Contrived desires,affluence, and welfare: J.K. Galbraith's Pigovian redistribution argument reconsidered

I argue that John Kenneth Galbraith's theory of the “dependence effect” in The Affluent Society provides a way to rescue A.C. Pigou's argument for wealth redistribution from a powerful objection. The objection is based on the unprovability of statements making interpersonal comparisons of utility. Galbraith's dependence effect theory allows him to present a version of the Pigovian argument that requires no such statements to be made. I argue that Galbraith's main piece of advocacy in The Affluent Society was for income redistribution, despite the fact that he claimed to be in favour of greater spending in the public sector rather than redistribution as such. I then show how my reading of the dependence effect theory helps to defend it against objections from Hayek and Rothbard. I end by discussing what improvements in economics a proper test of the theory would require and showing how my reading of it helps to reveal the ongoing importance of The Affluent Society to the understanding of political economy.     

DENSITY OF SKEW BROWNIAN MOTION AND ITS FUNCTIONALS WITH APPLICATION IN FINANCE

We derive the joint density of a Skew Brownian motion, its last visit to the origin, its local and occupation times. The result enables us to obtain explicit analytical formulas for pricing European options under both a two‐valued local volatility model and a displaced diffusion model with constrained volatility.     

Is there a self-enforcing monetary constitution?

A self-enforcing monetary constitution has rules that agents acting within the system will uphold even in the presence of deviations from ideal knowledge and complete benevolence. It thus does not require external enforcement. What would such a constitution look like? I show that two regimes—a version of nominal gross domestic product targeting that relies on market implementation of monetary policy, and free banking—meet these requirements for self-enforcing monetary constitutions. The analysis draws insights from political economy, and from constitutional political economy in particular.     

Utilitarian and Hedonic Motivators of Shoppers’ Decision to Consult with Salespeople

Many retailers face the questions of whether providing consultation services would enhance store performance and, if so, what the retailers could do to increase the number of shoppers seeking salesperson consultation. Despite its importance, prior research has not answered the question of what influences retail shoppers to consult with salespeople. We use motivation theory and recent theorizing on behavioral decision-making to develop a model of four utilitarian and hedonic motivators of shopper consultation with salespeople. This model, which includes the relationship between consultation and amount of money spent by shoppers, was tested with data from 425 shoppers. Our results demonstrate situational and individual influences, both utilitarian (i.e., shoppers’ purchase uncertainty and efficiency orientation) and hedonic (i.e., shoppers’ situation-related affect toward salespeople and shopping enjoyment), that prompt retail shoppers to consult with salespeople. As well, we find that salesperson consultation is positively related to the amount of money spent by shoppers and completely mediates the spending effects of the four motivators of consultation. This research shows that motivation theory is useful for better understanding salesperson consultation and can assist retailers that compete on service to better implement consultation-oriented strategies.     

Examining the Cognitive and Affective Trust-Based Mechanisms Underlying the Relationship Between Ethical Leadership and Organisational Citizenship: A Case of the Head Leading the Heart?

In this paper, we investigate the trust-based mechanisms underlying the relationship between ethical leadership and followers’ organisational citizenship behaviours (OCBs). Based on three-wave survey data obtained from 184 employees and their supervisors, we find that ethical leadership leads to higher levels of both affective and cognitive trust. In addition, we find support for a three-path mediational model, where cognitive trust and affective trust, in turn, mediate the relationship between ethical leadership and follower OCBs. That is to say, we found that ethical leadership leads to the development of cognitive trust, which subsequently influences the development of affective trust. Affective trust, in turn, induces followers to exhibit OCBs as a means of reciprocating the leader’s favourable behaviour. Our findings suggest that both affective and cognitive trust plays an important role in the social exchange processes that underlie the relationship between ethical leadership and the discretionary behaviour of followers.     

Making it personal: Opportunity individuation and the shaping of opportunity beliefs

We develop a model that focuses on the individuation of opportunity beliefs. We adopt inferences from the ecology literature and integrate those with mental model theory to examine the ‘individuation’ of opportunity as the result of the interplay between industry conditions and person-specific factors. We test our predictions using conjoint analysis of 2880 opportunity decisions. We find that an entrepreneur's related knowledge, motivation to evaluate the opportunity, prior failure, and fear of failure shape perceptions of opportunity attractiveness as one individuates exogenous opportunity information. We articulate our findings as evidence that when combined with opportunity related data, an individual's cognitive resources play an important role as one forms opportunity beliefs about the personal attractiveness of pursing an opportunity.     

代价高昂的客户满意度

正在某种程度上,管理者认为更高的满意度会令客户更加偏爱自己的品牌。但事实上,真正的关键在于客户对某一品牌的满意度是否高于其同时正在使用的其他竞争品牌,或者说消费者心目中的首选品牌是什么大多数公司都恪守客户满意至上的承诺,认为"客户满意才能保证收入"。因而,在公司的使命宣言和营销策划中,随处可见对客户满意度的强调;     

The Small Open-Economy New Keynesian Phillips Curve: Empirical Evidence and Implied Inflation Dynamics

In this paper we apply GMM estimation to assess the relevance of domestic versus external determinants of CPI inflation dynamics in a sample of OECD countries typically classified as open economies. The analysis is based on a variant of the small open-economy New Keynesian Phillips Curve derived in Galí and Monacelli (Rev Econ Stud 72:707–734, 2005), where the novel feature is that expectations about fluctuations in the terms of trade enter explicitly. For most countries in our sample the expected relative change in the terms of trade emerges as the more relevant inflation driver than the contemporaneous domestic output gap.