Exporting firms and retail internationalization: Evidence from France

This paper questions the impact of the globalization of the retail sector on the export activity of origin country agri‐food firms. We use an original firm‐level database of French agri‐food exports that identifies the domestic suppliers of French retailers through certification with the private International Featured Standard (IFS). The results show that IFS certified French firms are more likely to export and export larger volumes than noncertified firms to markets where French retailers have established outlets. We also show that when French retailers stop their activities in a market, certified firms reduce their exports to this market in the following years. The results are robust to the use of different sets of firm‐year‐ and country‐year‐specific controls and fixed effects, and are not affected by possible selection and endogeneity biases. The difference in the behavior of certified and noncertified exporting firms on markets where French retailers operate confirms the network effect that benefits retailers’ suppliers, which is lost when French retailers exit from the destination country.     

Trust,Commitment, and Older Women: Exploring Brand Attachment Differences in the Elderly Segment

Understanding older adults’ product consumption behavior is of high importance to consumer and marketing research. Prior studies have mainly focused on older adults’ cognitive decline and compared their behavior to that of younger consumers. A neglected area of research has been older consumers’ brand attachment that is associated with potential differences between consumers in their fifties and in their seventies. In this article, the authors provide insights into the under‐researched field of elderly women's brand attachment. Drawing on socioemotional selectivity theory, a shift toward emotional aspects in brand relationships is proposed. A model involving trust and commitment processes is developed and empirically tested in a survey among 341 older women. Moderator analyses reveal significant differences between the “younger elderly” and the “older elderly” in relationships among self‐concept connection, partner quality, trust, and commitment. For the younger elderly, how a brand is (based on trust judgments) seems to be more important. For the older elderly, what a brand does in its role as relationship partner becomes more relevant.     

Do Information Rents in Loan Spreads Persist over the Business Cycles?

In this paper, we seek empirical evidence for information rents in loan spreads by analyzing a sample of UK syndicated loan contracts for the period from 1996 to 2005. We use various measures for borrower opaqueness and control for bank, borrower and loan characteristics and we find that undercapitalized banks charge approximately 34 bps higher loan spreads for loans to opaque borrowers. We further analyze whether this effect persists throughout the business cycle and find that this effect prevails only during recessions. However, we do not find evidence that banks exploit their information monopolies during expansion phases.     

The effect of personal portfolio reporting on private investors

Information search is costly for private households, especially in relation to their wealth. This paper investigates how retail customers react to free portfolio reporting—and thus reduced search costs—in a unique experimental setting. A large German direct bank sends portfolio reports to 10,000 customers while maintaining a control group of equal size and structure that receives no reports. Analyzing demographics as well as detailed portfolio and trade data, we find that gender, wealth, trade frequency, risk tolerance, and diversification drive the interest in portfolio information. Reading a portfolio report also triggers trading actions; thus, investors seem to appreciate the reduced information costs and act on the information. In addition to contributing to the financial literature on households’ information acquisition, this study derives valuable implications for financial institutions regarding communications and services for their customers.     

Smooth transition patterns in the realized stock–bond correlation

This paper explores the time variation in the stock–bond correlation using high-frequency data. Gradual transitions between regimes of negative and positive stock–bond correlation are well accommodated by the smooth transition regression (STR) model. We find that the regimes are systematically related to movements in financial and to a minor extent macroeconomic transition variables. In particular, the most informative transition variables are the short rate, the yield spread, and the VIX volatility index. Importantly, both in-sample and out-of-sample evaluation criteria show that multiple transition variable STR specifications considerably outperform single transition variable STR models. Our results are robust to different forecast horizons.     

Models of care in outpatient cancer centers

While rapid changes in the treatment of cancer have been driven by research-based evidence, innovations in cancer care delivery have lagged behind that seen in cancer treatment. A literature review and ten semi-structured interviews were conducted to identify models of care in the ambulatory oncology setting to be adopted by a comprehensive cancer center. Four models were identified from the literature review but none were widely recognized or adopted by administrators. Findings suggested some common themes that should be included in an optimal model of care. These themes are in support of the burgeoning efforts seen in the promotion of interprofessional education and practice for quality improvement. Unique challenges related to the contextual factors in the ambulatory oncology settings suggest quality improvement interventions should be tailored to meet the specific needs of the care facility and its workforce.     

The impact of different fibre access network technologies on cost,competition and welfare

Using a novel approach to the evaluation of new network technologies that combines an engineering cost model with a differentiated multi-player oligopoly model with wholesale access regulation this article evaluates the choice among different Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) architectures. The cost modelling relies upon an engineering bottom-up approach that feeds into a competition model. For addressing competition the pyramid model was chosen, which is an extension of the Hotelling model to multiple firms/services. The paper solves for price setting Nash equilibria between an incumbent, wholesale-access-based entrants and cable as an additional fully integrated network competitor. Welfare tradeoffs are highlighted with respect to cost differences and QoS differences between the various FTTH architectures and between the modes of regulation. According to the analysis architectures that can be unbundled (and that allow for greater speeds) outperform, from a social welfare perspective, architectures that (realistically) allow only for bitstream access.     

Simultaneous Parameter Estimation in Exploratory Factor Analysis: An Expository Review

The classical exploratory factor analysis (EFA) finds estimates for the factor loadings matrix and the matrix of unique factor variances which give the best fit to the sample correlation matrix with respect to some goodness-of-fit criterion. Common factor scores can be obtained as a function of these estimates and the data. Alternatively to the classical EFA, the EFA model can be fitted directly to the data which yields factor loadings and common factor scores simultaneously. Recently, new algorithms were introduced for the simultaneous least squares estimation of all EFA model unknowns. The new methods are based on the numerical procedure for singular value decomposition of matrices and work equally well when the number of variables exceeds the number of observations. This paper provides an account that is intended as an expository review of methods for simultaneous parameter estimation in EFA. The methods are illustrated on Harman's five socio-economic variables data and a high-dimensional data set from genome research.     

Kawasaki disease

Kawasaki disease is currently the leading cause of acquired heart disease in children in the United States and Japan. The case of an 18-year-old insurance applicant is used to review the pathogenesis, complications, treatment and prognostic implications of this disorder.