Search Costs and Re-Employment Wage Gains for Displaced Workers

Involuntary job separation generally leads to lower re-employment wages. However, 20–30 percent of displaced workers experience re-employment wage gains. Theoretically, workers with higher search costs accept jobs when the marginal benefit of search is relatively high. When displaced, these workers experience wage gains because they are forced into additional search. Using data from the Displaced Worker Survey, we find that higher search costs (measured as the wage residual from the predisplacement job) are associated with higher re-employment wages.     

Marketing Novel Fruit Products: Evidence for Diverging Marketing Effects Across Different Products and Different Countries

The purpose of this study was to compare the influence of four different marketing claims and price information on consumers’ product choices for novel fruits and novel fruit products, using a choice experiment. In total, 1,652 people in Greece (n = 400), the Netherlands (n = 419), Poland (n = 423), and Spain (n = 410) participated in the study. The marketing claims entailed (1) information about scientific findings concerning health benefits, (2) social norm information, (3) information about the products’ naturalness, and (4) information about the products’ time-until-expiration. The results showed that all four marketing claims and price information influenced consumer choice, but the effect of naturalness depended on the specific novel fruit product being advertised, and the effect of time-until-expiration depended on both country and fruit product. These results suggest that marketing communications should be tailored to different national markets and to specific fruit products.     

Extending Our Understanding of eWOM Impact: The Role of Source Credibility and Message Relevance

Using qualitative data from consumers who have previously purchased online and who read online product reviews, this work expands current thinking on determinants of the impact of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) communications on consumer decision making. Specifically, beyond source credibility, findings suggest that consumers also assess how similar the source of eWOM is to them in terms of personality and product usage. In addition to source credibility, the notion of message relevance is introduced as the second first-order factor of eWOM impact. In turn, the underlying dimensions of source credibility (expertise and trustworthiness) and message relevance (persona similarity and usage similarity) constitute four second-order determinants of eWOM impact; providing a comprehensive view of the determinants of eWOM impact. Additionally, a conceptual framework depicting the sequential and cumulative effect of the four assessment dimensions along with possible gender differences in the processes used to assess eWOM credibility and message relevance are discussed.     

The employment–population nexus and implications for sustainable economic development: insights from Irish regions using a partial adjustment model

In this paper, we use a partial adjustment model to analyse the relationship between employment and population growth in Irish district electoral divisions. We employ a spatial estimator to augment our partial adjustment model with a spatial lag and spatial error process. Our results indicate a dual relationship between employment and population growth, suggesting that not only do people follow jobs but also jobs follow people. This finding has implications for economic development policies, which typically focus solely on attracting jobs to a location. The results suggest that a dual-pronged approach to policy may be necessary including developing a region’s amenities to ensure that it is attractive to people and to stimulate population growth. We highlight how our analysis can be used to inform policy through the lenses of place-based and smart specialisation strategies.     

Models of mortality rates – analysing the residuals

The area of mortality modelling has received significant attention over the last 25 years owing to the need to quantify and forecast improving mortality rates. This need is driven primarily by the concern of governments, insurance and actuarial professionals and individuals to be able to fund their old age. In particular, to quantify the costs of increasing longevity we need suitable model of mortality rates that capture the dynamics of the data and forecast them with sufficient accuracy to make them useful. In this article, we test several of the leading time series models by considering the fitting quality and in particular, testing the residuals of those models for normality properties. In a wide ranging study considering 30 countries we find that almost exclusively the residuals do not demonstrate normality. Further, in Hurst tests of the residuals we find evidence that structure remains that is not captured by the models.     

功能性服装研发思路探讨

功能性服装属于特殊的一类服装,功能性服装的研发重视材料的选用、结构的设计,进而达到“服装-人-环境”的和谐匹配。作为服装生产企业,将功能性因素考虑到服装的研发中,能够提升产品的附加值,创造更大的利润。功能性服装的研发要有明确的研发目标,拥有专业团队,注重细节研发及市场反馈。     

Understanding Consumers’ Ethical Justifications: A Scale for Appraising Consumers’ Reasons for Not Behaving Ethically

This article reports the results of research aimed at developing and validating a multi-item scale to measure consumers’ agreement with three main justifications for not engaging in socially responsible consumption (SRC) behaviours, namely the ‘economic rationalist argument’ founded on the idea that the costs of SRC are greater than its benefits, the ‘economic development reality argument’ based on the idea that ethical and moral aspirations are less important than the economic development of countries, and the ‘government dependency argument’ grounded in the premise that government inaction demonstrates the legal character and the banality of unethical consumption behaviours. The scale items were generated on the basis of a multi-country qualitative study of consumers (Eckhardt et al., 2006, ‘Why Don’t Consumers Behave Ethically’. DVD Document, AGSM). The content validity of the scale was assessed in the first study. The second study was a survey of 157 Canadian adult consumers in which the three-dimensional scale and other scales measuring relevant concepts were administered. The survey results showed that the 28-item resulting scale is reliable and generally behaves as one would theoretically expect. Implications for consumption ethics researchers and policy makers are proposed.     

长三角与珠三角对外贸易发展模式的比较研究

Based on a massive collection of data, this paper tries to make a detailed comparison between the foreign trade development patterns of two export-oriented regional economies: the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta. It is shown that both of the deltas have made spectacular progress in foreign trade development. However, the Yangtze River Delta is catching up with the Pearl River Delta, and China’s foreign trade development pattern has changed in recent years from a Pearl River Delta-dominated foreign trade environment to a situation in which the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta together dominate China’s foreign trade. The primary difference in the foreign trade development patterns of these two deltas is that foreign trade in the Pearl River Delta relies more on processing trade, while that in the Yangtze River Delta is more government-oriented with special political zones playing a significant role in its foreign trade.      

COMPETITIVE GROWTH IN A LIFE‐CYCLE MODEL: EXISTENCE AND DYNAMICS*

The dynamic behavior of the capital growth rate is analyzed using an overlapping‐generations model with continuous trading. Assuming a technology satisfying constant social returns to capital, the equilibrium growth rate is piecewise‐defined by functional differential equations with both delayed and advanced terms. The main result concerns the existence of a solution expressed as a series of exponentials, which is shown to crucially depend on the initial wealth distribution among cohorts. Upon existence, the dynamics of the capital growth rate has a saddle‐point trajectory that converges to a unique steady state. Along the transition path, the growth rate exhibits exponentially decreasing oscillations.     

Small and medium size firm’s marketing competitive advantage and environmental initiatives in the Middle East

The paper explores Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs) in Saudi Arabia within the context of environmental sustainability. The objective of the study is to examine whether SME’s sustainable marketing competitive advantage through environmental initiatives can positively associate to a firm’s environmental (green) best practices and stakeholder influences; similarly, it also identifies if best practices mediate environmental costs and competitive advantage. A sample of 181 responses are obtained and are analysed using factor analysis, multiple regression and their interaction effects. The findings show that the association between firms that have competitive advantage due to environmental initiatives were found to be significant for best practices and indirect stakeholder influences. Furthermore, the results identified that by using environmental best practices, SMEs can lower their environmental costs to gain marketing competitive advantage. These findings highlight the function of environmentalism and how it can influence practitioners.