Alienation of marketing executives

Marketing executives form a distinct group for a study of alienation from the marketing system because of their conflicting roles. They are consumers of goods and services from the system. They contribute to its design and functioning. Based on a sample of 128 marketing executives in Singapore, this study found a strong relationship between alienation from the marketing system and approval of greater government intervention in it. It was also found that alienated executives felt that ethical standards of marketing had declined.Subhash C. Mehta is a Professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India. Currently, he is a visiting Senior Teaching Fellow at the School of Management, National University of Singapore. Kau Ah Keng is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Management. National University of Singapore.     

Foreign capital inflows,domestic savings and the price of political stability in the sudan: Weisskopf revisited

This paper reworks Weisskopf's estimates of the effect of foreign capital inflow on domestic savings for a later time period. The Sudan is presented as an example of a public sector dominated economy, dependent on one major export crop and politically unstable. While Weisskopf's savings function had an indication of a negative relationship between public sector savings and official foreign capital inflow, problems of collinearity between the independent variables cast doubt on its utility for analysis of economies dependent on limited primary exports. The negative relationship between public sector savings and official is explained in terms of the expansion of the state's bureaucracy and military.     

Taxes, Points and Rationality in the Mortgage Market

This paper addresses the issue of why discount points exist in the mortgage market. In the process of resolving these questions, a number of insights into the mortgage market are achieved. An important principle is that changes in loan structure due to points, prepayments or other deviations in the typical mortgage have no impact on the competitive rate of return. Thus, the essential role of points is not to raise the effective rate of return nor are they the purchase price a risk-averter desires for an option to prepay. Instead it is taxes that play the critical role.     

Asymmetric Information in the Subprime Mortgage Market

Because of impersonal securitization in the secondary market, the ultimate investors in a mortgage have only a limited amount of information about the borrower??s characteristics. This creates an asymmetric information problem because of hidden knowledge on the part of the primary lenders, who naturally have much better access to this information. This is aggravated by the free rider problem when there are multiple investors. We discuss to what extent the secondary market then seeks to sort the loans to ameliorate this problem and what role reputations play. More importantly, however, the actions of the primary lender in terms of which kinds of loans they choose to approve are partly hidden, and this typical principal-agent situation importantly aggravates the incentive problem. To judge the nature and magnitude of this moral hazard dilemma, we use data to compare how well investors in the secondary mortgage market can predict default given the information they typically have access to as compared to the ability of primary lenders to similarly predict default given the larger set of information they typically will have access to. Finally, the implications of these results are indicated, particularly in light of the recent mortgage crisis.     

Factors influencing clothing interest and purchase intention: a study of Generation Y consumers in Malaysia*

The purpose of this study is to examine the factors influencing clothing interest among Generation Y consumers in Malaysia. Brand image, word of mouth (WOM), self-concept, perceived quality, and need for uniqueness were hypothesized to be related with clothing interest, which in turn, was deemed to be related with purchase intention. The interaction effect of price consciousness on the relationship between clothing interest and purchase intention was also examined in this study. Self-administered questionnaires were used to collect data from a total of 300 respondents from Malaysia to test the hypothesized relationships. Results showed that need for uniqueness, self-concept, brand image, WOM, and perceived quality are significant predictors of clothing interest among the Generation Y consumers in Malaysia and price consciousness moderated the relationship between their clothing interests and purchase intention. The practical implications of the research findings were discussed.     

The morality of software piracy: A cross-cultural analysis

Software piracy is a damaging and important moral issue, which is widely believed to be unchecked in particular areas of the globe. This cross-cultural study examines differences in morality and behavior toward software piracy in Singapore versus the United States, and reviews the cultural histories of Asia versus the United States to explore why these differences occur. The paper is based upon pilot data collected in the U.S. and Singapore, using a tradeoff analysis methodology and analysis. The data reveal some fascinating interactions between the level of ethical transgression and the rewards or consequences which they produce.William R. Swinyard is a Professor of Business Management and holder of the Fred G. Meyer Chair of Retailing at Brigham Young University. Professor Swinyard publishes widely in many top marketing journals, and his work has appeared previously in this journal. Heikki Rinne is an Associate Professor of Business Management at Brigham Young University. He has published in numerous academic journals including the Journal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Retailing, the European Journal of Operational Research, the Journal of Retailing, etc. Ah Keng KAU is an Associate Professor with the Department of Marketing, National University of Singapore, and was previously Director of the School of Postgraduate Management Studies and Head of the Department of Marketing there. Dr. Kau has published papers in many western and international journals.     

Migration and wage growth: a human capital approach

"The purpose of this paper is to analyze migration as an investment in human capital using panel data. [The authors] focus on two issues. The first is the economic motivation for migration and the reasons some movers receive high returns relative to other migrants. The second issue, and the major focus of the paper, is a test of the human capital model explaining wage profiles of nonmovers, first-time, and repeat migrants." The data are from the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Males, 1966-1971 cross-section, and concern the United States.     

Rational Pricing of Adjustable Rate Mortgages

In this paper we develop a general method for valuing adjustable rate mortgages and by producing a set of simulation results, we show that our approach can be implemented. While the simulations are of interest in their own right, we view the approach itself as the major contribution of the paper.     

The Effect of Mortgage Price and Default Risk on Mortgage Spreads

Variations over time in mortgage yield spreads should reflect changes in the underlying prepayment option value; moreover, the relationship between mortgage yield spreads and interest rate dynamics should weaken as the value of the borrowers prepayment option declines. We verify this hypothesis through an empirical analysis of residential mortgage yield spread behavior, and we also present evidence that the strength of the relationship between mortgage spreads and interest rate dynamics weakens (strengthens) as the level of default risk increases (decreases). This result is consistent with the competing risks effect between a borrowers option to prepay or default. Our results demonstrate the importance of accounting for mortgage price discount to par as well as default risk when developing time series of mortgage yields.