Helping behavior in a virtual crisis situation: effects of safety awareness and crisis communication

Incident evaluations show that bystanders tend to help: they do not wait for professionals to arrive, but act as required by the situation at hand. In the present study, we investigated how safety awareness (induced before an accident happened) and providing a course of action by emergency services affect helping behavior after witnessing a virtual accident with two victims. The main task of the participants was to arrive at a job interview in time. Safety awareness was manipulated by the specific organization they went to: either promoting safe traffic or healthy living. The results show that all participants were inclined to help. Participants who were primed towards safe traffic more often called the emergency number, but talked to the victim less often. Participants who had received specific courses of action moved the victim less often. In all, the results clearly indicate the value of effective risk communication (before an event occurs) and crisis communication (after an event has occurred), as both types of information improve the quality of actual helping behavior at the scene.     

Non-monetary sales promotion effects on credit cards

This study fills an important gap in the literature by exploring the effects of the attractiveness of a non-monetary promotion with premiums on credit card purchase intention and brand selection. Two experimental studies involving 386 undergraduates were done. Non-monetary sales promotions with attractive premiums have a positive influence on the credit card purchase intention, compared to non-monetary sales promotions with unattractive premiums. On brand choice, non-monetary sales promotions with attractive premiums increase the likelihood of brand choice promoted. Premiums attractiveness is an important variable in the evaluation of a promotional offer that aims to increase the intention purchase and motivate the selection of brand. This study helps managers in choosing the types of premiums that are valued by consumers in a promotion. Most of the studies explore monetary promotions, while this study contributes to literature by exploring the gap about the effects of non-monetary sales promotions on purchase intention and brand selection, especially in the bank services environment.     

Waves and Determinants in Mergers and Acquisitions: The Case of Latin America

This article contributes to the current literature on mergers and acquisitions (M&As) by identifying the existence of waves and the determinants of M&A activity in the economies of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. From a sample of 2,391 M&A announcements reported by Thomson One on these countries, applying the methodology proposed by Harford (2005), evidence of M&A waves is found for the periods 1995–2002 and 2003–2010, as reported for other regions in various international studies. After controlling for economic and business environment variables, as well as for profitability and book-to-market variables at the industry level, we find evidence that supports neoclassical theory as a main explanation for M&A activity but not for the misvaluation effect.     

Stock markets fragmentation,volatility and final investors

The 2000s in equity markets are marked by two major regulatory shocks: RegNMS in the United States, and MiFID in the European Union. Simultaneously, there is a massive increase in the proportion of high-frequency trading, and market orders volume. However, trading volumes do not significantly increase. We propose a theoretical model describing the effects of stock markets fragmentation on two types of investors optimization problems: “intermediary” high-frequency and “final” investors. Volatility has a permanent and a transitory component, whose weights depend on market fragmentation via the share of non-marketable orders of intermediary investors. The trading volume of final investors depends on market fragmentation both directly via transaction costs, and indirectly via total volatility. Finally a shock in fragmentation may lead to a decrease in trading volume, enhanced in the case of an equity markets crisis by a rise in the components of volatility.     

Migrant Remittances Provide Resilience Against Disasters in Africa

How responsive are migrant remittances to various disasters, both natural and human-made? Would remittances be affected by systemic financial crises, such as the 2008–09 financial crisis, or more recent crises affecting the Eurozone? Using panel data on 23 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries from 1980 to 2007, we find that remittances are slow to respond to natural disasters, unresponsive to outbreaks of conflict, and will slowly decline following a systemic financial crisis. This suggests that, given its stability, remittances are sources of resilience in SSA.     

Healthcare costs of stroke and major bleeding in patients with atrial fibrillation treated with non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants

Objective: To assess long-term healthcare costs related to ischemic stroke and systemic embolism (stroke/SE) and major bleeding (MB) events in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) treated with non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants (NOACs).

Materials and methods: Optum’s Clinformatics Data Mart database from 1/2009–12/2016 was analyzed. Adult patients with ≥1 stroke/SE hospitalization (index date) were matched 1:1 to patients without stroke/SE (random index date), based on propensity scores. Patients with an MB event were matched to patients without MB. All patients had an NOAC dispensing overlapping index date, ≥12?months of eligibility pre-index date, and ≥1 NVAF diagnosis. The observation period spanned from the index date until the earliest date of death, switch to warfarin, end of insurance coverage, or end of data availability. Mean costs were evaluated: (1) per-patient-per-year (PPPY) and (2) at 1, 2, 3, and 4?years using Lin's method.

Results: The cost differences were, respectively, $48,807 and $28,298 PPPY for NOAC users with stroke/SE (n?=?1,340) and those with MB (n?=?3,774) events compared to controls. Cost differences of patients with vs without stroke/SE were $49,876, $51,627, $57,822, and $60,691 at 1, 2, 3, and 4?years post-index, respectively (p?p?Limitations: Limitations include unobserved confounders, coding and/or billing inaccuracies, limited sample sizes over longer follow-up, and the under-reporting of mortality for deaths occurring after 2011.

Conclusions: The incremental healthcare costs incurred by patients with vs without stroke/SE was nearly twice as high as those of patients with vs without MB. Moreover, each additional year up to 4?years after the first event was associated with an incremental cost for patients with a stroke/SE or MB event compared to those without an event.     

NOUVEL ESSOR DES FONDATIONS AU QUÉBEC ET AU CANADA: POUR UNE ANALYSE SOCIOPOLITIQUE FONDÉE SUR LE CONCEPT D'ÉCONOMIE PLURIELLE

Philanthropic foundations are the object of little research in Canada and Quebec. Our article recognizes the role of these organizations, as well as the presence of powerful new foundations, rich in assets and donations. This article consists of three parts. The first part presents a theoretical review of the American literature published from 2000 on. The second part examines data that we extracted from three main repertoires. Though informative, these repertoires tend to classify Canadian and Quebec foundations in categories that are mostly fiscal and legal and tend to break them down as public or private foundations. We therefore question the limits of studies based on such categories. In the third part of the article we propose a theoretical framework based on a sociopolitical point of view in an attempt to transcend the binary approach. Our approach borrows from the concepts of social and solidarity economy (SSE) and plural economy in order to better understand the new institutional arrangements in which foundations operate. This theoretical framework allows us to analyse foundations as actors of the SSE even though they might not reproduce automatically the principles and the values of the SSE in their behaviours. On the contrary, from the standpoint of a plural economy we may be in a better position to develop a sound sociopolitical analysis of diverse configurations and hybrid forms resulting from emulations or transactions between the principles of the social and solidarity economy (reciprocity), the private economy (competition) and the public economy (redistribution).     

Students' persistent preconceptions and learning economic principles

Economic views held by the general public tend to differ significantly from those of economic experts. Would these differences fade away if people were exposed to some economic instruction? In this article, the authors identify college students' preconceptions about economic issues at the beginning of the semester, verify their persistence throughout the semester, and test whether their beliefs are correlated to course performance. The authors conduct a survey at the beginning and end of the semester on a sample of first-year students taking an economic principles course. They find evidence of preconception persistence and reasoning inconsistencies, pointing to some cognitive biases as a plausible cause. Most students do not integrate the newly learned tools into their thinking process, even if they perform well in tests.     

Making Chile Visible: Purposes,Operationalisation and Audiences from the Perspective of Nation Branding Practitioners

Chile has become the paradigm of nation branding in Latin America, employing branding initiatives to try to shake off the uncomfortable past of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, as well as to create a ‘new’ image that fits into a globalised and neoliberal world. Whilst there has previously been some analysis of Chile’s branding efforts, the viewpoints of the local actors involved in these initiatives have largely been ignored. This article addresses this issue, examining the tensions faced by different individuals who have taken part in nation branding in the country. Drawing on interviews with some of these individuals, this article examines three areas of tension: (1) the conflicting purposes guiding the practice of nation branding, (2) the difficulties around the operationalisation of nation branding and (3) the controversies regarding the intended audiences for their efforts.