Tariffs,Efficiency Wages and Unemployment

The present model embeds a model of intra-industry trade into a labour market, which is characterised by efficiency wages. It is shown that tariff protection of the import competing, home produced brands, may cause the equilibrium unemployment rate to shoot up and instead of protecting the sector may cause it to contract. This is possible when elasticity of demand is high and firms have less market power and thus, protectionist effect of tariffs may get completely reversed.     

Does international tourism affect international trade and economic growth? The Indian experience

This study attempts to investigate the relationship between international tourism, trade, and economic growth in India over the period from April 1991 to July 2012. To account for potential asymmetries in the relationship, we make use of new asymmetric Granger-causality tests and frequency analysis. We show that there is bidirectional Granger-causality between trade and tourism in positive components, whereas unidirectional Granger-causality runs from tourism to trade for negative components. Moreover, we find evidence of bidirectional Granger-causality between economic growth and tourism in positive components, but unidirectional Granger-causality running from economic growth to tourism for negative components. On the other hand, the results from frequency analysis provide evidence of Granger-causality between trade and tourism, and also between economic growth and tourism, at different frequency bands.     

Sustainability and branding: An integrated perspective

Sustainability is increasingly drawing the attention of scholars, policy makers, and companies, as the latter are recognizing the necessity and opportunities of implementing sustainable practices in their operations. Marketing plays a substantial role in both applying such initiatives and promoting them, which can be greatly supported through brands. We suggest that firms can use their brands to promote the value of sustainability to their industrial customers, consumers, and other stakeholders. This may be achieved through branding activities that emphasize the firm's sustainability practices and their impact on stakeholders. Expressing sustainability actions as the measurable and relatable outcomes they yield and associating them with brands have the potential to further facilitate this integration of sustainability and branding. A framework and guidelines for sustainability practices that may be employed in this process of integrating operations and marketing are discussed.     

On the Use of Intra-Industry Information to Improve Earnings Forecasts

We investigate whether earnings forecasts are improved by earlier earnings disclosures by firms in the same industry. We find improvements for time series forecasts, but not for analysts' forecasts. Considering prior earnings announcements reduces correlations between forecast errors and security price reactions to earnings announcements, even when incorporating these announcements improves forecast accuracy. Our explanation for this anomaly, which is supported by additional analysis, is that intra-industry information facilitates predicting transitory, rather than permanent, earnings components. The question of whether information transfers improve earnings forecasts provides the context for the analysis, but the primary contribution is the documentation of intra-industry information transfers in a setting other than capital markets.