Mapping Biodiversity Indicators and Assessing Biodiversity Values in Global Forests

Biodiversity loss is a problem of global concern affecting ecosystem functioning and services provided to humans. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is built on a conceptual framework that links biodiversity with the services ecosystems provide to society and human welfare. Numerous empirical studies have measured ecosystem goods and services in terms of economic values; however, less evidence is available of the indirect effect of biodiversity on these values. Based on this, we first compile market and non-market forest valuation studies and, secondly, explore the potential of an econometric modelling exercise by conducting a worldwide meta-analysis. This exercise aims to highlight the role of biodiversity indicators on valuation. In this way, we can study the underlying transmission mechanisms that explain to what extent biodiversity is related to human welfare. Furthermore, we also propose to evaluate the magnitudes of the respective distributional impacts, including the different ecosystem goods and services under consideration. Our results show that biodiversity indicators may have an underlying effect on forest ecosystem values, which also depend on the type of ecosystem services. Lastly, the results are discussed and analysed with respect to their policy implications concerning biodiversity conservation.     

Media coverage and location choice

Emphasizing the importance of informed location choice, prior strategy research has examined how private information about locations affects foreign direct investment. Publicly available media information has received little attention, however, perhaps because its impact on location choice is expected to be trivial. This study examines the relationship between the extent of a location's media coverage and the number of entering foreign firms in Russia, using a novel instrumental variable for media coverage, a major anniversary of a city's establishment date. The results suggest that extensive foreign media coverage of a city increases the number of foreign entrants. This effect is stronger for firms with less private information about Russian cities; i.e., more socially and geographically distant firms and foreign entrepreneurs. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How sticky are local expenditures in Italy? Assessing the relevance of the flypaper effect through municipal data

An extensive literature analysed the impact of upper tier transfers on spending behaviour of lower level governments finding evidence of a flypaper effect, an overreaction to varying grants from upper tiers. Our work seeks to supplement a dearth of evidence for the Italian case by focusing on the responsiveness of municipal expenditures to State grants. We use a panel of almost 8,000 municipalities from 1999 to 2006. Budget data are matched with several other information sources, enabling us to investigate also the role played by some important political factors like the electoral cycle or the political strength of local cabinets. Application of panel data techniques with the use of instrumental variables and a dynamic setting highlights the presence of a sizeable flypaper effect and a significant role for political variables while the asymmetric response is not confirmed in all specifications.     

Acceso y uso de los mercados financieros para el pago de los gastos de la educación básica

The aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and the macroeconomic adjustment that followed provided higher unemployment and eroded the Mexican households’ purchasing power. Though, families had to continue financing education expenditures, sometimes borrowing in the formal or informal financial market. The hypothesis of this paper posits that access and use of formal and informal financial products can reduce the financial problems associated with basic school private expenditures. The probit model is estimated through a sample of four hundred households drawn from the municipality of San Pedro Cholula (state of Puebla). The results indicate that a worsening of working conditions and sudden unemployment are associated with an increased likelihood of difficulties in making ends meet. Moreover, accessing the formal financial market lessens the likelihood of such problems, but for the informal counterpart results depend on the characteristics of each financial intermediary.     

Access and use of financial markets for basic education expenses

As a result of the financial crisis of 2008, the macroeconomic adjustment has affected Mexican homes through greater unemployment and a drop in purchasing power. Moreover, families had to keep financing education costs, sometimes going into debt in the formal or informal financial market. The hypothesis of this article proposes that the access and use of formal and informal financial products makes it possible to reduce financial problems associated to education expenses at the basic education levels. The probit model is estimated with a sample comprised of four hundred homes in the municipality of San Pedro Cholula (state of Puebla). The results indicate that a worsening in the work conditions and the loss of employment are associated to a greater probability of facing financial difficulties. Likewise, the access to the formal financial market allows reducing the probability of facing these difficulties, whereas for the informal market the results are a function of the characteristics of each financial intermediary.     

Keeping track of global trade in real time

This paper builds an innovative composite world trade-cycle index by means of a dynamic factor model for short-term forecasts of world trade growth of both goods and (usually neglected) services. Trade indicators are selected using a multidimensional approach, including Bayesian model averaging techniques, dynamic correlations, and Granger non-causality tests in a linear vector autoregression framework. To overcome real-time forecasting challenges, the dynamic factor model is extended to account for mixed frequencies, to deal with asynchronous data publication, and to include hard and survey data along with leading indicators. Nonlinearities are addressed with a Markov switching model. Pseudo-real-time empirical simulations suggest that: (i) the global trade index is a useful tool for tracking and forecasting world trade in real time; (ii) the model is able to infer global trade cycles very precisely and better than several competing alternatives; and (iii) global trade finance conditions seem to lead the trade cycle, a conclusion that is in line with the theoretical literature.     

Afro-Diasporic women navigating the black ceiling: Individual,relational, and organizational strategies

In this article, we describe how the black ceiling—upheld by the powerful institutional logics of patriarchy and white supremacy, inordinately challenging and interlocking systemic barriers to leadership advancement—leads to the dearth of Afro-Diasporic women in senior corporate leadership positions and pathologizes Afro-Diasporic women as multiple outsiders. As a result, Afro-Diasporic women’s well-being in the workplace is compromised and many adopt coping and survival strategies to navigate a myriad of relational and environmental phenomena, such as spirit murder, emotional taxation, social closure, white privilege, and white fragility. To navigate and ameliorate these dynamics, we advance several individual, relational, and organizational strategies that support Afro-Diasporic women thriving in the workplace.     

Key Image Attributes to Elicit Likes and Comments on Instagram

Abstract

This article spotlights the relationship between likes and comments and the content of tourism photographs on Instagram with the aim of understanding users’ behavior and, thus, helping destination management organizations. Based on the stimulus-organism-response model, a content analysis was conducted of 1,094 pictures that received 131,116,800 likes and 2,859,448 comments. By combining content analysis and regression analysis, the results show that Instagrammers’ responses are influenced differently by different picture attributes, resulting in dissimilar behavior with regard to likes and comments. Specifically, likes, as immediate reactions, tend to be driven by content featuring people, views, or common habits. In contrast, comments, which require greater effort on the part of the Instagrammer, are elicited by the topic of festivals or hotels, colors such as cream, green, orange, or yellow, images of water or animals, and images featuring tourist activities, mostly at night. Multi-image or fake pictures negatively impact likes. By analyzing the content of the information provided by the uploaded photographs, a typology of photographic attributes is developed to offer clues for destination management organizations to enhance engagement with potential customers and Instagram users.     

Learning from the Dark Web: leveraging conversational agents in the era of hyper-privacy to enhance marketing

Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science - The Web is a constantly evolving, complex system, with important implications for both marketers and consumers. In this paper, we contend that over the...     

Assessment of Satisfaction of Local Government as a Client of the Federal Government: Case Study of the Priority Zone Development Program

This paper reports the design of a model that broadens focus of the national government index of customer satisfaction from external clients to internal clients between local and federal governmental institutions. The model for a case study of a national Mexican welfare program includes (i) generic variables, as adapted from the American Customer Satisfaction Index model for government and the variable of institutional image by findings in Mexico; (ii) specific variables, as identified through a qualitative study. The estimation technique is partial least squares. The result is a valid and reliable model that moderately explains satisfaction (R² = 0.67), perceived quality (R² = 0.60), and trust (R² = 0.41). The moderating role of institutional image is not rejected. Future research must test the resulting model in other cases to obtain an appropriate model for the Mexican User Satisfaction Index (MUSI). The Council for Science and Technology of Mexico funds this project.