Thinking and feeling on the World Wide Web: the impact of product type and time on World Wide Web advertising effectiveness

This article focuses on the effectiveness of banner advertisements.Drawing from theory on functional versus expressive products and wear in versus wear out it argues that product type and time are important factors in World Wide Web (WWW) advertising. The results from a large empirical study are reported and show that responses to banner advertisements differ between functional and expressive products and over time. Functional product banner advertisements have higher initial click-throughs that quickly deteriorate and they have no effect through advertisement impressions. Expressive products need time to wear in as both click-through rates and positive brand attitudes from advertisement impressions increase with repeated exposures. These differences in consumer response are conceptualized as thinking and feeling on the WWW,thereby providing important implications for advertisers.     

Vintage capital and the diffusion of clean technologies

We develop a general equilibrium vintage capital model with energy‐saving technological progress and an explicit energy sector to study the impact of investment subsidies on equilibrium investment and output. Energy and capital are assumed to be complementary in the production process. New machines are less energy‐consuming and scrapping is endogenous. Two polar market structures are considered for the energy market: free entry and natural monopoly. First, it is shown that investment subsidies may induce a larger equilibrium investment into cleaner technologies either under free entry or natural monopoly. However, in the latter case, this happens if and only if the average cost is decreasing fast enough. Second, larger diffusion rates do not necessarily mean lower energy consumption at equilibrium, which may explain certain empirical observations.     

Bounded Love of Variety and Patterns of Trade

Long-run bilateral trade data exhibit four empirical regularities: (i) countries import only a small fraction of all traded varieties, (ii) per capita income and the number of imported varieties correlate positively, (iii) per capita income and trade shares correlate positively and (iv) world trade shares have markedly increased. Standard theories fail to simultaneously explain these patterns. This paper reconciles theory and data by assuming that the consumer??s marginal utility from varieties is bounded. Given this assumption, consumers do not purchase foreign varieties that bear high transport costs. With increasing incomes, however, consumers include more of the latter varieties, which generates the four patterns above.     

Teaching financial literacy: a survey of community‐based educators

A nationwide online survey of financial educators in adult community‐based financial education programmes in the US was conducted to examine teaching beliefs, related curriculum and teaching strategies used to reach underserved populations. A transformative learning theoretical framework was used to discover how financial education engages learners in relation to their own lives. Survey findings indicate in community‐based settings financial educators are largely White, female, college educated and with multiple years of experience; believe their role is to provide expert information to help learners make informed financial choices; and often adapt published materials to reflect the life circumstances of learners. Learners are more racially diverse than educators, most having attended high school, who identify their own financial need to attend the programmes. Programmes do not often target specific groups, are frequently free and can take place in a variety of face‐to‐face settings. Implications indicate best practices for financial educators require inclusive, culturally responsive pedagogies.     

Is energy storage an economic opportunity for the eco-neighborhood?

In this article, we consider houses belonging to an eco-neighborhood in which inhabitants have the capacity to optimize dynamically the energy demand and the energy storage level so as to maximize their utility. The inhabitants’ preferences are characterized by their sensitivity toward comfort versus price, the optimal expected temperature in the house, thermal loss and heating efficiency of their house. At his level, the eco-neighborhood manager shares the resource produced by the eco-neighborhood according to two schemes: an equal allocation between the houses and a priority based one. The problem is modeled as a stochastic game and solved using stochastic dynamic programming. We simulate the energy consumption of the eco-neighborhood under various pricing mechanisms: flat rate, peak and off-peak hour, blue/white/red day, peak day clearing and a dynamic update of the price based on the consumption of the eco-neighborhood. We observe that economic incentives for houses to store energy depend deeply on the implemented pricing mechanism and on the homogeneity in the houses’ characteristics. Furthermore, when prices are based on the consumption of the eco-neighborhood, storage appears as a compensation for the errors made by the service provider in the prediction of the consumption of the eco-neighborhood.     

Financial sector development and access to finance. Does size say it all?

This paper analyzes what features of financial systems can strengthen the linkages between banks and economic development. We investigate whether a set of banking and capital market characteristics can improve the ability of banks to provide increased credit flows to the private sector, while simultaneously improving financial inclusion for the poor. We analyze the determinants of both macro-level lending conditions and micro-level access to finance using a set of Panel Vector Error Correction Models and GMM estimations in a panel of 138 countries for the 2002–2009 time periods. Results converge to suggest that rather than focusing solely on banking sector size, financial policy should seek to foster inter banks competition, develop appropriate macro-prudential safeguards, promote capital market development. In addition, improved access to finance requires adequate civil rights and support to entrepreneurship.     

Is There an Image Crisis in the Spanish Vegetables?

Abstract

The Spanish horticultural sector has been adversely affected by recurring crises in the last years, showing a significant economic impact upon demand. These crises have different sources (internal and external) and origins (food safety, social, and environmental issues). However, research devoted to analyzing the nature and scope of these events and their influence on consumers’ perception is scarce. For this purpose, this research provides a conceptual framework that defines and classifies the main image crises that have affected the sector. Consequently, an exploratory study is conducted to analyze to what extent European consumers know the sector and to determine how consumer knowledge influences the Spanish product-country image. Data were analyzed using a Logit Model. Results suggest that crises have seriously affected the demand of Spanish vegetables and consumers’ perceived image. Factors affecting the sector’s image through consumer knowledge are different depending on consumers’ country-of-origin (national vs. foreign countries).     

Employee recognition,meaningfulness and behavioural involvement: test of a moderated mediation model

Abstract

This study examines how and under what conditions recognition practices are related to employee behavioural involvement at work. Combining social cognitive theory, social information processing theory and self-concordance theory, we develop and test a moderated mediation model in which (a) manager recognition promotes behavioural involvement both directly and indirectly through the intervening role of meaningfulness and (b) coworker recognition strengthens the benefits of manager recognition to meaningfulness and subsequent behavioural involvement. The results of a study of 130 employees provided empirical support for our model. These findings help clarify how different sources of recognition can shape the effective behavioural involvement in the workplace; they also emphasize the role of meaningfulness as an important psychological mechanism that explains the recognition–behaviour relation. The implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Audit Partner Tenure and Independence in a Low Litigation Risk Setting

We investigate whether long audit partner tenures impair auditor independence, as proxied by the opinion of the audit report, with a sample of Spanish companies for the period: 2002–2010. The Spanish audit market constitutes an ideal setting in which to address this issue, as it is characterized by unusually lengthy engagements with the audit firm. The motivation relies, on the one hand, on the current discussion about the necessity to reinforce the independence of auditors and, on the other hand, on the very limited available research at the partner level. The main result is the lack of significant effects of partner tenure on independence. This finding is robust to various checks. Unlike prior research, we also address the joint effects of firm and partner tenure on independence. Results indicate that partner tenure does not compromise independence, even under long or extremely long audit firm tenures. These findings might have some interesting policy implications, in particular for the intense current debate on auditor rotation regimes which is taking place within the European Union.