Successes and failures of the mirroring principle: the case of angling and beauty websites

This article examines whether industries with differing target markets in terms of their customers’ gender reflect the design preferences of their target markets in line with the mirroring principle. An analysis was conducted of websites of industries concentrated alternatively on male and female consumers, namely the angling and beauty salon industries. In each case, a random selection of 60 angling and beauty websites were rated using rating characteristics identified as typical of the male and female web‐design production aesthetic. The fact that each gender has a marked preference for the production aesthetic of its own gender, and that the websites of industries focused on, alternatively, male and female consumers, are produced using a predominantly male design production aesthetic, shows the current failure in certain industries to deliver the empathy or mirroring principle. The male domination of the information technology and web‐design industries, together with the earlier rooting of research on web aesthetics in the universalist, as against the interactionist perspective, are adduced as possible factors in this failure. This failure, if representative of other industries, could be leading to the suboptimal use of web design for markets not dominated by men, and may be one of the factors leading women to be less frequent users of the web than men.     

China's Exchange Rate Policy: The Case for Greater Flexibility

Since the Asian crisis, the merit of the Chinese government's de facto peg to the US Dollar has been the subject of widening debate. This paper reviews the issues surrounding China's currency regime choice and assesses the case for greater fiexibility. Reform era exchange rate policies are examined along with the performance of the economy during and since the Asian crisis. In the Chinese context, the arguments for and against fixed exchange rates are then explained and assessed. Finally, an elemental comparative static macroeconomic model is used to examine the implications of domestic and external shocks under different exchange rate regimes and with differing degrees of capital mobility. The results support the view that more fiexibility would be beneficial to China and that this benefit can be expected to increase as capital mobility increases.     

Sources of successful cost recovery for water: Evidence from a national survey of South African municipalities

This article analyses variation in municipal cost recovery for water services in South Africa. It uses original data from a national survey of municipalities, conducted in late 2000. A multivariate causal model is estimated to measure the effects of social and institutional context, service infrastructure, and billing and payment practices. The analysis shows that cost-recovery outcomes vary widely and are quite sensitive to factors that can be influenced by municipal decision-makers. Substantive implications for a typical South African municipality are clarified through simulations of the effects of upgrading infrastructure, introducing various cost-recovery measures, and extending basic services to poor households. As profound changes in the institutional and policy environment--including municipal restructuring (demarcation) and the 'free basic water' policy--force municipalities to review their cost-recovery strategies, the article offers insights into how to achieve the best possible outcomes.     

Third contribution to the ergodic/nonergodic critique: Reply to Davidson,part 2

This second part of my reply to Davidson (2015 Davidson, P. “A Rejoinder to O'Donnell's Critique of the Ergodic/Nonergodic Explanation of Keynes's Concept of Uncertainty.” Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, 2015, 38 (1), 1–18.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) discusses mathematical and statistical matters using a simple model of ergodicity whose properties do not match many of those asserted by ENE. It responds to Davidson's counterarguments against pre-infinity indeterminacy, examines the works of Billingsley, Uffink, and Malinvaud as cited by Davidson, and then turns to important methodological issues. As in Part 1 of my reply, Davidson's rejoinder helps make the critique stronger, deeper, and more relevant.     

Workplace bullying,workplace relationships and job outcomes for police officers in Australia

One alleged consequence of new public management (NPM) methods and practices, bullying, is seriously under-researched. The authors examined the impact of workplace relationships on police officer bullying and job outcomes. The quality of supervisor relationships seemed to buffer officers’ perceptions of bullying and, hence, their job outcomes. The consequences of the present post-NPM management practices are problematic, with negative implications for police officers in forming effective workplace relationships, which then negatively impact job outcomes, thereby affecting the quality of services delivered to the public.     

Third Party Customers Infecting Other Customers for Better or for Worse

In this article the effect of the displayed emotions of third party customers and purchase occasion on customers are examined, even when there is no direct interaction between customers. Three independent studies, including two experiments are employed. The first experiment examines the effects of both positive and negative displayed emotions of third party customers and purchase occasion on customer emotions and repurchase intentions, when there is no direct interaction between customers. The second experiment captures changes in the customers’ affective state on a moment‐by‐moment basis enabling differentiation between the effects of the service environment and the intervention of exposure to the displayed emotions of third party customers. Results show that customers are “infected” by the displayed emotions of third party customers even when there is no direct interaction between the customers. It is also demonstrated that the purchase occasion affects the type and intensity of emotions customers experience and the likelihood of repurchase. Implications for scholarly research and retailers are discussed.     

Double trouble: the importance of accounting for and defining water entitlements consistent with hydrological realities*

When entitlements to access water in fully allocated river and aquifers are specified in a manner that is inconsistent with the ways that water arrives, flows across and flows through land, inefficient investment and water use is the result. Using Australia's Murray Darling Basin as an example, this paper attempts to reveal the adverse economic and water management consequences of entitlement and water sharing regime misspecification in regimes that allow water trading. Markets trade water products as specified. When entitlements and the water sharing system are not designed in a way that has hydrological integrity, the market trades the water management regime into trouble. Options for specification of entitlement and allocation regimes in ways that have hydrological integrity are presented. It is reasoned, that if entitlement and allocation regime are set up in ways that have hydrological integrity, the result should be a regime that can autonomously adjust to climatic shifts, changes in prices and changes in technology without compromising environmental objectives.     

The valuation and reliability implications of FIN 46 for synthetic lease liabilities

We examine whether adoption of FASB Interpretation No. 46/R (FIN 46), Consolidation of Variable Interest Entities–an Interpretation of ARB No. 51, changed the market valuation and related measurement reliability of synthetic lease liabilities. Adopted in 2003, FIN 46 requires financial statement recognition of many previously off-balance sheet structures, including synthetic leases. Synthetic leases are hybrid financing structures that, prior to FIN 46, allowed firms to maximize the benefits of asset ownership for tax purposes while retaining operating lease treatment within the firm’s financial statements. We identify a sample of 125 synthetic leasing firms impacted by FIN 46. Utilizing methodology consistent with Dhaliwal et al. (2011), we constructively capitalize these lease liabilities in the period preceding FIN 46 and compare market valuation of these liabilities with capitalized leases after adoption of the standard. We find that the market places greater weight on synthetic lease obligations recognized within the body of the financial statements than it does liabilities disclosed within the associated notes. Finally, we rely on econometric procedures developed in Barth (1991) and extended in Choi et al. (1997) to examine whether the differential market valuation of lease liabilities post FIN 46 is due in part to perceived differences in measurement reliability. The results indicate there is a post FIN 46 reliability effect for all lease liabilities examined. However, while the synthetic lease amounts are the most unreliable examined, they also experience the greatest increase in reliability post FIN 46, indicating that perceived measurement reliability explains in part differential market valuation associated with FIN 46. Our findings have the potential to inform the ongoing standard setting debate surrounding the possible capitalization of all leases. Further, our study also has economic implications for managers concerned with the potential constraints on asset financing options imposed by accounting regulation.     

Trade,imitative ability and intellectual property rights

Economic theory suggests some ambiguity concerning the effects of strengthening intellectual property rights (IPRs) on international trade. Here we extend the empirical literature that attempts to resolve this ambiguity. We use panel data to estimate a gravity equation for manufacturing exports, in aggregate and by industry, from five advanced countries to 69 developed and developing countries over the period 1970–1999. In particular, we use threshold regression techniques to determine whether the impact of IPR protection on trade depends upon the level of development, imitative ability and market size of the importing country. We confirm the importance of the importers’ imitative ability, and also find some evidence of a role for market size in this relationship. The individual industries present different patterns of thresholds and coefficients, with Total Manufacturing closely reflecting that of Fabricated Metal Products.     

Tariff reforms with rigid wages

This paper analyses the effects of tariff reforms on welfare and market access in a competitive small open economy, which is characterised by involuntary unemployment due to non-market clearing wages that are fixed either in terms of the numeraire or in real terms. We show that recent tariff-reform results can be extended to integrated reforms of tariffs and the wage rate, and that the inherent tension between reforms that increase welfare and market access carries over. We also derive welfare increasing tariff-reform strategies that keep the wage rate constant and show that this tension may be attenuated. We thank Peter Neary, an anonymous referee, as well as participants at the GEP Conference on New Directions in Trade Theory and at the ETSG Annual Conference in Athens for helpful comments. We acknowledge gratefully financial support from the Leverhulme Trust under Programme Grant F114/BF.