Explaining the Familiarity-Liking Relationship: Mere Exposure,Information Availability,or Social Desirability?

A large and diverse body of marketing literature suggests that well-known brands enjoy several advantages compared to less familiar brands. Specifically, brands with higher levels of familiarity appear to achieve higher levels of liking or preference among both consumers and retailers. This familiarity-liking relationship has proven to be one of marketing's most robust and reproducible empirical generalizations. However, there remains a considerable amount of uncertainty as to the conditions under which this relationship arises. In this study, we identify, conceptualize, and empirically assess three alternative hypotheses of the familiarity-liking relationship: mere exposure, information availability, and social desirability. Our results suggest that social desirability is the most powerful of these three potential mechanisms underlying the familiarity-liking phenomenon.     

Pricing options under stochastic volatility: a power series approach

In this paper we present a new approach for solving the pricing equations (PDEs) of European call options for very general stochastic volatility models, including the Stein and Stein, the Hull and White, and the Heston models as particular cases. The main idea is to express the price in terms of a power series of the correlation parameter between the processes driving the dynamics of the price and of the volatility. The expansion is done around correlation zero and each term is identified via a probabilistic expression. It is shown that the power series converges with positive radius under some regularity conditions. Besides, we propose (as in Alós in Finance Stoch. 10:353–365, 2006) a further approximation to make the terms of the series easily computable and we estimate the error we commit. Finally we apply our methodology to some well-known financial models.      

Decisions on Production and the Behaviour of Savers in Recent General Equilibrium Models

Modern general equilibrium theory faces notorious difficulty in extending the analysis of production to economies without complete forward markets, since at the ‘initial date’ the owners of any firm will typically disagree about the choice of the production plan. This paper examines the main approaches to the problem, with the specific aim of verifying whether they allow a satisfactory account of the interplay between firms and savers. It is argued that the theory oscillates between assumptions that may prove incompatible with savers' rationality, and hypotheses that prevent this shortcoming but render the formation of production decisions quite hard to explain.     

Short- and long-run heterogeneous investment dynamics

In this paper, we model the dynamics of business investment taking into account asset-specific characteristics potentially affecting the reactivity of aggregate and disaggregate capital accumulation over the business cycle. We estimate Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and traditional investment (non-ICT) determinants within a Vector Error Correction Model testing the assumptions of the flexible accelerator and neoclassical model as well as the role of financial constraints and uncertainty. We evaluate our model on Italian data over the period 1980–2012, and we check our results also with Spanish and UK data. Our findings support the assumption that capital is heterogeneous since short- and long-run determinants are significantly different across the assets. Traditional assets experience stock adjustment costs while ICT investment incurs flow adjustment cost. In the short run, liquidity is a key determinant of investment independently of the asset type. In the long run, uncertainty significantly affects ICT. Finally, the results of the counterfactual exercises support the idea that ICT is a key policy variable to foster economic growth.     

Portfolio flows and the US dollar–yen exchange rate

This paper investigates the effects of portfolio flows on the US dollar–Japanese yen exchange rate changes over the period 1988:01–2011:04. Using a time-varying transition probability Markov-switching framework, the results suggest that the impact of portfolio flows on the dollar–yen exchange rate changes is state-dependent. In particular, the results show that portfolio inflows from Japan toward the US, more than monetary variables, strengthen the probability of remaining in the dollar–yen appreciation (low volatility) state. Therefore, credit controls on the flows can be used as a policy tool to pursue economic and financial stability.     

Social cooperatives,social welfare associations and social networks

We use an original data-set to study how participation in two types of non-profit organizations – i.e. social welfare associations and social cooperatives – affects individual social capital, understood as a network of cooperative relationships. Participation in both the types of organization allows members to start new social relations. However, social welfare associations seem to play a significantly greater role in the development of volunteers’ social capital, favouring the creation of weak ties that are used to exchange information and advice, and offering the opportunity to establish stronger ties entailing concrete mutual support. Within social cooperatives, workers appear to develop their individual social capital to a greater extent than volunteers. Our results suggest that the composition of the workforce, the depth of members’ involvement in the organization’s activities and the human resources strategies adopted by the management influence the creation of cooperative relations through on-the-job interactions.     

Global slack and domestic inflation rates: A structural investigation for G-7 countries

Recent papers have argued that one implication of globalization is that domestic inflation rates may have now become more a function of “global”, rather than domestic, economic conditions, as postulated by closed-economy Phillips curves.This paper aims to assess the empirical importance of global output in determining domestic inflation rates by estimating a structural model for a sample of G-7 economies. The model can capture the potential effects of global output fluctuations on both the aggregate supply and the aggregate demand relations in the economy and it is estimated using full-information Bayesian methods.The empirical results reveal a significant effect of global output on aggregate demand in most countries. Through this channel, global economic conditions can indirectly affect inflation. The results, instead, do not seem to provide evidence in favor of altering domestic Phillips curves to include global slack as an additional driving variable for inflation.     

Heterogeneous duopoly with isoelastic demand function

In this paper we analyze a duopolistic market with heterogeneous firms when the demand function is isoelastic (Puu, T., 1991. Chaos in duopoly pricing. Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 1, 573–581.). We consider the same heterogeneous firms of Zhang et al. (Zhang, J., Da, Q., Wang, Y., 2007. Analysis of nonlinear duopoly game with heterogeneous players. Economic Modelling 24, 138–148.) introducing a nonlinearity in the demand function instead of the cost function. Stability conditions of the Nash equilibrium and complex dynamics are studied. In particular we show two different routes to complicated dynamics: a cascade of flip bifurcations leading to periodic cycles (and chaos) and the Neimark-Sacker bifurcation which originates an attractive invariant closed curve. Comparisons with respect to the Puu model and the model of Zhang et al. are performed.     

The influence of quality cues and typicality cues on restaurant purchase intention

Prior research on cue management has dominantly focused on cues consumers use to infer product quality. Only a few studies have dealt with cues that allow consumers to infer category typicality. Connecting these research streams we show how different cues affect both product quality and category typicality assessments, how these perceptions interact, and how they influence purchase intention. Results of this conjoint experiment among 113 restaurant patrons indicate that typicality cues can also serve as inferences for quality, and that cues influence purchase intentions via their effect on perceived typicality rather than on perceived quality. Once a consumer has determined the usage situation and his inherent consumption goals, he is much more inclined to search for the cues such as table setting that signal the subcategory that is expected to satisfy these goals, than finding cues such as guidebook rating that are diagnostic of product quality (only). After carefully addressing typicality cues which are instrumental in stressing points of parity, brand managers can use quality cues to show the product's points of difference in a category.