On the Measurement of Strength of Preference in Units of Money

We report an experimental study that aims to elicit monetary measures of strength of preference in choices involving pairs of risky prospects. Despite extensive testing to refine the instruments used, we find that these money measures are systematically biased upwards relative to subsequent binary choices. We discuss possible reasons for this bias and its broader implications.     

Low-cost pricing strategies in leisure markets

The practice of dynamic pricing typical of low-cost carriers is generally regarded as a form of price discrimination between “leisure” and “business” travellers on a single flight or route. The same may not be true across different routes because of the different incidence of business travellers. If price increases in the 15 days prior to departure are meant to discriminate business demand, leisure demand should account for earlier price variations. In the present study, we used a database containing the daily fare over the 3 months prior to each flight operated by easyJet during 2009. For each route, we defined the “leisure index” as the difference between the price rates of change during the 90 days and 15 days prior to departure. Overall, “business” routes had lower average prices per km, while “leisure” routes showed less dynamic price behaviour, with higher minimum and lower maximum prices per km.     

A Deliberative Case for Democracy in Firms

The increasing centrality of business firms in contemporary societies calls for a renewed attention to the democratization of these actors. This paper sheds new light on the possibility of democratizing business firms by bridging recent scholarship in two fields—deliberative democracy and business ethics. To date, deliberative democracy has largely neglected the role of business firms in democratic societies. While business ethics scholarship has given more attention to these issues, it has overlooked the possibility of deliberation within firms. As argued in the paper, a combination of reforms based on the ideas of workplace deliberation and business deliberation is necessary in order to promote the prospect of deliberation in different business contexts. The paper also discusses the importance of more democratic firms for deliberative democracy at large and, in particular, for the recent debate on deliberative systems. Finally, the paper suggests new areas of investigation to better understand the prospect of democratic deliberation in business firms.     

Are judges biased by labor market conditions?

When a firing litigation is taken to court, only the characteristics of the employee's misconduct should be relevant for the judge's decision. Using detailed data from an Italian bank and aggregate macro data, this paper shows that, instead, local labor market conditions influence the court's decision: The same misconduct episode may be considered sufficient for firing in a tight labor market but insufficient otherwise. We reach this conclusion after taking carefully into consideration the non-random selection of firing litigations for trial. Although these results refer to the specific situation considered, they raise more general issues. For macroeconomists they suggest that higher unemployment rates may increase firing costs via the effect on courts’ decision criteria; thus, the real extent of firing rigidities cannot be assessed without considering the role of courts. For labor law scholars, these findings are important because, following traditional principles, the law should be applied in the same way for all citizens and over the entire national territory.     

Promotion and Economic Impact of Foreign Tourism

This study discusses the economic power and international fame of the Autonomous Community of Andalusia’s tourist sector. A review of the economics literature justifies our measurement of tourism’s economic impact on the tourist sector. The main contribution is an estimation of foreign tourist expenditure in Andalusia, the main Spanish tourist destination per number of overnights. Drawing on this estimate, the input–output methodology is applied to determine the global impact of this expenditure on the region. The study differentiates the three types of tourism of the region: coast, urban interior and rural interior.     

Startup Size and Pre‐Entry Experience: New Evidence from Italian New Manufacturing Ventures

The paper studies the nonlinear effects of the different types of founders' pre‐entry experience on startup size. Our empirical data consists of 3,456 Italian new ventures in 20 industries. We find that the presence of industry‐specific experience and entrepreneurial experience have a positive effect on startup size while generic experience does not exert any effect on startup size. Moreover, we find that industry‐specific experience has positive but diminishing returns on startup size up to a point where additional amounts of experience have negative effects on startup size (inversed U‐shaped relationship).     

Maximising business returns to corporate social responsibility communication: An empirical test

Based on a classic conceptual model of corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication, we developed an empirical research study to test how several aspects of CSR message content (i.e., issue importance, impact, motives, fit, commitment) are associated with external support responses (i.e., purchase, advocacy). We also tested the moderating role of stakeholder‐ and company‐specific factors (i.e., issue support and industry, respectively) in the proposed model. Data were collected from 302 participants who evaluated the same CSR information displayed in the websites of a fictitious bank and a fictitious restaurant chain. The findings suggest that better perceptions on how the CSR message reinforces issue importance, corporate CSR impact and altruistic motives lead to higher purchase and advocacy intentions. CSR fit is related only to advocacy, while CSR commitment does not have any significant impact on participants’ responses. Some new interdependence relationships are also identified among issue importance, motives, fit, and commitment. The moderating role of issue support and industry is confirmed.     

Infrastructure Development and Regulatory Reform in Sub‐Saharan Africa: The Case of Air Transport

This paper analyses the main policy issues raised by regulatory reform in air transport in sub‐Saharan Africa. Its basic premise is that improving ait infrastructure is of paramount importance for the region as it tries to integrate more thoroughly into the world economy. On the basis of the experience of OECD countries with privatisation, liberalisation, and regulatory design, the author analyses progress being made in sub‐Saharan Africa and identifies three important case studies: the restructuring of the regional airline of Francophone Western Africa, the sell‐off of the state‐owned airline of Kenya, and the overall reform process in South Africa, by far the largest market in the sub‐continent. The analysis highlights the importance of regional dynamics in the upgrading of the air transport industry in developing and emerging areas. Sub‐Saharan Africa has made smaller progress in this respect than, for instance, Central America. As the start of the Millennium Round and the first WTO air transport review approach, these issues will gain policy priority for all countries, and may become powerful bargaining tools for non‐OECD countries to press for more open access into OECD markets for the South's traditional exports.