When worlds collide: The implications of panel data-based choice models for consumer behavior

Panel data, both diary and scanner, have been analyzed by marketing scientists for over thirty years. One of the important uses of panel data is to better understand consumer behavior by developing and testing hypotheses using the revealed preference data rather than experimental data that uses only self-reported behavior or behavior in a simulated choice environment. The purpose of this paper is to suggest areas of research where panel data can be used to better understand the underlying behavior of the panel members.     

Cohabitation or forced marriage? A study of the costs of failing to coordinate fiscal and monetary policies

Conclusions The costs of uncoordinated fiscal and monetary policies involve more than just efficiency losses. Of course there will be the usual efficiency losses associated with noncooperative decision making and they have appeared here. But these are not the main costs. A lack of cooperation between the government and the central bank also imposes a policy conflict which would not otherwise exist. A lack of co-operation provides one player (the central bank) with the opportunity to block the policy options of the other (the government). Hence noncooperation can cost the government its freedom to choose its preferred policy option. These two costs, additional policy conflicts and the loss of policy choice, may be more important than the efficiency losses which are traditionally cited as the reason for cooperating. In any case, they will have important implications both for domestic policy design and for international policy making since central banks evidently find it easier to cooperate among themselves than they do with their own (national) fiscal authorities. Thus, an independent central bank may be necessary to guarantee financial discipline, but it will not be much help if it and the fiscal authorities then fail to coordinate their activities.

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Zusammenfassung “Kohabitation” oder Zwangsheirat? Eine Untersuchung der Kosten einer unterlassenen Koordination von Fiskal- und Geldpolitik. — In vielen L?ndern existieren zwei Entscheidungstr?ger, die jeder für sich die Fiskal- und Geldpolitik betreiben, n?mlich die Regierung und die Zentralbank. Sind die Entscheidungen dezentralisiert, dann kann dies den optimalen Tradeoff zwischen Inflation und Wachstum ver?ndern. In diesem Aufsatz wird im Rahmen der dynamischen Spieltheorie in einem ?konometrischen Modell der italienischen Wirtschaft der effiziente Tradeoff zwischen Inflation und Wachstum gesch?tzt, um zu untersuchen, wie sich die politischen Spielr?ume unterscheiden, wenn die Entscheidungen entweder kooperativ oder nicht kooperativ getroffen werden. Es zeigt sich, da? die Ergebnisse im Fall von Kooperation besser sind als ohne Kooperation. Darüber hinaus wird, wenn es keine Kooperation gibt, die Spanne der Wahlm?glichkeiten verringert, die den Politikern zur Verfügung steht. Demnach sprechen nicht nur Effizienzgewinne, sondern auch andere Gründe dafür, die Fiskal- und Geldpolitik zu koordinieren.

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Résumé Cohabitation ou marriage forcé? Une étude sur les co?ts de l’absence d’une coordination des politiques fiscales et monétaires. — Dans beaucoup de pays ce sont deux institutions qui prennent les décisions et qui coexistent et règlent la politique fiscale et monétaire séparément. Le fait que les décisions sont prises d’une manière décentralisée peut changer l’arbitrage le plus favorable de l’inflation-output. Dans l’article on utilise la théorie dynamique des jeux pour calculer l’arbitrage efficace d’inflation-output dans un modèle économétrique de l’économie italienne pour examiner les différences entre les courbes des possibilités politiques qui résultent des décisions coopératives et non-coopératives. Les résultats montrent que les conséquences obtenues au cas de non-coopération sont inférieures à celles d’une coopération et imposent un conflit politique qui n’existe pas d’autrement. En outre, au cas de non-coopération le nombre d’actions politiques possibles est réduit. Par conséquent, il y a plus de raisons que seulement l’augmentation de l’efficacité pour le désir de coordonner les politiques fiscales et monétaires.

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Resumen Cohabitación o casamíento forzoso? Un estudio de los costos de la falta de coordinatión de la política fiscal y monetaria. — En muchos paises dos instituciones ejecutivas, el gobierno y el banco central, coexisten y manejan la política fiscal y la monetaria separadamente. La toma de decisiones de manera decentralizada puede conducir a un cambio en la relación óptima entre inflatión y producto. En este trabajo se utilizan juegos diferenciales para calcular la relación eficiente entre inflación y producto dentro del marco de un modelo econométrico de tiempo continuo de la economía italiana, con el fin de examinar las diferencias en las fronteras de posibilidad de políticas derivadas de decisiones cooperativas y no cooperativas. Se demuestra que los resultados obtenidos en el caso de no cooperation son inferiores a los del caso cooperativo, y que además imponen un conflicto de política no existente en otros casos. Además, la gama de politicas a election de los que deaden es reducida bajo no cooperacion. Por ello, hay más razones para desear una coordination de politicas fiscales y monetarias que la que representan los beneficios derivados de la eficiencia.

     

Negotiation in engineering design

Concurrent design may shorten the duration of a design project, reduce cost, and improve quality of the final design. However, due to the diversified problem-solving knowledge and different goal setting between design agents, it may increase the number of conflicts and make the project more difficult to manage. In this article, a goal-directed negotiation model for resolving conflicts in a cooperative design environment is presented. The proposed model generates negotiation sets, analyzes utilities derived for each design agent, and evaluates them based on three decision rules: maximization of the joint utility, minimization of individual utility differences, and minimization of individual utility differences and maximization of joint utility. A compromise solution is reached iteratively. The approach proposed in this articles is concerned not just with satisfying design constraints, but attempts to maximize system objectives. An example of the poppet relief valve is used to demonstrate the negotiation concept.     

SIMPLE RESOURCE ALLOCATION RULES: A NOTE ON A GENERALISATION

A stream of literature exists on the ability to pick payback hurdles such that use of the payback method replicates decisions based on net present value (NPV) analysis under circumstances where the basic shape of the cash inflow pattern associated with the investment opportunity facing the firm is assumed known. The literature has derived such payback hurdles for specific cash inflow pattern shapes (e.g., level, exponentially increasing/decreasing, arithmetic growth, etc.) The main concern of this note is to identify an expression for a general class of cash inflow pattern shapes (of which the specific shapes in the previous literature are examples) from which can be derived the payback hurdle corresponding to any specific shape belonging to the general class.     

Are aliens green? Assessing foreign establishments' environmental conduct in the United states

Previous research has found that foreign‐owned establishments often lack specific capabilities needed to respond to local business conditions and are held to a higher standard by local stakeholders. These establishments compensate, however, by possessing offsetting capabilities such as technological excellence. In this article, we investigate how these conflicting forces shape the environmental conduct of foreign‐owned facilities. Using data from the Environmental Protection Agency, we find that foreign‐owned establishments generate more waste yet manage more waste than U.S.‐owned establishments. We also find evidence that both domestic and foreign‐owned firms generate more waste if they operate multiple facilities across multiple jurisdictions in the United States. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Critical realism and constructivism in strategy research: toward a synthesis

We agree with Kwan and Tsang (2001) that critical realism represents an important point of epistemological departure from mainstream realism, and that it has the potential to inform strategy research. To that end, Kwan and Tsang's argument for a critical realist perspective is valid. There however exist substantial nontrivial differences between constructivism and critical realism. While critical realism contests some of the default assumptions of empiricism and realism which treat social systems as closed systems, it is still predicated upon an inherent order of things that is graspable by research. Constructivism instead focuses on the manner in which researchers constitute theories in the act of describing them. This important distinction makes constructivism far more of a departure from empiricism than critical realism, and therefore it has a different set of implications for strategy research. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Valuation Bias in Commercial Appraisal: A Transaction Price Feedback Experiment

Experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that transaction price feedback may bias valuation judgment. Among participating appraisers, evidence of asymmetrical response was found. The group receiving transaction feedback indicating that current judgments were "too low" responded with judgments in subsequent, unrelated valuations that were significantly higher than the group that received no feedback. The response from "too high" feedback was in the expected direction (lower value judgments) but was not significant. Additionally, valuation dispersion of around 10% revealed in these experiments is consistent with studies of valuation variability and may reflect an upper bound of typical commercial appraisal dispersion.