Quality Diversity and Prices in Markets for Experience Goods

We analyze vertical product differentiation in a model where a good’s quality is unobservable to customers before purchase, a continuum of quality levels is technologically feasible, and minimum quality is supplied by a competitive fringe of firms. After purchase the true quality of the good is revealed. To provide firms with incentives to actually deliver promised quality, prices must exceed unit variable costs. We show that for a large class of customer preferences there is “quality polarization,” that is, only minimum and maximum feasible quality are available in the market. For the case without quality polarization we derive sufficient conditions for the incentive constraints to completely determine equilibrium prices, regardless of demand, for all intermediate quality levels.     

Merkmale einer vertrauensvollen Kommunikation zwischen Organisationen – eine empirische Analyse

In the business world one of the key drivers to reduce uncertainty is trust. It is based on an empirical study (Kano-analysis, 60% return rate) and identifies relevant factors of a trustful communication in long-term business relationships between organizations. Three types of factors can be identified: Must-be factors are a prerequisite of any relation and have a fundamental character in long-term relationships. The customers expect such factors to be an unquestionable part of any business relation (e.g. honesty). While attractive factors always boost the stability of trust in the relation (e.g. sympathy), one-dimensional factors not only stabilize trust if implemented, but can also deteriorate the relation if ignored (e.g. timeliness).     

Organizational culture as differentiator in international retailing

Much of the international retailing literature echoes major retailers' assertions that inimitable organizational cultures can create competitive advantage. However, the culture concept remains ill-defined and systematic international empirical analysis is lacking. Based on website analyses of nine international retailers, the paper investigates how organizations define their cultures, codify and transfer them into practice, and aim to homogenize them across borders. Although some evidence for organization-specific cultural aspirations is identified, findings suggest that retailers' cultures become homogenized within and between countries. This supports previous work on the existence of industry-specific macro cultures and challenges the resource-based view, which sees culture as a source of competitive advantage.     

Bemerkungen zum Unternehmerbegriff

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Competing risks models in discrete time with nominal or ordinal categories of response

Two principle approaches to the modelling of competing risks in discrete time are considered. In the first approach which is based on the separation between failure and cause specific response only the causes of failure are considered as ordered. The second approach which is based on the conditional response given interval [a _t-1,a_r) is reached allows for an ordering of causes of failureand the category ‘no failure’. The latter approach is shown to be more general. It is shown that the considered competing risks models may be estimated within the framework of generalized linear models. A data set concerning duration of unemployment illustrates the approaches.     

Testing a linear regression model against nonparametric alternatives

Summary As a test statistic for testing goodness-of-fit of a linear regression model, we propose a ratio of quadratic forms measuring the distance between parametric and nonparametric fits, relative to the estimated error variance. The test statistic is a modification of the statistic suggested by H?rdle and Mammen (1988). The asymptotic distribution under the hypothesis is established. The finite sample behaviour of the test is investigated in a Monte Carlo study, and is illustrated for two applications.     

Discrimination in hire‐purchase lending by retailers of consumer durables in apartheid South Africa

A double‐hurdle partial observability model of hire‐purchase lending is specified and estimated to test for racial discrimination by retailers of consumer durables during apartheid. ‘Discrimination’ is defined as supplying no loans or less desirable loans to certain borrowers, who do not differ from more successful borrowers with respect to creditworthiness but who do differ with respect to race. There is strong evidence of discrimination. In particular, black households are 13 percentage points more likely to desire a hire‐purchase loan but not to have one supplied to them than are other households equivalent in all ways except race. Although the statistical test cannot determine whether race affected lending because lenders were bigoted or because race is correlated with unobserved characteristics correlated in turn with creditworthiness, increased access to formal loans for all South Africans could be promoted by relaxing the Usury Act and by removing from loan applications information that could reveal an applicant's race.     

Seasonal adjustment by signal extraction

Zusammenfassung In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird untersucht, ob die auf einem ARIMA-Modell basierenden Ansätze der Saisonbereinigung in der praktischen Anwendung zu verläßlicheren Ergebnissen führen als empirische Verfahren, wie etwa CENSUS X-11. Um diese Frage zu klären, wird eine Saisonbereinigung von österreichischen Arbeitsmarktdaten mit beiden Gruppen von Verfahren durchgeführt. Es werden dafür bewußt Zeitreihen gewählt, die eine stark unterschiedliche Stabilität der Saisonfigur aufweisen. Bei diesem Vergleich zeigt sich, daß auf einem Modell basierende Ansätze bei Zeitreihen mit relativ stabiler Saisonfigur zu eindeutig besseren Ergebnissen führen als empirische Verfahren. Diese Überlegenheit kann jedoch verlorengehen, wenn das als Ausgangspunkt dienende ARIMA-Modell schlecht spezifiziert ist. Für Zeitreihen mit stark schwankender Saisonfigur führen beide Gruppen von Saisonbereinigungsverfahren zu ähnlichen Ergebnissen.Seasonally adjusted data play a prominent role in assessing the current state of economic activity, but many users of seasonally adjusted data do not understand the methods by which those data are produced. It is probably unreasonable to expect a statistically unsophisticated person to understand the methods, but even trained statisticians are often mystified by these procedures. For example, CENSUS X-11, the most widely used method, applies moving averages in order to obtain seasonally adjusted figures. The basic idea behind moving averages is rather simple; they will smooth irregular fluctuations in the data. But the way in which they are used in X-11 (seeShiskin — Young — Musgrave, 1967) is extremely complex. Above all, the theoretical statistical underpinnings for this procedure are not understood at all. The only justification for its use is the fact that, in the majority of cases, X-11 produces relatively satisfactory results.

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Financial support by the Jubiläumsfonds der Oestèrreichischen Nationalbank under grant No. 2203 is acknowledged. I would like to thank Peter Burman, Johannes Ledolter, Fritz Schebeck and Erich Streißler for their helpful comments.