The Calendar Structure of the Japanese Stock Market: The ‘Sell in May Effect’ versus the ‘Dekansho‐bushi Effect’

We report on a seasonal pattern that has persisted in the Japanese stock market for more than half a century: Mean stock returns are significantly positive for months during the first half of the calendar year and significantly negative for months during the second half. Dubbed the Dekansho‐bushi effect, this seasonality is independent of other known calendar anomalies, such as the so‐called January effect. The Dekansho‐bushi effect should be distinguished from the ‘sell in May effect,’ because Japanese stocks perform well in June and poorly in November and December. The Dekansho‐bushi effect varies in magnitude among firms and is particularly significant among small firms with high book‐to‐market ratios. Nonetheless, the effect exists, regardless of a company's size or book‐to‐market ratio.     

Interlinked credit and farm intensification: evidence from Kenya

This paper addresses the potential for interlinked credit/input/output marketing arrangements for particular cash crops to promote food crop intensification. Using panel survey data from Kenya, we estimate a household fixed-effects model of fertiliser use per hectare of food crops, using an instrumental variables approach for addressing the endogeneity of participation in interlinked credit arrangements. Results indicate that households engaging in interlinked marketing programs for selected cash crops applied considerably greater fertiliser on other crops (primarily cereals) not directly purchased by the cash crop trading firm. These findings suggest that, in addition to the direct stimulus that interlinked cash crop marketing arrangements can have on small farmer incomes, these institutional arrangements may provide spill-over benefits for the productivity of farmers' other activities such as food cropping.     

On the Effects of Wage Pressure on the Unemployment Rate and Capital Share

Abstract. The purpose of this paper is to understand the behaviour of the capital share and the unemployment rate in Europe over the past quarter of a century. We consider a model with monopolistic competition, increasing returns and an imperfect labour market, assuming that the elasticity between capital and labour is less than unity. Previous works have generally assumed constant returns to scale. Our results offer an important conclusion, namely that increased wage pressure will increase the unemployment rate and the capital share even though the latter initially decreases, which fits the stylized facts about the studied economies.     

Measuring customer experience in service: A systematic review

The aim of this systematic review is to identify how customer experience in the service sector has been measured in relevant publications in the marketing field. A sample of 33 papers was collected from two electronic databases—the Web of Science (Thomson Reuters) and Scopus (Elsevier)—covering a large number of publications. After analyzing the articles and reviewing the customer experience literature, the following are our main contributions: (i) clarification of the concepts that appear in the literature review of customer experience in the service sector; (ii) classification of the variables, scales, and constructs related to customer experience in service; (iii) demonstration of the service experience as the preponderant construct that is used to measure customer experience in service; and (iv) proposal of a new dimension—the concept of ‘pre-experience’—to measure customer experience in service. These contributions can provide a more solid basis for measuring customer experience in service.     

Public Pension Benefits Claiming Behaviour: new Evidence from the Japanese Study on Ageing and Retirement

The present study explores public pension claiming behaviour among the Japanese elderly. First, we perform financial simulations, estimate expected utility and depict the typical patterns of pension benefits over a lifecycle. We show that a beneficiary's optimal retirement age depends on that beneficiary's mortality risk, discount rate, initial wealth and risk attitude. Second, we use individual‐level data from the Japanese Study on Aging and Retirement (JSTAR) to empirically examine the determinants of claim timing. We find evidence that most of the factors examined in the simulation are, indeed, significantly associated with early claiming among wage earners of pension benefits.     

Overcoming coordination failure using a mechanism based on gradualism and endogeneity

We examine three tools that can enhance coordination success in a repeated multiple-choice coordination game. Gradualism means that the game starts as an easy coordination problem and moves gradually to a more difficult one. The Endogenous Ascending mechanism implies that a gradual increase in the upper bound of coordination occurs only if coordination with the Pareto superior equilibrium in a stage game is attained. The Endogenous Descending mechanism requires that when the game’s participants fail to coordinate, the level of the next coordination game be adjusted such that the game becomes simpler. We show that gradualism may not always work, but in such instances, its effect can be reinforced by endogeneity. Our laboratory experiment provides evidence that a mechanism that combines three tools, herein termed the “Gradualism with Endogenous Ascending and Descending (GEAD)” mechanism, works well. We discuss how the GEAD mechanism can be applied to real-life situations that suffer from coordination failure.     

The associations of soil fertility and market access with household income: Evidence from rural Uganda

This study attempts to identify the major factors affecting farm and nonfarm income by using panel data of 894 rural households, interviewed in 2003 and 2005 in rural Uganda. We supplement the panel data with household-level soil fertility data and road distance data to the nearest urban center on three road types: tarmac, loose-surface, and dirt roads. The results suggest that soil fertility, measured by the soil organic matter (SOM) content, is positively associated with crop income but not with livestock and nonfarm income. We also find that the total road distance to the nearest urban center and the road quality have strong negative associations with the crop income.