Pricing schemes and market efficiency in private retirement systems

We study the effects of different pricing schemes on the overall surplus in a privately managed retirement system with multiple service providers and switching costs. We develop a theoretical model based on the Chilean retirement system and consider a repeated auction for monopoly rights over new enrollees. We consider a dynamic model solved by pension fund administrators and by consumers. We compare three different pricing schemes: (a) fees on contributions, (b) fees on returns, and (c) a two‐part tariff including an auction over a guaranteed rate of return and allowing the firm to keep a portion of returns generated above this guaranteed rate. We also consider heterogeneity across individuals where agents earn high or low wages and high‐wage customers have proportionally lower switching costs due to more cost‐effective access to financial planning services. We find that auction participants subsidize consumers. We also treat savings as a durable good. In this case, pricing over returns worsens the switching related inefficiencies just described relative to pricing over contributions, despite the better incentives it provides. These inefficiencies can be resolved by allowing firms to price discriminate.     

The Relationships Among Brand Equity,Culinary Attraction,and Foreign Tourist Satisfaction

This study links the concepts of brand equity, culinary attraction, and tourist satisfaction from the perspective of foreign tourists at the night market. Specifically, this study posits that culinary attraction mediates the relationship between brand equity and tourist satisfaction and that the sub dimension of brand image mediates the relationship between brand awareness and utilitarian value. A survey of 456 foreign tourists who have experience with Taiwanese night market tourism is analyzed to test the hypotheses. Mediation tests procedure provides support for the hypotheses, and an extension of structural equation modeling is used to confirm the results of this study.     

The Role of Inbound Tourism in the Singaporean Economy: A Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Assessment

This study has employed recently published input–output (I–O) tables and tourism survey data and built a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model, to assess the role of inbound tourism in the Singaporean economy and thus to reveal its implications for tourism marketing. Compared with the I–O analysis, the CGE modeling takes into account the feedback effect in the economy and thus produces more reliable results. The modeling results show that inbound tourism contributes significantly to the Singaporean economy, but it competes mildly with non-tourism sectors for resources. Although tourism shopping accounts for about half of total tourism expenditure, its economic contribution is much less than that of the tourism service in terms of GDP, employment, household income, and tax revenue. This suggests that, in developing and marketing Singapore as a tourist destination, more efforts are needed to encourage tourism services demand.     

The marketing cube

Today's business professional should consider three dimensions, or success drivers, when devising marketing programmes: profitability, profit potential and likelihood for retention — the ’marketing cube‘. Simply said, the margins on customers who fall into the ’right customer‘ group, as defined by this framework, are too great to ignore. Profit, widely confused with lifetime value, is a fact based on previous behaviour — and many financial service organisations are now calculating revenue minus costs for each customer to determine profit. Profit potential is an estimate of one individual customer's contribution to a company's bottom line. It emerges from a model. The modelled profit less actual is referred to as ’profit opportunity‘.Retention is the third component of the framework, and here there are ways to predict the loss of revenue from customers and implement preventive measures, before this loss even happens. A matrix of these three dimensions can help any financial service marketer build a next most logical product model and business rules that govern a successful customer relationship management (CRM) programme.     

Jurisdictional fragmentation equalizes housing consumption

If a homogeneous tract of land is divided into separate jurisdictions, each containing a different income class, then in equilibrium all residents will consume identical housing, regardless of income. This result depends on the property tax being used to finance the local public sector, and per capita costs of the public good being independent of population. Profit maximization by land developers is also required.     

Teledemocracy from the top

Teledemocracy, the use of new communications and information technology to widen the scope of the public's political participation, is a hot topic. Over the past few years a number of wide-scale teledemocratic experiments have taken place, for example in New Zealand, the State of Washington, and Hawaii, and the idea is being increasingly discussed in the scholarly as well as popular literature.¹ The reasoning behind, and justification for, teledemocracy has been expounded before.² This Comment, however, attacks the problem from a new perspective - where do politicians fit into such a system, and why should they nurture its development?     

The influence of perceived discrimination,orientation to mainstream culture and life satisfaction on destination loyalty intentions: the case of international students

This study examines three psychological phenomena (perceived discrimination, orientation to mainstream culture and life satisfaction) in explaining destination loyalty of international students. A sample of 489, short-term (n?=?174) and long-term (n?=?315) international students completed an online survey. Results from structural equation model-AMOS (analysis of moment structures) indicated that (1) orientation to mainstream culture positively influences destination loyalty intention and (2) orientation to mainstream culture mediates the relationship between perceived discrimination and destination loyalty intention. These results suggest that to facilitate destination loyalty intention, institutions may need to develop a support system that can promote positive cross-cultural adjustment.