Timing Movie Release on the Internet in the Context of Piracy

Offering movies on the Internet is one way of combating the issue of online movie piracy, although the tradeoff is the cannibalization of the more revenue-generating channels. Given this tradeoff and the rather unique “staggered window distribution” mechanism followed by the movie industry, this article addresses the problem of when the studio owner should release the movie online to maximize the entire revenue stream of that movie. A general modeling approach that assumes an exponential demand function and fixed release times in the remaining channels is provided. Detailed illustration using three different movie types demonstrates that a high revenue-generating movie should be released online just prior to its home video release, while the online release of an average or below-average movie should coincide with their withdrawal from the theaters. Sensitivity analyses of the results are also displayed and give the circumstances under which a different online release time is warranted. The analysis suggests, among other things, that if a movie has an excellent opening strength and is able to sustain its revenues quite well, it would be more profitable to release the movie online a few weeks before it is withdrawn from the theaters. Additionally, the standard outcomes generated by the model are found to be sensitive to any online per-unit price change.     

Convenience,Satisfaction, and Post-Purchase Behavior in India's Health Insurance Market

ABSTRACT

Understanding the antecedents and implications of “service convenience” has acquired added importance with consumers' growing desire for ease during product or service exchange. Although the effects of service convenience, as a first-order construct, on post-purchase behavior have been studied in different business contexts, not much has been done in the case of a second-order construct which has been attempted here. The present study seeks to examine the mediating role of consumers' satisfaction as well as the moderating role of organizational and consumer personal factors that have not been sufficiently explored in the marketing literature. Structural equation analysis is adopted to test the hypothesized relationships using responses from 424 consumers who have purchased health insurance from six leading insurers in India. The findings validated that the service convenience affects consumer satisfaction, which, in turn, plays both a direct and mediating role in influencing consumers' repurchase intention. However, the role of organizational and consumer personal factors as moderators between service convenience and consumers' satisfaction could only be established indirectly through post-hoc analysis, which calls for further research. The results have important implications for planning, designing, and managing the health insurance business.     

Is sexy better than funny? Disentangling the persuasive effects of pleasure and arousal across sex and humour appeals

Although it is well known that sex and humour can help sell products, hardly any research has examined whether there is something particular about sexual advertisements that makes them more persuasive than other appeals. The present research proposed an empirically robust way to test the persuasiveness of different emotional appeals (sex, humour, control) by matching them on pleasure and arousal levels. Two experiments (N = 162; N = 301) examined the combined persuasive effects of different levels of pleasure (moderate, high) and arousal (moderate, high) for sexual and nonsexual appeals. Study 1 used a 3 (appeal: sexual, humorous, control) × 2 (pleasure level: moderate, high) between-subjects design. Study 2 employed a 2 (appeal: sexual, control) × 2 (arousal level: moderate, high) × 2 (pleasure level: moderate, high) design. The main dependent measures were attitudes towards the ad, attitudes towards the brand, and purchase intentions. The results showed that highly pleasant ads increased persuasion regardless of arousal and content, and that sexual appeals outperformed nonsexual appeals only under conditions of moderate pleasure and high arousal.     

Multi Fibre Arrangement and Wage Inequality: Firm and State‐level Evidence from India and a Theoretical Model

The phased elimination of Multi Fibre Arrangements (MFA) for textile and apparel has been one of the most compelling trade policy reforms that removed a system of bilateral quotas. The reform brought in significant changes in the industrial structures for exporters from the south, including India. Has the labour‐intensive high‐employment textile and clothing industry in India benefited from this global move towards freer trade? For India, the industry has witnessed unprecedented market concentration of export‐oriented firms. Firm‐level empirical estimate illustrates that workers in the export‐oriented firms in India are adversely affected due to withdrawal of quota. Accumulation of net fixed assets and growth of sales impart positive impact on firm‐level wages that cannot outweigh negative impact due to fall in exports. We also find negative impact of profit on aggregate wage bill for the industry with firms spread over 11 major states in India. We show that the mean deviation of industry‐level wage is positively and significantly associated with mean deviation of the number of factories at the state level and negatively with profit. Finally, a brief analytical exercise obtains conditions under which joint withdrawal of quota and import tariff could raise the aggregate labour income in developing countries, in general.     

Incentive Pay, Worker Effort, and Trade Protection

Positive and normative aspects of trade policy are examined when firms offer incentive pay to workers, such as piece-rate pay and profit sharing, to deal with worker moral hazard. Protection increases the incentive pay rate. Its effect on effort depends upon the degree of labor mobility and the type of the incentive pay. In the presence of a piece-rate pay, protection induces second-order welfare losses. But in the presence of profit sharing, there is a direct impact of protection on the incentive-compatibility constraint facing firms and hence there is a first-order positive effect on welfare.     

Trade and Relative Wage in a Global Economy

The effects of trade among similar countries and that among dissimilar countries on the relative wage are examined. Product quality is a choice variable by firms. Quantity production is assumed to satisfy constant costs, while quality production is more skilled-labor intensive than quantity production and obeys increasing costs. Compared to autarky, free trade, by fostering more competition, leads to quality improvement, which in turn tends to increase the relative wage. Trade among similar countries increases the relative wage in all trading countries, while trade among dissimilar countries, in a two-country model, increases it in one country but may increase or lower it in the other.     

Variance-ratio Statistics and High-frequency Data: Testing for Changes in Intraday Volatility Patterns

Variance-ratio tests are routinely employed to assess the variation in return volatility over time and across markets. However, such tests are not statistically robust and can be seriously misleading within a high-frequency context. We develop improved inference procedures using a Fourier Flexible Form regression framework. The practical significance is illustrated through tests for changes in the FX intraday volatility pattern following the removal of trading restrictions in Tokyo. Contrary to earlier evidence, we find nodiscernible changes outside of the Tokyo lunch period. We ascribe the difference to the fragile finite-sample inference of conventional variance-ratio procedures and a single outlier.     

An Empirical Examination of the Divergence between Managers’ and Analysts’ Earnings Forecasts

We study circumstances when analysts’ forecasts diverge from managers’ forecasts after management guidance, and the consequences of this divergence for investors and analysts. Our results show that investors’ return response to earnings surprises based on analyst forecasts is significantly weaker when analyst and management forecasts diverge, and that this attenuating effect is stronger when the management forecast is more credible. When the divergent management forecast is more accurate than the analyst consensus forecast, the subsequent‐quarter analyst consensus forecast is significantly more accurate than that of the current quarter, and exhibits less serial correlation. Overall, our findings suggest that, when analyst and management forecasts diverge, investors find the two sources to contain complementary information, and analysts learn to improve their subsequent forecasts.