Recession. (As defined by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the quits rate is the number of quits during the entire month as a percent of total employment.) The paper examines several essential questions on the quits rate using econometric models and analysis: What are the crucial determinants that explain the movements in the quits rate? Is the postrecession stagnation of the quits rate a result of current cyclical macroeconomic conditions, or does it reflect a structural change? As far as we know, no recent research has attempted to model this indicator to answer these questions. Quits rate data have been systematically collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics through the Job Opening and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) only since the end of year 2000. By dividing our data set into 12 industrial categories and four regions, we are able to come up with empirical models to explain quits rate behavior over a consecutive time span and also across industries and regions. After developing our model, we are then able to examine if there is evidence of structural change using several methods.     

Trade and the location of industries: Some new results

We study a two-country two-sector model with free entry and monopolistic competition where both industries use labour to produce differentiated goods. The two countries are identical except for size. Labour is freely mobile across industries but it cannot move internationally. Transport costs affect both industries. The location of industries and the pattern of trade are the results of the interaction of two effects: the home market effect and the wage differential effect. The main results are: (i) if the two countries are sufficiently close in size and demand elasticities differ across industries (transport costs being equal), a continuous fall in transport costs from a prohibitive level to zero is associated with a reversal in the pattern of trade at some intermediate level. For large transport costs, the large country is a net exporter of the more differentiated good. For lower transport costs, the large country becomes a net exporter of the less differentiated good; (ii) if the two countries are very different in size and demand elasticities differ across industries (transport costs being equal), the larger country is always a net exporter of the less differentiated good.     

Regulating a manager whose empire-building preferences are private information

We obtain the optimal contract for the government (principal) to regulate a manager (agent) who has a taste for empire-building that is his/her private information. This taste for empire-building is modeled as a utility premium that is proportional to the difference between the contracted output and a reference output. We find that output is distorted upward when the manager’s taste for running large firms is weak, downward when it is strong, and equals a reference output when it is intermediate (in this case, the participation constraint is binding). We also obtain an endogenous reference output (equal to the expected output, which depends on the reference output), and find that the response of output to cost is null in the short-run (in which the reference output is fixed), whenever the manager’s type is in the intermediate range, and negative in the long-run (after the adjustment of the reference output to equal expected output).     

董事会的战略角色

正如果董事会能够清晰地定义自己在公司内的战略功能,董事会内部、董事会与高管之间的争议将大大减少光怪陆离的世界,商业模式快速遭遇颠覆,新的竞争者层出不穷,为了生存发展,公司高层比任何时候都更加需要战略思维。不幸的是,董事会似乎仍然不知道应该如何在公司里发挥战略性作用。一种极端情况是,董事会就是CEO决策程序里一个橡皮图章;     

Municipal support of wireless access network rollout: A game theoretic approach

Next generation access networks are expected to bring ubiquitous broadband access and have attracted interest of municipal governments. This paper investigates the support by municipal authorities for the rollout of such a city-wide wireless broadband access network. Different business cases for 3G and WiFi operators are developed and it is indicated how to model the specificities for commercial versus public players. Furthermore, a game theoretic approach is used to investigate the investment options of the municipal player. It is shown that a partnership between a commercial and public player is the most likely investment strategy. However, bringing more players into the competitive environment reduces the intention of the commercial partner to engage in the public–private partnership (PPP).     

How Sensitive are Individual Retirement Expectations to Raising the Retirement Age?

This paper investigates the causal effects of the announcement of an increase in the statutory pension age on employee retirement expectations. In June 2010, the Dutch government signed a new pension agreement with the employer and employee organizations that entailed an increase in the statutory pension age from 65 currently to 66 in 2020 for all inhabitants born after 1954. Given the expected increase in average life expectancy, it was also decided that in 2025 the pension age would be further increased to 67 for those born after 1959. This new pension agreement received huge media coverage. Using representative matched administrative and survey data of public sector employees, we find that the proposed policy reform increased the expected retirement age by 3.6 months for employees born between 1954 and 1959 and by 10.8 months for those born after 1959. This increase is reflected in a clear shift in the retirement peak from age 65 to ages 66 and 67 for the respective treated cohorts. Men respond less strongly to the policy reform than women, but within couples we find no evidence that the retirement expectations of one spouse are affected by an increase in the statutory pension age of the other. Furthermore, we show that treatment effects are largely driven by highly educated individuals but are lower for employees whose job involves physically demanding tasks or managerial and supervisory tasks.