THE IMPACT OF LABOR MARKET REGULATION ON EMPLOYMENT IN LOW‐INCOME COUNTRIES: A META‐ANALYSIS

Controversy over labor market policy often centers on achieving a balance between preventing worker exploitation, and avoiding loss of productivity or employment through excessive regulation. Although the literature documenting the impact of labor market regulation on employment is extensive, there is a dearth of evidence on the impact of such policies in low‐income countries (LICs). Since it is easier for workers, especially women, to slip into the informal sector in LICs, regulations are likely to have stronger impacts on formal employment in these countries (but lower impacts on unemployment). We systematically reviewed available research from countries that are, or were until recently, LICs. Most studies document that more stringent labor regulations are associated with lower formal sector employment and higher informal sector employment. We also conducted a metaregression analysis of the impact of minimum wages on formal and informal employment. After controlling for publication bias, higher minimum wages are associated with lower formal employment and a higher share of informal workers.     

An adjustment procedure for predicting systematic risk

This paper looks at the currently available beta adjustment techniques and suggests a multiple root-linear model to adjust for the regression tendency of betas. Our empirical investigate on indicates that cross-sectional betas are not normally distributed, but their distribution tends to normal after a square-root transformation. The evidence from the Box-Cox regression model and the multivariate normality observed among betas after the transformation, make the functional form of our model correct. Also, we observe that the disturbance term of the multiple root-linear model is well behaved. These findings make the ordinary least squares estimates unbiased and efficient. Finally, the mean square and extreme errors are found to be lower when our adjustment procedure is used vis-à-vis the existing procedures.     

Customer loyalty in e-commerce: an exploration of its antecedents and consequences

This paper investigates the antecedents and consequences of customer loyalty in an online business-to-consumer (B2C) context. We identify eight factors (the 8Cs—customization, contact interactivity, care, community, convenience, cultivation, choice, and character) that potentially impact e-loyalty and develop scales to measure these factors. Data collected from 1,211 online customers demonstrate that all these factors, except convenience, impact e-loyalty. The data also reveal that e-loyalty has an impact on two customer-related outcomes: word-of- mouth promotion and willingness to pay more.     

Role of Forgetting in Memory-Based Choice Decisions: A Structural Model

We propose a structural model to investigate the impact of forgetting on consumers' brand choice decisions in frequently purchased products. Forgetting results in consumers imperfectly recalling their prior brand evaluations when making a purchase decision in the category. We conceptualize the imperfect recall by positing that consumers recall their prior evaluations with noise. Based on prior research in the behavioral area, we characterize the extent of forgetting as an increasing and concave function of time. Our framework generates analytical results on the impact of forgetting on consumers' brand evaluations and their consequent purchase behavior. We calibrate our model using scanner panel data for liquid detergents. Furthermore, we obtain insights into the consumers' extent of forgetting in the category, extent of learning, predicted price elasticities and implications on state dependence and habit persistence. Our results underscore the importance of modeling consumers' ability to recall only imperfectly.     

Accountability of independent directors: Evidence from firms subject to securities litigation

We examine which independent directors are held accountable when investors sue firms for financial and disclosure-related fraud. Investors can name independent directors as defendants in lawsuits, and they can vote against their reelection to express displeasure over the directors’ ineffectiveness at monitoring managers. In a sample of securities class action lawsuits from 1996 to 2010, about 11% of independent directors are named as defendants. The likelihood of being named is greater for audit committee members and directors who sell stock during the class period. Named directors receive more negative recommendations from Institutional Shareholder Services, a proxy advisory firm, and significantly more negative votes from shareholders than directors in a benchmark sample. They are also more likely than other independent directors to leave sued firms. Overall, shareholders use litigation along with director elections and director retention to hold some independent directors more accountable than others when firms experience financial fraud.     

The common external tariff of a customs union: Alternative approaches

The most prominent exception to the cardinal ‘most favoured nation’ principle of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) of 1947 is in its Article XXIV relating to Customs Unions (CUs) and Free Trade Areas (FTAs). This article required, first, the general incidence of the duties and regulations of commerce imposed by members of the CU with respect to trade with non-members shall not on the whole be higher or more restrictive than those that were applicable prior to the formation of CU or FTA, and, second, that substantially all the trade among members be free. Neither requirement was very operational, because the phrases ‘general incidence’ and ‘substantially all’ being difficult legal concepts to apply. The agreement of 1994 establishing the World Trade Organization (WTO) has made ‘general incidence’ precise by defining it import-weighted average of height of barriers but without offering any rationale for the definition. Now that preferential trading arrangements such as FTAs are proliferating, reform of Article XXIV is of importance. This paper describes alternative approaches to the central question of common external tariffs of a CU. Taking off from the work of Kemp and Wan who showed the existence of a common external tariff of CU that keeps the welfare of non-members unchanged while revising that of the CU as compared to the situation prior to the formation of CU, it characterizes such a tariff structure for two leading benchmark examples as consumption-weighted average of pre-union tariffs and subsidies in the member countries.     

Effects of offline ad content on online brand search: insights from super bowl advertising

Individuals watch TV shows while simultaneously and/or immediately searching online. Thus, the content of offline TV ads can affect online brand search, a key predictor of sales. Yet there are few insights on the effect of offline ad content on online brand search. We develop hypotheses relating the informational and emotional content of TV ads on online brand search, independently, and in conjunction with two attentional content elements of the ad campaign, prior media publicity and brand website prominence in the TV ad. We test the hypotheses using a quasi-experimental study, the telecast of TV ads on the annual Super Bowl event between 2004 and 2012 (n = 293 observations). We measure online brand search by online brand search lift, i.e., the growth in online brand search following the telecast of the brand’s ad on Super Bowl. The findings indicate that the informational content of the TV ad increases online brand search, while both attentional content elements decrease this effect. We find no support for the effect of emotional content of the TV ad on online brand search. Our findings extend marketing theory on online search and generate managerial implications for designing TV ads to increase online brand search.     

Welfare Effects of Selected Food-grain Policies in India

Government's policy interventions in the market for food-grains affect supply as well as demand. In this paper, the welfare effects of certain food-grain policies are analysed while taking into account the interdependence of the various sectors in the economy. Adequate structure is built into the model in order to study the effects of a dual price structure on farmers' supply response, and also the effects of public distribution schemes on the aggregate demand for food-grains. Policy implications are derived by computing the market clearing prices and their movement under alternative assumptions regarding the nature of the market.