Determinants of Bilateral Trade Protection

In this paper, determinants of bilateral protection levels are empirically identified when controlling for multilateral trade regulation and importing‐country‐specific factors. Strong empirical support is provided of that three bilateral factors are influencing the bilateral protection level. Specifically, a country's protection level on goods from a trade partner is positively affected by the domestic import penetration of goods produced by the trade partner, negatively influenced by the intra‐industry traded share of these imports and positively affected by the trade partner's protection level on domestic goods. Moreover, very high explanatory values are provided in the cross‐section estimations, indicating that these determinants, policy regulations and importer‐specific factors jointly explain almost all of the variation in bilateral protection levels. The results are general in the sense that estimations are performed for a large sample of bilateral trade relations including 22 trade partners that are highly differentiated in terms of country characteristics. The overall results indicate that, to the extent that policy makers can affect bilateral protection levels under multilateral trade regulation, they act on political‐economy rather than economic goals.     

Temptation, self-control, and competitive nonlinear pricing

Standard pricing theories consider consumers without temptation. With temptation and costly self-control, consumers dislike choice sets with tempting alternatives. We study firms' strategy against such consumers, using Gul–Pesendorfer preferences and a game where firms compete by offering menus.     

Market‐oriented institutions and policies and economic growth: A critical survey

Abstract.  This paper surveys recent evidence suggesting that market‐oriented institutions and policies are strongly related to economic growth, focusing on studies using the economic freedom (EF) indicator of the Fraser Institute. This index is critically discussed. Also various serious shortcomings of empirical studies using this index are identified. Nevertheless, there are strong indications that liberalization, i.e. an increase in the EF index, stimulates economic growth. This paper also reviews studies on the determinants of EF. Political liberalization is often found to enhance economic liberalization, whereas there is less evidence for causality running in the other direction.     

Slow-food-seeking behaviour,authentic experience,and perceived slow value of a slow-life festival

This study examines the antecedents and consequences of perceived “slow” value in a structural model – specifically, the role authenticity plays for visitors who seek slow food and participate in slow-life-related programme activities. Data were collected from participants in a slow-life festival in South Korea. Results show that slow-food-seeking behaviour has a significant effect on the authentic experience, and both concepts affect the perception of “slow” value of the event. Attitude and the intention to revisit were significant consequences of “slow” value. This study extends the knowledge about tourist behaviour in slow-life-related activities, particularly in a non-Western context, and suggests that a slow-life-related event should consider visitors’ preference for slow food and a programme that stages authentic experiences.     

A model of trade,task offshoring and social insurance

The purpose of this paper is to study the role of social insurance design in a comparative-advantage model of offshoring and trade. To do so, we incorporate social insurance into a modified version of the Grossman and Rossi-Hansberg (Am Econ Rev 98(5):1978–1997, 2008) model by formalizing its administrative, compensation, cost, labor-supply and productivity effects. The compensation and productivity effects, which are novel, give rise to important offshoring and trade implications that can contribute to explain how social insurance provision can be sustained under globalization pressure and why similar globalization pressure can lead to different skill premia developments in Western economies.     

Demand and supply estimation biases due to omission of durability

We build a dynamic equilibrium model of a durable goods oligopoly with a competitive secondary market to evaluate the bias in estimating the structural parameters of demand and supply when durability is omitted. We simulate data from our dynamic model and use them to estimate the model’s static counterpart. We find that the static estimate of the elasticity of demand is an overestimate of the true elasticity and that the static estimate of the markup is an underestimate. Our results provide a benchmark on the magnitude and sign of the bias when static models are used for economic inference.     

Swimming with dolphins: a phenomenological exploration of tourist recollections

Opportunities to swim with dolphins both in captivity and in the wild have recently proliferated. In order to understand the nature of the swim‐with‐dolphin experience, 14 respondents were selected to take part in a phenomenological study based on their recollections of the activity. The results discuss the physical attributes of the experience, the attraction of dolphins, the importance of making a connection either through eye contact or touch, prior conceptions of what it would be like and, finally, ‘animal sensitivities’ towards the nature of the performance. Cognitive dissonance and a heavily anthropomorphic virtual capital are present in nearly all respondents. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Innovation,complementarity, and exporting. Evidence from German manufacturing firms

This paper assesses whether there might be complementarities between different types of innovation activities (product, process and organizational) and how these effects may be linked to the likelihood that a firm will export. Complementarity is addressed through the properties of supermodular functions, and firm heterogeneity by export destination is explored. A new econometric strategy to test for pairwise complementarity in a function with three independent variables and a binary dependent variable is proposed. Exogenous and endogenous innovation variables are considered by using bootstrapping for hypothesis testing, propensity score matching and treatment effects models. The empirical analysis shows that complementarity relationships between innovation strategies are more likely to exist when firms export to multiple foreign markets.     

The economic impact of implementing an ergonomic plan

It is of paramount importance for executives to be well aware of registered nurse (RN) hidden replacement costs related to musculoskeletal injuries. Developing and implementing an ergonomic plan that includes procurement of appropriate lifting equipment at the point of care makes sense. Armed with an ergonomic plan, proactive case management, and a return to work program, the organization is positioned for fiscal success. The ANA's Handle With Care campaign addressed the fact that 12% of RN turnover and 38% of RN workers' compensation pay are related to back strains. Using the benchmarks reported in the Handle With Care campaign, the average cost of replacing an RN who leaves nursing due to a back injury ranged from $25,450 to $38,280 per nurse. Health care worker injury prevention should be valued as a retention strategy, as well as a fiscal responsibility where all stakeholders benefit.     

Adaptation to Temporal Shocks: Influences of Strategic Interpretation and Spatial Distance

Even when shocks in a firm's environment are predictable, their consequences are not. Using the relocation of the Dallas Cowboys Stadium as a rich case of such a disruption, we investigate how combinations of strategic interpretation and spatial distance influence incumbent business owners' decisions to pursue temporal adaptation as a response. Temporal adaptation (TA) comprises timing rather than content changes by the firm seeking to adjust to the reconfigured environment. Survey data from 168 business owners show that strategic interpretation directly influences TA decisions. However, the effect of strategic interpretation on the TA decision is moderated by the spatial (geographic) distance of the incumbent firm from the locus of the disruption. Furthermore, results suggest that through strategic interpretation, spatial distance also indirectly affects the business owners' decisions to make temporal changes. Data collected 1.5 and 4 years later suggest that TA responses are related to performance and may be indicative of a particular type of TA, organizational entrainment (OE), which concerns the synchronization of organizational activity cycles with cycles in the environment.