Putting the squeeze on a market for lemons: Government-sponsored mortgage securitization

Lenders either sell or obtain insurance for many of the mortgages they originate to reduce credit risk and enhance liquidity. An overwhelming majority of the mortgages sold are purchased by government-sponsored enterprises. The prevailing view is that government-sponsorship of mortgage securitization causes mortgage rates to be lower than they would otherwise be. Using a model that incorporates asymmetric information and adverse selection, we provide an example in which government-sponsored mortgage securitization raises the mortgage rate.The analysis and conclusions set forth are our own and do not indicate concurrence by members of the Federal Reserve Research stafls, by the Board of Governors, or by the Federal Reserve Banks. We wish to thank Mark Fisher for his Mathematica expertise. All errors are ours exclusively.     

Machiavellianism and personal success in marketing: The moderating role of latitude for improvisation

According to theory, the success of Machiavellians rests, in part, on the situational factor “latitude for improvisation”—the freedom to improvise in order to successfully manipulate others. In their study of Machiavellianism and marketing, Hunt and Chonko concluded that Machiavellianism is unrelated to success; however, the analysis did not include latitude for improvisation as a moderating variable. The data are reanalyzed with a measure of latitude for improvisation included. Theory predicts that Machiavellianism is positively related to success when latitude for improvisation is high. The results of this analysis suggest that Machiavellianism is unrelated to personal success in marketing when latitude for improvisation is high but is negatively related to success when latitude for improvisation is low. His research interests include marketing ethics, advertising, and marketing communication.     

Social marketing in action—geodemographics,alcoholic liver disease and heavy episodic drinking in Great Britain

• This paper explores the use of geodemographic population classifications to identify and predict ‘hotspots’ of Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) prone to greater than expected alcoholic liver disease. MOSAIC geodemographic codes were overlaid onto Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) for Great Britain. The HES data included gender, MOSAIC Type, MOSAIC Code, postal and local authority district, month and year of birth, ethnic origin, Primary Care Trust and GP code. Analysis demonstrated that some geodemographic classifications of the population were over-represented for alcoholic liver disease episodes. These groups had low socio-economic and socio-cultural status, lived in areas of high deprivation and disadvantage. Manchester followed by Liverpool and Hull had the highest estimated patient group size in England and Hart, Surrey Heath and Wokingham the three lowest (indicating low expected levels of alcoholic liver disease compared with average). Analysis of the same data was also carried out at postcode level for Manchester indicating ‘hotspots’ for alcoholic level disease at street level. This analysis exemplifies the ways in which geodemographic data might be usefully applied to routine health service data to enhance service planning, delivery and improved targeting of information in harder to reach populations.

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dimensions and correlates of consumer value: An application to the timeshare industry

The concept of consumer value has been hailed as the “very underpinning” of marketing, yet the concept has been subjected to limited empirical research, particularly in the hospitality industry. This study investigates the value that consumers derive from ownership of timeshare holiday products. A total of 785 people answered questions regarding their background, timeshare ownership, valuing of timeshare, and satisfaction with timeshare. Confirmatory factor analyses showed consumer value to be a multi-dimensional construct comprising opportunities for relaxation, gift-giving, status, quality, flexibility, fun, new experiences, and financial benefits. These value dimensions varied with other factors such as type of timeshare ownership (e.g., weeks, points).     

The impact of online reviews on hotel booking intentions and perception of trust

A growing reliance on the Internet as an information source when making choices about tourism products raises the need for more research into electronic word of mouth. Within a hotel context, this study explores the role of four key factors that influence perceptions of trust and consumer choice. An experimental design is used to investigate four independent variables: the target of the review (core or interpersonal); overall valence of a set of reviews (positive or negative); framing of reviews (what comes first: negative or positive information); and whether or not a consumer generated numerical rating is provided together with the written text. Consumers seem to be more influenced by early negative information, especially when the overall set of reviews is negative. However, positively framed information together with numerical rating details increases both booking intentions and consumer trust. The results suggest that consumers tend to rely on easy-to-process information, when evaluating a hotel based upon reviews. Higher levels of trust are also evident when a positively framed set of reviews focused on interpersonal service.     

How do young Chinese friendship groups make travel decisions? A content and interaction process analysis

ABSTRACT

Young Chinese tourists form an increasingly important market and they tend to travel in small friendship or family groups. This study examines how young Chinese friendship groups (aged between 18 and 35 years) make travel decisions. Using the observation approach, this study observes the group travel decision-making process of 10 small groups. Issues such as activity, cost, travel timing, transportation, climate, safety, and distance, were found to determine destination choice. The role and function of verbal and non-verbal behaviors in influencing group decision-making were also investigated. This study contributes to both general group interaction literature and tourism literature.     

Chile's agricultural diversification

Chile's fruit sector, both in production and exports, has grown significantly since 1974. At that time, Chile introduced structural reforms in its economy which assured that market principles would operate regarding land ownership. Also, the government began a ‘hands-off’ policy which basically allowed free-market principles to prevail. As a result of these conditions operating in the economy, Chile's agricultural sector diversified from producing largely annual crops and wool to also producing a significant amount of commercial fruit crops. A second round of diversification is currently underway within the fruit industry where pears and peaches are being produced and exported in addition to apples and table grapes. In this paper we derive decision criteria when aggregate performance is evaluated from the perspective of maximizing a risk-averse utility function. Empirical evidence on Chilean fruit exports indicates that, on an aggregate level, Chilean fruit exporters are following the path of utility maximization and validates the sequence by which Chilean producers introduced nontraditional crops over time. While on an individual level there may be complex factors and constraints involved in the planting decisions, the results of this study seem to indicate that the sum of producer behavior satisfies the conditions required for maximizing a risk-averse utility function.     

Reciprocal Retail Internationalisation: the Southland Corporation,Ito-Yokado and 7-Eleven Convenience Stores

Retail internationalisation has become a focus of research activity in recent years. This research has become perhaps both more broad and deep than previous research, reflecting the changes in retail internationalisation itself. There remain, however, fundamental issues about the process and nature of retail internationalisation. This paper examines initially the internationalisation of a concept -the 7-Eleven convenience store - from the USA to Japan. This concept has been subsequently ‘Japanized’ as the convenience store sector in Japan grew rapidly and successfully. The new approach to convenience stoers has now been re-introduced into the United States through the agreed take-over of The Southland Corporation by its original Japanese franchisee, Ito-Yokado. This process of retail internationalisation is analysed and described and placed into the context of current conceptualisations on retail internationalisation.     

Ethical Judgments in Business Ethics Research: Definition,and Research Agenda

Decades of empirical and theoretical research has produced an extensive literature on the ethical judgments construct. Given its importance to understanding people’s ethical choices, future research should explore the psychological processes that produce ethical judgments. In this paper, the authors discuss two steps needed to advance this effort. First, they note that the business ethics literature lacks a single, generally accepted definition of ethical judgments. After reviewing several extant definitions, the authors offer a definition of the construct and discuss its advantages. Second, future ethical judgment research would benefit from greater integration between theories of ethical decision making and theories of social cognition. Drawing upon the Hunt–Vitell (Journal of Macromarketing 6(Spring), 5–15, 1986; In: N. C. Smith and J. A. Quelch (eds.), Ethics in Marketing. Irwin, Homewood, IL, pp. 775–784, 1992) model and the heuristic-systematic model (Chaiken, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39(November), 752–766, 1980), the authors present a brief research agenda intended to stimulate research on the psychological processes behind ethical judgments.     

Service Failure and Recovery in a Strategic Airline Alliance Context: Interplay of Locus of Service Failure and Social Identity

ABSTRACT

There has been a dramatic increase in the past decade in the number of strategic alliances and business networks. Yet, despite these trends in the business environment, the individual firm-customer dyad has remained the contextual focus of most services marketing research (Gittell, 2002 Gittell, J. H. 2002. Relationships between service providers and their impact on customers. Journal of Service Research, 4(4): 299–311. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). Using a scenario study, this research investigates the effects of service failures in a strategic airline alliance setting, with a particular focus on locus of service failure and strength of social identification, on three alliance entities—a consumer's home carrier, the alliance partner airline, and the alliance. Study findings suggest that consumers' evaluations are more stable (less extreme) when the home carrier causes the service failure. In contrast, when a lesser known entity (partner airline) causes the service failure, consumers are more willing to rate that entity harshly. Furthermore, compared to weak identifiers, strong identifiers were not only more positive in their evaluation of the home carrier but also in their evaluation of the alliance, pointing to a halo effect, whereby positive evaluations of the home carrier are transferred to the alliance. Implications of study results are discussed and directions for future research provided.