The mediating role of happiness on the effect of locomotion and effort on salesperson’s performance and cross-selling: the case of financial insurance

In this study, the authors propose a theoretical framework and show how salespeople’s locomotion orientation and effort increase financial sales outcomes (e.g., performance and cross-selling). We propose that a salesperson’s happiness plays a mediating mechanism in these main effects. The authors collected data from two samples. In Study 1, the authors collected data from financial insurance brokers, which worked as a link between insurance companies and customers. In Study 2, the authors analyzed answers from salespeople working on home improvement and construction products and services. First, the results demonstrate that the salespersons’ locomotion (an orientation toward a behavior), effort, and happiness increased sales performance (main effects). Second, salespersons’ locomotion and effort have an indirect effect through individuals’ happiness on our dependent variables, such as sales performance, product performance and cross-selling. Firms can improve individuals’ locomotion and effort by developing goal setting and goal striving.

     

Focus on cash transfer programs: assessing the eligibility of the Bolsa Família program in Brazil

Quality & Quantity - Income transfer programs are important public policies in fighting poverty and reducing inequality. However, such a strategy is often criticised as being ineffective, as...     

Inter- and intracountry effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on wages and economic growth

This paper aims to investigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on technological knowledge, wage inequality, and economic growth, by proposing a Direct-Technical-Change model with two economies, an Innovative and other Follower. Six hypotheses are considered: (i) decrease in the unskilled-labor supply, (ii) decrease in the absolute advantage of unskilled labor, (iii) decrease in the intensity of the unskilled sector, (iv) hypothesis (i) combined with a lower decrease in the skilled-labor supply, (v) hypothesis (ii) combined with a lower decrease in the absolute advantage of skilled labor, (vi) all the variations previously considered. By comparing the steady states before and after the shock, we find an increase in the technological-knowledge bias that favors the skill-intensive sector, which positively affects the skill premium. However, in hypotheses (i) and (iv), the decrease in the relative supply of unskilled labor dominates the effect on the skill premium, which thus decreases. The economic growth rate is always penalized except for hypothesis (iii). Hypotheses (ii) and (iv) are undesirable because they increase wage inequality and penalize economic growth. Governments should support innovative activity, the engine of technological-knowledge progress, and thus economic growth, but with caution not to exacerbate the skill premium.     

Local and global indeterminacy and transition dynamics in a growth model with public goods

Portuguese Economic Journal - This paper studies local and global indeterminacy and transition dynamics in an endogenous growth model where public goods increase production and the...