A note on symmetry breaking in a non linear marketing model

Decisions in Economics and Finance - In this paper, we consider the nonlinear discrete-time dynamic model proposed by Bischi and Baiardi (Chaos Solitons Fractals 79:145-156, 2015a). The model...     

Using System Dynamics to assess the impact of RFID technology on retail operations

The application of item-level radio frequency identification (RFID) technology in retail supply chains creates cost savings and promises large potential benefits from revenue growth. However, the economic assessment of the impact on improved store operations, labor utilization, and increased sales is still not fully explored. We propose to use System Dynamics as a structural modeling and simulation approach to integrate conventional return on investment evaluations. Building on previous research about RFID technology in retail supply chains, we developed a model based on the case exploration of a leading Italian apparel retailer. Simulations show that RFID implementations are profitable whenever they contribute to increase sales, especially when a fashion retailer is focused on clerk-assisted sales strategies. Sales growth results from the dynamic and integrated impacts of RFID technology on better inventory control, faster inventory turnover, and longer time available for store personnel to assist consumers as an effect of more efficient backroom operations.     

Pricing strategies: who leads and who follows in the air and rail passenger markets in Italy

In this paper, we aim at empirically uncovering the existence of price leadership in the passenger transport market, whose oligopolistic structure facilitates the strategic interaction among companies, with price being one of the principal elements of competition. The strategic interaction is particularly favoured by the fact that prices are easily observable online by all competitors. The analysis focuses on selected Italian city-pair markets that differ from one another with respect to the degree of inter- and intra-modal competition and to the characteristics of the transport services provided. We exploit this heterogeneity to study transport operators’ strategic interactions in different competitive environments. We find evidence of the existence of price leadership, even though results differ across city-pair markets. In particular, it emerges that the incumbent operator, in either the air or the rail sector, always holds the role of leader.     

Attitudes to risk and attitudes to uncertainty: experimental evidence

In a series of experiments the interactions among individual attitudes towards risk and uncertainty, the sign of the outcome domain, and the way uncertainty is represented are tested. This is done in a unified framework, eliciting individual values by means of a second price auction. Results confirm the presence of the well-known fourfold pattern of risk attitude (risk aversion for gains and risk seeking for losses at high probability, and risk seeking for gains and risk aversion for losses at low probability) and show that this pattern can also be extended to uncertainty. In the valuation of losses the modal pattern is decreasing risk and uncertainty aversion as the probability of loss increases, while increasing risk and uncertainty aversion is observed for gains. Moreover, it is found that the size of reaction to uncertainty does not depend on the outcome domain, and that it persists in the face of an incentive-compatible mechanism to elicit preferences.     

Patinkin,the Cowles Commission,and the theory of unemployment and aggregate supply

The paper provides an account of Don Patinkin's long-time search for an explanation of the notions of an aggregate demand constraint and unemployment under the assumption of a perfectly competitive goods market. It is argued that Patinkin's quest is reflected on the development of the concept of an aggregate supply function in the goods market. Patinkin's interpretation of aggregate supply and unemployment is compared to similar ideas put forward by Jacob Marschak, Trygve Haavelmo and Lawrence Klein, his former colleagues at the Cowles Commission in Chicago.     

Simonsen and the early history of the cashin-advance approach

The paper brings to light an early contribution to the cash-in-advance literature made by the Brazilian economist Mario Henrique Simonsen (1935–1997) in an article written in Portuguese as far back as 1964. Simonsen explicitly introduced the cash-in-advance constraint as an inequality in a non-linear programming problem and provided a diagrammatic illustration of the interior and boundary solutions. He also applied the concept to the discussion of the quantity theory of money and showed that the classical dichotomy is valid for the stationary equilibrium of prices over time.     

Response to De Vroey

Abstract

This paper is a response to Michel De Vroey's review of our book, published in this issue of EJHET. Differently from De Vroey's, our aim is to understand the theoretical choices with which economists believed they were confronted at the time. This is reflected in the organisation of our book, the selection of topics (disequilibrium, imperfect competition, etc.), and the conclusions about the fate of disequilibrium macroeconomics.     

Employment,job turnover,and trade in producer services: UK firm‐level evidence

Abstract We provide the first firm‐level evidence of the impact of the trade in producer services (‘offshoring’) on the labour market. Using a new data set from the UK that measures trade in services at the firm level, we find no evidence that importing intermediate services is associated with job losses or greater worker turnover. Using regression to control for observable differences between firms that import service inputs and those that do not, we show that firms that start importing intermediate services experience faster employment growth than equivalent firms that do not. This seems likely to be the result of positive demand shocks, which cause a simultaneous increase in employment, output, and use of imported service inputs.     

A Simple Panel‐CADF Test for Unit Roots*

In this paper, we propose a simple extension to the panel case of the covariate‐augmented Dickey–Fuller (CADF) test for unit roots developed in Hansen (1995) . The panel test we propose is based on a P values combination approach that takes into account cross‐section dependence. We show that the test has good size properties and gives power gains with respect to other popular panel approaches. An empirical application is carried out for illustration purposes on international data to test the purchasing power parity (PPP) hypothesis.