What is the Value of Luxury? A Cross‐Cultural Consumer Perspective

International luxury businesses are challenged by the identification and satisfaction of the common needs and desires of global market segments. Although luxury goods have become available to a wider range of consumers, the traditional conspicuous consumption model has been transformed into a new experiential luxury sensibility that is marked by a change in the way that consumers define luxury. Based on an empirical study in collaboration with American, European, and Asian researchers, the results provide evidence that consumers in various parts of the world purchase or wish to purchase luxury products for varied reasons but that such consumers generally possess similar values. Regardless of their countries of origin, the basic motivational drivers of luxury consumers are similar among the financial, functional, personal, and social dimensions of luxury value perceptions, although the relative importance of these dimensions varies.     

The sensitivity of trading to the cost of information

We examine the impact of changes in real-time data access fees on price discovery in the crude oil futures market. Specifically, we examine differences in price discovery in the West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contracts traded on two exchanges around three events corresponding to changes in real-time data access fees. We document a decrease in price discovery following two events that increase data access costs. These findings are consistent with the theoretical predictions of Cespa and Foucault that increases in data access costs reduce the number of market participants trading on real-time data and adversely impact price discovery.     

Depths and spreads in futures markets: Relationship with order execution,submission, and cancellation

This paper examines the relationship between limit order submissions and liquidity. We find that there is a negative relationship between the limit order arrival rate and the depth at the best quotes (limit order queue length) and a positive relationship between submissions and bid–ask spreads. This is consistent with queuing theory, which predicts that an increase in the limit order arrival rate increases the queue length and the time to execution of a limit order. Consequently, limit order traders cover the increase in costs and risks associated with the increase in the time to execution of limit orders by increasing bid–ask spread.     

How to Achieve the Take-off into Sustained Growth: A Case Study for Slovenia

In this paper, we show that successful policy aimed at enhancing economic growth in the long run must be based on policies which improve human capital and technological progress. This is applied to Slovenia, a small open economy in the European Union and the Euro Area. In particular, we investigate how fiscal policies should be designed to support economic growth without violating the European Union Stability and Growth Pact. Using the SLOPOL10 model, an econometric model of the Slovenian economy, we analyse the effects of different fiscal policies in Slovenia over the next few years by means of simulations. The fiscal policy multipliers of the Slovenian economy are small and short-lived, which renders demand-side expansionary fiscal policies inappropriate as a means of achieving higher growth. However, if an increase in government expenditures directly related to technological progress is implemented (such as better funding for tertiary education or subsidies for firms’ investments in research and development), this can trigger a path of output which is permanently higher than that of the baseline simulation. Reducing income taxes and social security contributions has strong positive effects on employment. This result shows that the key to prosperity and sustained growth is investment in human capital and technology, also for a small open economy like Slovenia.     

Welfare impacts of new demand-enhancing agricultural products: The case of Honeycrisp apples

Agricultural research and development programs on new demand-enhancing products have become increasingly important over the past decade. Large numbers of new agricultural products have been developed and commercialized in the United States to meet consumers’ increasingly diverse expectations for food quality. However, little is known about their economic benefits. Focusing on the apple market, we investigate the welfare impacts of the introduction of Honeycrisp apples in a market equilibrium framework. We use market data on apple sales from 61 cities across the United States between 2009 and 2015. We find the introduction of Honeycrisp increased consumer welfare, which is mainly explained by the increased number of total apple varieties. We also find that the introduction of Honeycrisp apples has increased overall market size and total apple sales. To extrapolate our results to the entire U.S. apple market, we perform a back-of-the-envelope analysis and find that the introduction of Honeycrisp apples has increased total consumer welfare by about 859 million dollars during the study period. This corresponds to approximately 19% of the annual average domestic expenditures on public food and agricultural R&D.     

Retraction Note: Analyzing of innovations influence on economic growth by fuzzy system

Quality & Quantity - The Editor-in-Chief has retracted this article (Mladenovi? et al. 2017) because validity of the content of this article cannot be verified. This article showed...     

Obtaining indirect internet access: An examination how reasons for internet non-use relate to proxy internet use

Internet non-use is increasingly concentrated in vulnerable groups of people, especially among ageing populations and those with low socio-economic status. As participation in society becomes largely dependent on use of internet-enabled technologies, internet non-users may seek alternative ways of using the internet. Proxy internet use (PIU), where internet non-users ask internet users to perform online activities on their behalf, is a strategy for obtaining (indirect) internet access. This study examines factors for engagement in PIU, focusing specifically on how non-users’ reasons for disengagement relate to their engagement in PIU. The results from multivariate analyses of survey data from a nation-wide representative sample show that 47% of internet non-users in Slovenia who report having someone available for PIU in fact engage in PIU. In analysing four types of reasons for internet non-use—those related to interest, access, costs and skills—the results show that access issues are negatively related to engagement in PIU. Conversely, reasons related to skills issues are positively related to engagement in PIU. Considering that access to online services through PIU offers an important degree of digital inclusion, the results of this study have important policy implications. Policy initiatives tackling digital inequalities should be sensible to access and skills issues resulting in disengagement. For example, policies directed at providing and maintaining internet access at a household level may result in non-users’ increased opportunities for PIU. In contrast, skills policies should be directed at creating opportunities for informal and person-centred learning of digital skills, considering that non-users who are more aware of their deficiency in skills might be more aware of online opportunities.