The impact of demand management policies on black vs. white employment

This article uses vector autoregression analysis to examine the relative impacts on black and white employment growth of monetary and fiscal actions. It was found that the employment responses to anticipated policy actions, while significant, were generally short-lived, with the exception of the effects of anticipated money growth on white employment. The influences of unanticipated policy changes are of a longer duration. The predominant finding in which black employment growth responded differently from white employment growth was in response to a monetary shock. The black employment response was sharply negative while the white employment response was a gradual increase over nine quarters. The results indicate that this difference occurred only during the 1980s and not in the 1970s and suggests that the effects of bank failures and credit rationing during this period may have significantly hurt minority employment opportunities.     

UK Industrial Policy: Old Tunes on New Instruments?

This paper discusses the current Labour government's industrialpolicy—as most recently reflected in its document on manufacturingstrategy—in the context of industrial policy in the UKover the last 50 years and the form that it has taken elsewherein Europe. It concludes that the thematic priorities for UKindustrial policy in the 1960s—international competitiveness,innovation, competition, and skills—continue to be thekey themes of UK policy today. The paper presents data thatillustrate the gaps that exist in key indicators of performancebetween the UK and its main economic competitors. The differencebetween the 1960s and the 2000s is that there are new instrumentsof policy. Two areas in particular are focused on—competitionpolicy and technology policy—and an attempt is made toassess the likely effectiveness of these new instruments. Thepaper concludes that the international evidence base for thesenew approaches is reasonably robust but that it is still toosoon to tell if they are having the hoped-for impact on theperformance of the UK economy.     

Medical Malpractice Liability and Physician Migration

This paper uses national data on individual physicians and two control groups to provide evidence on the extent to which each of five medical malpractice reforms impacts the decision to move one's medical practice to another state. We find robust evidence that states that have implemented noneconomic damage caps experience less out-migration of physicians than states that do not have these reforms. In addition, we find some evidence that joint and several liability reforms and patient compensation funds also impact the migration decisions of physicians.     

Inductive research in last-mile delivery routing: Introducing the Re-Gifting heuristic

The last-mile problem presents a daunting challenge for many logistics service providers, especially some 7000 small, localized operations for whom the cost of complex software solutions is often prohibitive. As a result, last-mile dispatchers rely on simple heuristics to ensure adequate customer service at an acceptable cost. This research effort extends prior qualitative work by developing and testing a simple vehicle routing heuristic, based on behaviors observed in practice, that prioritizes customer service over cost against other simple vehicle routing heuristics across a variety of environments using simulation. The results support the inclusion of a customer service focus in vehicle routing and the addition of such heuristics to existing algorithm portfolios, specifically in urban areas with well-developed highway systems.     

The effects of influencer type,regulatory focus,and perceived authenticity on consumers' purchase intention

Companies often use influencers to promote their products, and many celebrities have expanded their activities on social media as influencers. In this work, we classified influencers into celebrity and noncelebrity groups and analyzed how they affect consumers' purchase intention. We also analyzed how psychological variables, such as regulatory focus and perceived authenticity affect this process. We conducted three studies with consumers in China, South Korea, and the United States who participated in each between-subjects experiment. The results showed that people have higher purchase intention for products recommended by noncelebrity influencers than those recommended by celebrity influencers. We also found that regulatory focus moderates the relationship between the influencer type and consumers' purchase intention. Purchase intention for products recommended by noncelebrity influencers were stronger among prevention-focused consumers. However, no significant difference in the effect of influencer type was found among promotion-focused consumers. We found that perceived authenticity mediated this moderating effect. The results of this study provide effective marketing strategies and implications for companies when they use influencers as a tool for marketing activities.     

Cross-national consumer research using structural topic modelling: Consumers' approach-avoidance behaviours

This study introduces structural topic modelling (STM), a sophisticated unsupervised machine-learning algorithm for text analysis, to compare Indonesian and Malaysian Muslim consumers' approach-avoidance behaviours toward Korean beauty products using social media data. The STM results revealed 16 topics for each country, including new common themes belonging to K-beauty culture and wannabe Korean skin. Intriguing differences were also observed between these countries. Korea-related constructs, such as Korea's image and wannabe Korean skin, were approach factors for only Indonesians. Korean cosmetic brand-specific topics were extracted for only Malaysians and were significantly associated with their behavioural responses. Unsuitable Korean beauty products and domestic product preferences were avoidance factors for Indonesians, but new product risks and conflicts between Muslim and Korean cultures for Malaysians. We demonstrate that STM is a helpful tool in cross-national research for corroborating and extending the existing theoretical frameworks. The practical implications are also provided for global marketers.     

Voting patterns of big eight representatives in setting accounting and auditing standards

The “Big Eight” accounting firms are alleged to dominate the setting of accounting and auditing standards. This paper identifies the recent criticisms and reviews the standard setting procedures of the APB, FASB, and the ASB. The results of five empirical studies designed to investigate the alleged domination issue are summarized. The conclusion drawn is that there is no empirical evidence to indicate that the Big Eight collectively govern the accounting and auditing standard-setting process.