An examination of free elicitation and response scale measures of feelings and judgments evoked by television advertisements

Recent research has examined the role of feelings and judgments evoked by television advertisements through the use of large batteries of rating scales. In this study, free elicitations of feelings and judgments about ads are compared to scale responses. Some potential problems pertaining to the use of large batteries of items to measure feelings and judgments are illustrated, and complementary aspects of the two measurement approaches suggest some advantages of the concurrent use of both in gauging responses to ads. Results across both approaches confirm the importance of assessing feelings in models of the antecedents of attitude toward the ad and suggest that feelings explain about as much variance in Aad as do judgments.     

Asymmetric effects of housing wealth on college enrolment

We investigate the impact of housing wealth, credit availability and financial distress on college enrolment decisions. We find that housing wealth is negatively related to enrolment in public schools and positively related to enrolment in private schools. This evidence suggests that, on average, students substituted away from private schools towards public institutions during the recent financial crisis.     

INTERNATIONAL WELFARE AND EMPLOYMENT LINKAGES ARISING FROM MINIMUM WAGES*

We formulate a two‐country model with monopolistic competition and heterogeneous firms to reconsider labor market linkages in open economies. Labor market imperfections arise by virtue of country‐specific real minimum wages. Abstracting from selection of just the best firms into export status, standard effects on marginal and average firm productivity are reversed in our model, yet there are significant gains from trade arising from employment expansion. In addition, we show that with firm heterogeneity an increase in one country’s minimum wage triggers firm exit in both countries and thus harms workers at home and abroad.     

A Course in Economic Forecasting: Rationale and Content

This note shows that the impact of an increase in product price on factor demand in the typical textbook depiction is overstated to the point of indicating that competitive firms demand factors even when marginal product is negative.     

Disciplining: A question of ethics?

The importance of evaluating a discipline system from an ethical perspective is considered. Disciplinary practices in contemporary organizations are frequently characterized by managers having to choose from among alternative courses of corrective action. Since the selected alternative may have serious consequences for the individuals involved, its rightness or wrongness is of concern. The pattern of these choices reflects the overall disciplinary practice of the organization, and is an issue that warrants attention from an ethical perspective. Basic schools of thought that influence contemporary discipline practices are discussed and suggestions are made for conducting an evaluation of the ethical nature of a discipline system.     

Banks and bubbles: How good are bankers at spotting winners?

This paper examines the bank lending relations of a large sample of technology and nontechnology firms that went public during the 1996–2000 period. We use a unique hand-collected data set to examine the characteristics of firms that establish pre- Initial Public Offering (IPO) bank lending relations and whether post-IPO performance is related to the existence and size of pre-IPO banking relations. We find that the majority of IPO firms have banking relations before they go public. Firms with banking relations are older, more profitable or, in the case of tech firms, have lower losses, and are more likely to have funding from venture capitalists than firms without banking relations. We also find that banks lent aggressively to technology firms in the sense that current earnings and cash flows were significantly less important in determining banking relations for technology firms than for nontechnology firms. Consistent with the importance of so-called soft information in lending decisions, we find that, controlling for ex ante observable risk measures, there is a positive and significant relation between improvements in post-IPO operating performance and the existence and size of pre-IPO banking relations. Overall, our results indicate that firms with the best current and future prospects establish banking relations. Our findings provide an explanation as to why investors could interpret lending relations as a positive signal of firm quality.     

The Role of Information and Influence in Social Networks

A bstract .   This article examines two mechanisms through which social networks are related to job mobility: (1) access to diverse sources of information about job openings and (2) nonredundant sources of influence. Using data on job changing and social networks among television station managers, we assess the extent to which job information and influence variables mediate the relationship between social network structure and getting a better job. Results indicate that there is an association between job mobility and having nonredundant contacts, but our measures of the information and influence mechanisms are not significant mediators. We conclude by reexamining the network-resource model that forms the basis for much of the research on the relationship between social networks and job mobility.     

The cost of elections: the effects of public sector austerity on electoral integrity and voter engagement

Concerns have been raised that insufficient funding has been affecting the delivery of elections in many countries. This paper presents a case study of England and Wales from 2010–2016. It demonstrates that many local authorities saw major real terms cuts and were increasingly over-budget. Those subject to cuts were less likely to undertake public engagement activities. State efforts to encourage voter participation may therefore be a casualty of austerity.