Meta-Analysis of the Long- and Short-Term Effects of Sales Promotions on Consumer Behavior

ABSTRACT

This article presents a meta-analysis aiming to assess the short- and long-term effects of sales promotions on consumer behavior. We found 221 studies addressing this relationship. Our final sample provided 139 observations. First, the results revealed a significant relationship between sales promotion and both purchase intentions and sales volume. Second, we identified significant and positive connections with brand loyalty, perceptions of quality, consumer attitudes, and switching costs for consumers. Third, we noted that the sample type, the number of promoted products and sample size partially moderated the relationship between sales promotion and short/long-term effects.     

Local Content Policy in the Brazilian Oil and Gas Sectoral System of Innovation

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to discuss the development, goals, and format of local content public policy within the context of the Brazilian oil and gas sectoral system of innovation. The theoretical frame of reference for this article revolves around the concept of innovation systems, more specifically their sectoral focus as in Malerba (2002 Malerba , F. ( 2002 ). Sectoral systems of innovation and production . Research Policy , 31 , 247 – 264 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] and 2004 Malerba , F. ( 2004 ). Sectoral systems of innovation: concepts, issues and analyses of six majors sectors in Europe . Cambridge , England : Cambridge University Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). Norwegian local content policy was considered as a reference. This article concludes that this policy has not yet come to a consensus, presents regulatory weaknesses, does not have well-defined roles, and has little potential to generate innovations.     

Analysis of Competences for Innovation in Technology-Based Enterprise Incubators

ABSTRACT

Incubators are rated as public policy mechanisms driving innovation in companies. The purpose of this project was to ascertain the level of development of competences for innovation in Technology-Based Enterprise Incubators (TBEI) as perceived by businesspeople in associated companies. With regard to technological innovation, it was decided to use a neo-Schumpeterian approach, and with regard to competences, the Resource-Based View (RBV) theory was used, which evaluates internal attributes that contribute directly to the innovative capacity. Four constructs were taken into consideration for analyzing the development levels of competences for innovation, grounded on the model of François and colleagues (1999 François , J. P. , Goux , D. , Guellec , D. , Kabla , I. , and Temple , P. ( 1999 ). “Décrire lês Compétences pour l'innovation: une Proposition d'enquête.” In: Foray , D. , and Mairesse , J. (Eds.), Innovation et Performance, Approaches Interdisciplinaires , Editions EHESS . [Google Scholar]) and Munier (1999 Munier , F. Taille de ( 1999 ). La Firme et Innovation: Appoches Theóriques et Empiriques Fondées sur le Concept de Compétence , Thèse (Doctorat en Économie)—Estrasburgo: Université Louis Pasteur . [Google Scholar]). Competences for innovation were examined through a questionnaire that tries to identify and assess development levels of competences in TBEI. The findings were analyzed through construct reliability tests: summated scales and cluster analysis. It was noted that the means competences representing the basic resources needed for the development of the company were assessed favorably by the businesspeople, indicating the development of this competence. In terms of technical and relational competences, it was noted that the businesspeople assessed these aspects unfavorably, indicating that these competences are not well developed by the TBEI. It was also ascertained that corporate development levels and operating sectors also influence the assessment of these businesspeople in terms of competences for innovation. This leads to the conclusion that its effectiveness must be assessed as an agent of innovation, with indicators being defined to measure the effectiveness of its role as a mechanism driving technological innovation.     

GEL statistics under weak identification

The central concern of this paper is the provision in a time series moment condition framework of practical recommendations of confidence regions for parameters whose coverage probabilities are robust to the strength or weakness of identification. To this end we develop Pearson-type test statistics based on GEL implied probabilities formed from general kernel smoothed versions of the moment indicators. We also modify the statistics suggested in Guggenberger and Smith (2008) for a general kernel smoothing function. Importantly for our conclusions, we provide GEL time series counterparts to GMM and GEL conditional likelihood ratio statistics given in Kleibergen (2005) and Smith (2007). Our analysis not only demonstrates that these statistics are asymptotically (conditionally) pivotal under both classical asymptotic theory and weak instrument asymptotics of Stock and Wright (2000) but also provides asymptotic power results in the weakly identified time series context. Consequently, the empirical null rejection probabilities of the associated tests and, thereby, the coverage probabilities of the corresponding confidence regions, should not be affected greatly by the strength or otherwise of identification. A comprehensive Monte Carlo study indicates that a number of the tests proposed here represent very competitive choices in comparison with those suggested elsewhere in the literature.     

Clustering of Angolan entrepreneurs: an analysis of their entrepreneurial posture

This paper aims to contribute to the debate concerning whether entrepreneurial posture (consisting of innovativeness, risk taking, proactiveness, competitive aggressiveness, and internal locus of control) is a unidimensional or multidimensional construct. Furthermore, it identifies the profile of Angolan entrepreneurs in terms of their entrepreneurial attitude, and investigates how this profile enhances business performance. The findings suggest that entrepreneurial posture is a multidimensional construct. However, they also suggest that the three entrepreneurial clusters behave differently. Implications for Government and decision-makers, and suggestions for future research are given in the concluding section.     

Political aspects of the capital controversies and capitalist crises

The Cambridge controversies about the theory of capital were ultimately underpinned by a clash between two different visions of capitalism, the neoclassical view, according to which distribution depends on the supply and demand curves of capital and labor, and the post Keynesian view, according to which distribution depends on political and institutional factors instead. I shall argue that the distinction between “meritocratic capitalism” and “patrimonial capitalism,” which underpins the discussions surrounding Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, is also connected to those two different visions of capitalism, which were behind the Cambridge controversies. These two visions of capitalism have important implications for our understanding of political power over workers, and also to our understanding of political power over land and its natural resources. The role of land and natural resources was not discussed in the Cambridge controversies, but is addressed in Piero Sraffa’s Production of Commodities, and is implied in Piketty’s inclusion of land in his definition of capital, which brings in a geographical dimension to our understanding of capitalism and capitalist crises, as I shall argue.     

The transmission mechanism of monetary policy: Microeconomic aspects of macroeconomic issues

The article analyzes the transmission mechanism of monetary policy in light of microeconomic theory. We address the influence of microeconomic factors on the transmission of monetary policy while taking into account the contributions of conventional price formation and competition theory and heterodox microeconomic theories, including work inspired by the post Keynesians. We found a multiplicity of results regarding changes in price levels and inflation derived from shifts in demand and costs. These results challenge the conventional view, which postulates a single behavior in the circuit from changes in interest rates to demand, prices, and inflation. We conclude that microeconomic and macroeconomic aspects should be integrated to properly explain monetary policy and analyze its effects and transmission mechanism.     

Solidarity among the poor

We conduct a field experiment with low-income subjects in Dallas, Texas. We examine voluntary, informal risk sharing using a visual representation of the solidarity game developed for low-literacy populations. We find substantially more ‘fixed gift to loser’ behavior and less ‘egotistical’ behavior than in previous studies. Individuals who display ‘egotistical’ behavior are more risk tolerant. The amount of the conditional gifts is positively related to age, income, and connection to the community. However, trust and empathy, which are commonly discussed as drivers for solidarity, are not significantly related to the amount given.     

Disentangling the relation between wealth and contraceptive use in India: a multilevel probit regression approach

This paper discusses the poverty-wealth impact on contraceptive use both at individual and community levels. A multilevel probit regression framework was set up to explain the use of contraceptive methods. We use data from the Indian 2005–06 National Family Health Survey (NFHS). It contains data on both the socio-demographic and health characteristics of Indian women, as well as an assembled measure of household wealth: the wealth index. The individual-level model confirms the association between contraceptive use and wealth. When controlling the community level, i.e. where the women live, the multilevel regression results show it has a significant effect on contraceptive use, explaining 19  % of the total variance. Finally, decomposing the wealth index at individual and community levels (average community wealth; individual centered wealth values), the effect of the community poverty-wealth level is significant and positive. To sum up, this framework of nested models reveals the significant effect of the community’s poverty-wealth dimension on each woman’s decision about contraception and suggests that the longstanding urban-rural differential in the contraceptive prevalence is mainly poverty-wealth driven.     

Inflation, unemployment, and the time consistency of the US monetary policy

This paper verifies the performance of the Barro and Gordon (1983) model to explain the US inflation since the early 1950s. We divide the period from 1951:2 to 2010:2 according to each chairman of the Federal Reserve (FED). In addition, we consider aggregated periods, represented by pre-Volcker, Volcker-Greenspan, Greenspan-Bernanke, and whole sample. A genetic algorithm of stochastic search is applied to reduce the sensitivity of the maximum likelihood estimator to the initial parameter values. Surprisingly, our results show that the time consistency problem explains the US inflation during the Greenspan chairmanship at the FED.