Psychological and Demographic Characteristics as Determinants of Women's Health Insurance Coverage

The study examines the role of demographic and psychological characteristics in determining women's healthcare insurance coverage. To assess the role of these characteristics, data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience (NLSLME), Young Women's Cohort, were used considering both a married and not married subsample. Overall, the results indicate that in addition to the influence of previously examined demographic characteristics, the role of psychological attributes is substantial particularly for the not married subsample. Findings suggest that in addition to policy aimed at increasing health insurance coverage by way of considering demographic characteristics policy should also consider psychological attributes.     

When Shopbots Meet Emails: Implications for Price Competition on the Internet

Quantitative Marketing and Economics - The Internet has dramatically reduced search costs for customers by using such technologies as shopbots. Email based targeting is relatively inexpensive; the...     

Market Orientation, Innovativeness, Product Innovation, and Performance in Small Firms

Most research on market orientation, innovation and performance is related to big enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In this study a model is developed to investigate the combined effect of market orientation and innovativeness on product innovation and company performance, for small firms. A specific feature of our research is that we use an objective measure for product innovation in contrast to the self-reported measures commonly used in research on innovation. To test our model data from 152 rose growers were used. This study's results show that the owner's innovativeness permeates all variables in the model and has a positive influence on market orientation, innovation, and performance. An interesting research result is also that customer market intelligence influences product innovation positively or negatively, depending on whether the innovativeness of the owner in the new product domain is weak or strong.     

THE SQUARED ORNSTEIN-UHLENBECK MARKET

We study a complete market containing J assets, each asset contributing to the production of a single commodity at a rate that is a solution to the squared Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (Cox-Ingersoll-Ross) SDE. The assets are owned by K agents with CRRA utility functions, who follow feasible consumption/investment regimes so as to maximize their expected time-additive utility from consumption. We compute the equilibrium for this economy and determine the state-price density process from market clearing. Reducing to a single (representative) agent, and exploiting the relation between the squared-OU and squared-Bessel SDEs, we obtain closed-form expressions for the values of bonds, assets, and options on the total asset value. Typical model parameters are estimated by fitting bond price data, and we use these parameters to price the assets and options numerically. Implications for the total asset price itself as a diffusion are discussed. We also estimate implied volatility surfaces for options and bond yields.     

Marked recovery in the world economy

With expansion accelerating strongly since last summer, the world economy has overcome an extended period of weakness. The USA, driven by highly expansive fiscal policies, is once again proving to be an important locomotive for global economic development. The strong fiscal stimulus will diminish sharply this year, however. Can the recovery continue nonetheless? This is of importance for the euro area in particular, where exports have so far been the primary foundation of economic resurgence. Is the substantial appreciation of the euro jeopardising prospects of catching up with the rest of the world?     

Deception in Computer-Mediated Communication

An integrated model of interpersonal deception, focusing on the particular characteristics and impacts of computer-mediated modalities, is derived and presented. Although there is a wealth of research investigating both mediated communication and deception, there has been relatively little empirical work at the intersection. Our purpose is to provide a model that spans these areas, to summarize relevant literature, and to advance a set of empirically testable propositions to guide future work.