Strategic Purity and Efficiency in the Motor Carrier Industry: A Multiyear Panel Investigation

Two questions facing motor carrier managers are (1) whether carriers should specialize in providing full truckload (TL) or less‐than‐truckload (LTL) services vis‐à‐vis offering mix of both and (2) whether this decision is contingent on carrier size. Yet, the literature provides little guidance because research to date has offered contradictory theoretical predictions and inconsistent empirical findings. Drawing on the theory of strategic purity and information processing theory, we explain why service specialization is likely to increase carriers' technical efficiency and why size will have a more pronounced effect on technical efficiency for carriers specializing in LTL services versus TL services. To test our theory, we assemble a panel data set from archival government sources regarding general freight motor carriers' provision of LTL and TL services. We measure carriers' technical efficiency using data envelopment analysis and test our hypotheses by fitting a series of panel data mixed‐effects models. Our results indicate that carriers are most technically efficient when they specialize in one service type. We also find that size positively affects technical efficiency but only for carriers specializing in LTL services; no returns to scale with regard to technical efficiency exist for carriers specializing in TL services.     

Industrialization, Female Labor Force Participation, and the Modern Division of Labor by Sex

We examine the effect of industrialization on female labor force participation for 62 countries. Two hypotheses are tested: the emancipation hypothesis and the U-shaped hypothesis. Our results support the U-shaped hypothesis insofar as shifts in the distribution of occupations in early industrialization decrease female labor force participation by removing women from agriculture while excluding them from occupations in manufacturing and management. We further suggest that different paths to industrialization may have different effects on female labor force participation.     

Non-market Value of Winter Outdoor Recreation in the Swiss Alps: The Case of Val Bedretto

A longstanding interest from environmental economists on winter outdoor recreation has overlooked activities practiced outside the boundaries of winter resorts—e.g. ski mountaineering. This paper implements the Travel Cost Method to estimate consumer surplus per season derived from ski mountaineering and snowshoeing in Val Bedretto—a valley located in the Swiss Alps. In addition, the Contingent Behavior Method is used to estimate the changes in welfare associated with the construction of an alpine center that would provide services aiming to reduce the risk of injury and death associated with winter outdoor recreation. The data is analyzed by means of latent class panel on-site count models. The latent class approach allows us to identify subpopulations that benefit from the alpine center. The results show that 33% of visitors would experience an increase in their consumer surplus per season equivalent to €31 per visitor.     

Provision Point Mechanisms and Field Validity Tests of Contingent Valuation

Past field validity tests of contingent valuation have relied on voluntary contribution mechanisms to elicit actual willingness to pay, and may overestimate hypothetical bias because of free riding in the actual contributions. This paper argues that provision point mechanisms are a preferred alternative for field validity tests of contingent valuation because they increase the proportion of demand revealed in cases in which public goods can be provided in a step function. The results of a contingent valuation validity study of participation in a green electricity pricing program that uses a provision point mechanism are reported, and hypothetical open-ended and dichotomous choice responses are compared to actual participation. Calibration of hypothetical responses is also explored.     

Demand for Customized Products, Production Flexibility, and Price Competition

We examine markets where, in addition to production of standard (core) products, mass customization is technologically feasible. We compare a setting where a monopolist provides both standard and custom goods to a setting where an entrant joins the custom market and find customers' tastes affect the social desirability of entry. The entrant is unconcerned about the impact of its custom production on the incumbent's core product market and in some cases may supply more custom products than is socially desirable. Entry enhances (reduces) social welfare if consumers' core valuations are positively (negatively) related to their value added for customization.     

Deregulation,news releases,and price discovery

We hypothesize that the firm’s regulatory environment influences the sensitivity of its equity value to information. Using intraday stock price data of utilities operating in differing regulatory environments we test for systematic differences between the responsiveness of stock prices of utility firms operating in deregulated and regulated environments to a common information set. Our findings reveal sharp differences in responses, with those of utilities operating in deregulated environments the strongest, and the responses of utilities in highly regulated environments the weakest. While the evidence supports our hypothesis, in a broader sense, the evidence suggests that deregulation aids in the process of price discovery. We also find evidence that suggests that deregulation, per se, does not lead to higher stock price volatility.      

The cultural affinity hypothesis and mortgage lending decisions

This paper conducts an empirical analysis of the cultural affinity hypothesis put forth by Calomiris, et al. (1994) in the mortgage lending market. This hypothesis implies that white loan officers, because of a lack of familiarity with minority applicants, will rely more heavily on characteristics that can be observed at low cost (e.g., objective loan application measures) in evaluating the creditworthiness of minority applicants relative to white applicants. Using a cleansed sample of 1,991 loan applications drawn from data collected by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, the results of the analysis were consistent with the cultural affinity hypothesis. In particular, we found that marginal black and Hispanic applicants appeared to be held to higher quantitative standards on such objective factors as credit history and debt obligation ratios than were similarly situated marginal white applicants.