“Step into the Real Texas”: Associating and claiming state narrative in advertising and tourism brochures

Texas is one of the most popular states for tourists. Using quantitative and primarily qualitative methods, we analyzed how marketers of small cities and towns associate their place to four central components of the Texas state narrative – the flag, official and unofficial symbols, territory, and social–historical mythology – in advertising and tourism brochures in the years 2008–2010. We discovered that in parallel to the overuse of the “associating to well-known brand/narrative” strategy, marketers also invest efforts toward claiming the narrative. Thus our second goal was to discover which techniques were used in order to claim the state narrative. Using the state of Texas as an example may provide a test case for typology, associating and claiming state narratives in promotional materials.     

Exploring deception and puffery in television advertising

Public policy decisions dealing with deceptive advertising have relied extensively on case-by-case adjudication with the Federal Trade Commission. Unfortunately, behavioral evidence has not been considered in the vast majority of these cases. The final determination rests with the Commission’s own expertise in judging an advertisement’s “capacity to deceive.” Consumer response data are not required, although recent developments suggest the FTC is seriously considering the inclusion of meaningful behavioral evidence in policymaking and adjudicative proceedings. This study is one of a series dealing with dimensions of perceived deception across different respondent populations (including students, lawyers, housewives, children, and minority groups). The focus here is on the semantics of deception, i.e., the way in which subjects evaluate selected television commercials which were unofficially rated for deception by FTC staff attorneys. The factor analytic paradigm provides one approach for generating summaries of viewer’s evaluative (affective) responses, and thereby providing some normative or benchmark data of potential value in the regulatory process.     

Price Formation and Liquidity in the U.S. Treasury Market: The Response to Public Information

The arrival of public information in the U.S. Treasury market sets off a two-stage adjustment process for prices, trading volume, and bid-ask spreads. In a brief first stage, the release of a major macroeconomic announcement induces a sharp and nearly instantaneous price change with a reduction in trading volume, demonstrating that price reactions to public information do not require trading. The spread widens dramatically at announcement, evidently driven by inventory control concerns. In a prolonged second stage, trading volume surges, price volatility persists, and spreads remain moderately wide as investors trade to reconcile residual differences in their private views.     

Managerial Bargaining Power in the Determination of Compensation Contracts and Corporate Investment

This paper considers the design of managerial compensation contracts and their impact on corporate investment decisions and the managerial effort decision. The model relates the compensation scheme to outside share ownership and managerial bargaining position. Using the methods of mechanism design under asymmetric information, a shift in favor of effort is documented in the case where managerial bargaining strength is weak, while a shift toward more use of capital investment results from strong managerial bargaining power. The model distinguishes managerial equity holdings from contingent compensation contracts. Our results are related to the empirical literature on pay-performance sensitivities.     

Why do people tell the truth? Experimental evidence for pure lie aversion

A recent experimental literature shows that truth-telling is not always motivated by pecuniary motives, and several alternative motivations have been proposed. However, their relative importance in any given context is still not totally clear. This paper investigates the relevance of pure lie aversion, that is, a dislike for lies independent of their consequences. We propose a very simple design where other motives considered in the literature predict zero truth-telling, whereas pure lie aversion predicts a non-zero rate. Thus we interpret the finding that more than a third of the subjects tell the truth as evidence for pure lie aversion. Our design also prevents confounds with another motivation (a desire to act as others expect us to act) not frequently considered but consistent with much existing evidence. We also observe that subjects who tell the truth are more likely to believe that others will tell the truth as well.     

What's In It for Me? CEOs Whose Firms Are Acquired

We study benefits received by target chief executive officers(CEOs) in completed mergers and acquisitions. Certain targetCEOs negotiate large cash payments in the form of special bonusesor increased golden parachutes. These negotiated cash paymentsare positively associated with the CEO's prior excess compensationand negatively associated with the likelihood that the CEO becomesan executive of the acquiring company. Regression estimatessuggest that target shareholders receive lower acquisition premiain transactions involving extraordinary personal treatment ofthe CEO. Target CEOs experience very high turnover rates bothat the time of acquisition and, for those who remain employed,for several years thereafter.     

A systematic comparative analysis and synthesis of two business-level strategic typologies

Two important business-level strategic typologies were systematically evaluated, analyzed and compared in this study: Porter'S Overall Cost Leadership, Differentiation, Focus, and ‘Stuck in the Middle’ generic competitive strategies, and Miles and Snow'S Defender, Prospector, Analyzer, and Reactor types of organizational adaptation. On the basis of strategic theory, and following a pilot study, 31 strategic variables were evaluated by judges on a seven-point maximum-minimum scale, for each strategy, within its typology. Analysis of variances and concordance among judges regarding the ranking of the strategies on each variable were examined, and a strategic profile was built for each strategy. Proximities between strategies of the two typologies were analyzed using monotonic multidimensional scaling. The analysis indicated similarities and differences between the two typologies. A synthesis of the two typologies is suggested along two dimensions: internal consistency of the strategy, and level of proactiveness.     

The determination of corporate optimal capital structure under value maximization and informational asymmetry

In this article we examine the optimal capital structure of the firm under conditions of informational asymmetry, i.e., when the manager of the firm is viewed by the market as possessing inside information about the firm's future profitability. Unlike previous research on this topic, in this study we preserve the objective of value maximization when examining the signaling property of corporate capital structure. We also recognize explicitly the other consequences of debt financing on the value of the firm. An integrated analysis of the capital structure problem within the context of rational expectation is presented, and a signaling equilibrium is derived and discussed. The nature of the welfare costs that emerge from the existence of informational asymmetry is also analyzed.     

The Fiction of Neutral Inflation

Though less frequent with the years, intermittent calls for 'reflation' to stimulate the economy can occasionally still be heard from Keynesian economists and politicians. Eli Schwartz, Professor of Economics at Leghigh University, Pennsylvania, examines the effects of inflation, anticipated and unanticipated, on participants in the economy. Professor Schwartz argues that, in spite of the short-term political benefits, the longer-term costs are so high that less myopic politicians may perceive the electoral advantages in tackling inflation.