Economic and Social Correlates of Re-Employment Following Job Displacement

Abstract . The purpose of our study is to examine the economic and social correlates of re‐employment following job displacement. Our data are taken from 247 workers who were displaced as a result of plant closures in Ontario (Canada). Human capital did not affect re‐employment. Economic need positively affected re‐employment. Discrimination negatively affected re‐employment, and social networks positively affected re‐employment. Our conclusion falls squarely within the field of economic sociology, in that an economic outcome can have both an economic and a sociological explanation.     

Determinants of Consumers’ Decisions to Seek Third Party Redress: An Empirical Study of Dissatisfied Patients

A dissatisfied consumer's decision to seek redress from third parties has significant implications for society in general and the focal industry in particular, yet little is known about why consumers choose such actions. To address this gap, a generalizable, comprehensive, and testable model of the processes that result in consumers’ decisions (not) to engage in one or more third party actions is developed. In addition, results from an empirical investigation of a portion of the proposed model are presented. The empirical model explains 65 percent of the variance in the dependent construct. Several implications and avenues for future research are discussed.     

Nominal GDP Targeting with Heterogeneous Labor Supply

We study nominal gross domestic product (GDP) targeting as optimal monetary policy in a model with a credit market friction following Azariadis et al. (2018), henceforth ABSS. We extend the ABSS framework to allow for heterogeneous labor supply. We show that nominal GDP targeting continues to characterize optimal monetary policy in this setting. We also analyze the incomplete markets equilibrium that exists when the monetary policymaker pursues a suboptimal policy, and show how an extension to more general preferences can limit the ability of the policymaker to provide full insurance to households in this setting.     

Bond Insurance: What Is Special About Munis?

Close to 50% of municipal bonds are prepackaged with insurance at the time of issue. We offer a tax‐based rationale for the emergence of third‐party insurance of tax‐exempt bonds. We argue that insurance adds value as it allows a third party to become, in a probabilistic sense, an issuer of tax‐exempt securities. Insurance however reduces value by eliminating the possibility of a capital tax loss. While the net benefit from insurance increases with bond maturity, the benefit may not increase monotonically with default risk. We also provide empirical evidence supportive of the model's predictions.     

Industry Characteristics and Consumer Dissatisfaction

Drawing upon Hirschman's (1970) theory, a conceptual framework is developed that attempts to explain how industry characteristics are likely to influence consumers' responses to dissatisfaction. Findings from consumer complaining behavior literature are also incorporated. Several hypotheses are derived and tested utilizing data from three different service categories. Despite the parsimony of Hirschman's theory, the results are encouraging. Also, the stability and validity of the results are examined under several different contingencies. Implications for researchers, practitioners, and public policy officials are discussed and directions for research outlined.     

Marketing Culture and Customer Retention in the Tourism Industry

During the last few years considerable attention has been focused on the essence of cultivating a culture which fosters the effective operationalisation of marketing practices in tourism firms. This issue is considered an important source of competitive advantage in the tourism industry where sophisticated marketing is still in its developmental stages. Considering the high level of interaction between a tourism firm and its customers, the significance of effective marketing activities cannot be overstated. In addition, maketing academics and managers assert that a strong marketing culture will lead to customer retention via customer satisfaction. This study is based on an empirical examination of the link between UK tourism firms’ marketing culture and customer retention. Our results reveal a moderately strong relationship between marketing culture and customer retention. Finally, implications of the findings for tourism managers and avenues for future research are discussed.     

Inventory Shocks and the Great Moderation

Why did the volatility of U.S. real GDP decline by more than the volatility of final sales with the Great Moderation in the mid‐1980s? One explanation is that firms shifted their inventory behavior toward a greater emphasis on production smoothing. We investigate the role of inventories in the Great Moderation by estimating an unobserved components model that identifies inventory and sales shocks and their propagation in the aggregate data. Our estimates provide no support for increased production smoothing. Instead, smaller transitory inventory shocks are responsible for the excess volatility reduction in output compared to sales. These shocks behave like informational errors related to production that must be set in advance and their reduction also helps explain the changed forecasting role of inventories since the mid‐1980s. Our findings provide an optimistic prognosis for a continuation of the Great Moderation, despite the dramatic movements in output during the recent economic crisis.