The Effect of Demographics on Job Satisfaction: A Study of Hotel Managers in Turkey

This study examined the relationship between selected demographic characteristics of middle-level hotel managers in Turkey and five selected job satisfaction dimensions (degree of satisfaction with the work, coworkers, supervision, financial compensation, and promotion opportunities). In addition, the relationship between job satisfaction dimensions and the middle-level hotel managers' overall job satisfaction level was analyzed. The study sample consists of 103 middle-level hotel managers (all Turkish nationals) in 17 rated four- and five-star hotels in Kusadasi, Turkey. Study findings indicate significant differences between managers in various demographic categories and their levels of job satisfaction. Overall, the data revealed that financial compensation, promotion opportunities, and supervision most significantly impacted middle-level hotel managers' overall job satisfaction levels.     

On the location of public bads: strategy-proofness under two-dimensional single-dipped preferences

In a model with finitely many agents who have single-dipped Euclidean preferences on a polytope in the Euclidean plane, a rule assigns to each profile of reported dips a point of the polytope. A point $x$ of the polytope is called single-best if there is a point $y$ of the polytope such that $x$ is the unique point of the polytope at maximal distance from $y$ . It is proved that if the polytope does not have either exactly two single-best points or exactly four single-best points which form the vertices of a rectangle, then any Pareto optimal and strategy-proof rule is dictatorial. If the polytope has exactly two single-best points, then there are non-dictatorial strategy-proof and Pareto optimal rules, which can be described by committee voting (simple games) between the two single-best points. This also holds if there are exactly four single-best points which form the vertices of a rectangle, but in that case, we limit ourselves to describing an example of such a rule. The framework under consideration models situations where public bads such as garbage dumping grounds or nuclear plants have to be located within a confined region.     

Bribery solicitations and firm performance in the Latin America and Caribbean region

This study shows that for firms in the Latin America and Caribbean region, bribery significantly distorts firm growth. Firms that were solicited for bribes when conducting business transactions – such as applying for permits, electricity, or water connections – have 23% lower annual sales growth than firms that do not face such solicitations. Moreover, these distortions are more severe for low-revenue-generating and young firms. Using the instrumental variables method on cross-sectional data as well as evidence from panel data, the authors show that these results are robust to different specifications and the use of different sub-samples.     

More on phantom bidding

Summary. A phantom bidding model is analyzed for a sale auction. The following issues are addressed: the effects of phantom bidding on overall social welfare and buyers' profits. It is shown that social welfare may increase or decrease as the auctioneer switches from the fixed reserve price policy to phantom bidding. The buyers' profits will increase whenever social welfare increases. Received: November 4, 1998; revised version: February 8, 1999     

The limit of law: factors influencing the decision to make harmful acts illegal

Economics of Governance - This paper examines factors affecting the decision of whether or not to make certain harmful acts illegal. It considers factors related both to the cost of law enforcement...     

Causal relationship between construction investment policy and economic growth in Turkey

The construction industry in countries experiencing severe economic crisis has vital importance to get out of stagnation because of its direct relations with 200 different sectors. In this study, the relationship between the construction growth data (infrastructure, building and residential (public), building and residential (private) investment) and gross domestic product (GDP) is examined for Turkey. To this end, Engle–Granger cointegration, error correction model (ECM) and Granger causality tests were applied in order to determine the aforementioned relation. It has been found that the infrastructure and building–residential investments have direct relations with the GDP and have causality effects.     

Exchange market reform,inflation, and fiscal deficits

This paper examines the effects of exchange market reform on inflation and quasifiscal deficits in developing countries. The first part presents the conceptual framework, which identifies a variety of implicit taxes and subsidies that must be taken into account (in addition to implicit taxes on exports, as emphasized by Pinto (1991)) in assessing the fiscal and inflationary effects of exchange market reform. A formula that attempts to capture explicitly these taxes and subsidies is derived. The second part applies the formula to six countries (Guyana, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Sri Lanka). The results suggest that exchange market reform may lead to a significant reduction in reliance on the inflation tax.     

Verifiability and Contract Enforcement: A Model with Judicial Moral Hazard

I model the litigation of a contract containing a variable notobservable by courts, hence nonverifiable, unless the rationaland self-interested judge exerts effort. He values the correctruling but dislikes effort. Judicial effort is discretionary.I show that effort cost is inconsequential—"always breach"is equilibrium for any effort cost. But there exists anotherequilibrium where a small breach rate is achieved even withsignificant effort costs. Maximal remedies for breach are notoptimal. Because effort is discretionary, low effort cost increasesbreach. Pretrial negotiations can have a substantial negativeimpact on verifiability under arbitrarily small deviations fromfull rationality.