SHORT‐RUN AND LONG‐RUN DETERMINANTS OF THE REAL EXCHANGE RATE IN MEXICO

This paper explores the real exchange rate behavior in Mexico from 1960 until 2005. Since the empirical analysis reveals that the real exchange rate is not mean reverting, we propose that economic fundamental variables affect its evolution in the long run. Therefore, based on equilibrium exchange rate paradigms, we propose a simple model of real exchange rate determination, which includes the relative GDP per capita, the real interest rates, and the net foreign assets over a long period of time. Our analysis also considers the dynamic adjustment in response to shocks through impulse response functions derived from the multivariate vector autoregressive (VAR) model.     

Weg vom negativen Branchenimage — mit Subtyping zur Arbeitgebermarke

Zusammenfassung  Employer Branding, die Positionierung einer Marke auf dem Arbeitsmarkt, wird vor allem von Unternehmen professionell betrieben, die dank positivem Image bei Arbeitnehmern ohnehin schon ganz oben auf der Wunschliste stehen. Unternehmen aus unattraktiven Branchen haben es schwerer: Das wenig attraktive Branchenimage übertr?gt sich oft auf die eigene Marke. Doch auch diese Unternehmen k?nnen eine unverwechselbare Positionierung auf dem Arbeitsmarkt erreichen: Indem sie sich zu einem „Subtype“ des Branchenstereotyps entwickeln und das gezielt kommunizieren. Dipl.-Kommunikationswirtin Antonia Erz Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin im Center for Innovation am Institut für Marketing und Handel an der Universit?t St. Gallen Dr. Sven Henkel Projektleiter Consumer and Brand Research am Institut für Marketing und Handel an der Universit?t St. Gallen Prof. Dr. Torsten Tomczak Ordinarius für Betriebswirtschaftslehre mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Marketing und Direktor des Instituts für Marketing und Handel an der Universit?t St. Gallen     

Guilty by stereotypic association: Country animosity and brand prejudice and discrimination

This research tests the proposition that brands suffer prejudice and discrimination due to animosity toward a country with which they have a strong stereotypic association. In the first study, attitudinal data collected across a range of brands that vary in terms of the strength of the brand–country association indicate that brands with strong stereotypic association with a country suffer direct prejudice, in the form of more negative attitudes, related to animosity. When the brand–country association is less strong, the relationship between animosity and brand attitudes is moderated by the strength of the stereotypic association. In the second study, the level of brand–country association is manipulated experimentally to provide additional evidence of its moderating role on the relationship between country animosity and both prejudice toward (more negative brand attitudes) and discrimination against (less choice) a new brand.     

Here or there? Consumer reactions to corporate social responsibility initiatives: Egocentric tendencies and their moderators

This research examines how consumers react to corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs that vary in geographic focus. Three experiments compare consumers' patronage of a company in response to local and distant CSR initiatives. The extant egocentrism literature suggests that a CSR activity focused locally, and thus, with greater personal relevance, should increase patronage of the company responsible for the CSR activity. Indeed, this egocentric bias, exhibited in the form of increased purchase intentions or actual choices, is found across all three studies. However, these egocentric tendencies are moderated by consumers' superordinate identities. In study 1, consumers' greater intentions to patronize a company whose CSR activity is domestic vs. foreign are moderated by their sense of global identity. In study 2, consumers' increased choices of a company whose CSR activity is in their home state vs. a distant state are moderated by levels of environmental consciousness. Finally, in study 3, increased patronage of a company whose CSR activity focuses in consumers' home city vs. a distant city depends on the salience and level of consumers' superordinate group identity.     

The 1996 ICC Report on Extortion And Bribery in International Business Transactions

Extortion and bribery are regularly identified as well–nigh insoluble ethical problems for business, especially on an international scale, yet there are many initiatives being steadily pursued to combat them. One of the most impressive is the work of the International Chamber of Commerce, which published an important Report on the subject in 1977, the first such document prepared by the business community. Now that Report has undergone an in-depth revision which was published last year and is the subject of this study. Professor Argandoña is Secretary General of IESE [the International Graduate School of Management of the University of Navarre], Av. Pearson 21, E–Barcelona, Spain (email: argandona@iese.es), and an Associate Editor of this Review. The article is a revised version of the presentation made to the Nineth EBEN Annual Conference held in Frankfurt in September last year.     

On the user cost and homeownership

This paper studies the differences in the cost of housing services for renters and homeowners and calculates the bias that results when we value owner-occupied housing services using a rental equivalence approach. Our framework is a life-cycle model with endogenous tenure choice with households facing idiosyncratic uninsurable earnings risk and housing price risk. We model houses as illiquid assets that provide collateral for loans. To analyze the impact of preferential housing taxation on the tenure choice and the bias, we consider a tax system that mimics that of the US economy. Namely, owner-occupied housing services are not taxed and mortgage interest payments are deductible. Through simulations, we show that a rental equivalence approach (relative to a user cost approach) overestimates the cost of housing services. The magnitude of the bias is very sensitive to both the income tax rate and the size of adjustment costs in the housing market.     

Entrepreneurs’ Resources,Technology Strategy,and New Technology‐Based Firms’ Performance

This study is based on the configuration approach and argues that the new technology‐based venture's performance depends on how well the entrepreneur's resources allow the chosen technology strategy to be executed, in other words, the fit between the resources and the strategy. The authors study this idea by using a sample of 175 Spanish new technology‐based ventures. The results indicate that the fit between the chosen technology strategy and the entrepreneur's resources explain the firm's performance, when this is measured through foreign market performance. That fit is also related to the technology‐based firm's financial results and generic and domestic performance.     

The Cause Cue Effect: Cause‐Related Marketing and Consumer Health Perceptions

Many for‐profit companies (e.g., Kraft, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Keebler, 5‐Hour Energy) are partnering with health‐oriented nonprofits (e.g., Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Susan G. Komen for Breast Cancer Research, American Red Cross) to make purchase‐contingent donations. Companies use cause‐related marketing to improve brand image and goodwill for their food products and companies. Prior research has examined how food‐related cues can create consumer misperceptions; however, consumer perceptions related to corporate communications (e.g., the use of cause cues) has received little research attention. This research explores consumer reactions to cause cues and finds that adding a health cause to a food package significantly increases product health perceptions, and, usually, product attitude, and purchase intentions (i.e., the cause cue effect) in both a student sample (Studies 1 and 2) and an adult sample on Amazon's mTurk (Study 3). Implications for cueing and inference‐making literature, and for consumer health, and policymakers are discussed.     

Solidarity, Transfers, and Poverty

There is abundant evidence that inter-vivos transfers are more important in low-income countries than in industrialized countries. The authors use a new specification of altruism to explain this stylized fact. Under this specification, individuals feel altruistically towards other individuals genetically related to them. However, they worry about them only when their relatives' consumption falls below a certain level. Simulation results mimic the stylized facts concerning the relation between inter-vivos transfers and income.