Market Conditions and Housing Choices: A Comparison of Homeownership Across Three Decades

This article uses information on out‐of‐pocket housing cost and house price appreciation along with the geo‐coded version of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to consider the differences in the impact of these and other variables on the tenure choices of sample households across three time periods, the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s. Specifically, an extended continuous time probability model is used to examine households' transitions from renting to owning and subsequent possible transitions either back to rental tenure or to another owned home during our three observation periods. Coefficient estimates show that financial variables such as house price appreciation and out‐of‐pocket housing cost play an important role in determining all the transitions. In addition, the analysis demonstrates the interesting result that the cumulative likelihoods of homeownership derived from the model are consistently lower than the probabilities of an initial transition to homeownership from rental tenure during the observation period. Finally, the magnitude and timing of the impact on homeownership of a policy experiment that eliminates the mortgage interest deduction are shown to differ substantially across the three decades.     

Cross-national adoption of private food quality standards

Retailer initiated food quality standards are important elements to market food and agricultural products. However, farmers’ certification proceeds at an unequal speed worldwide with some countries representing a large number of certified producers and others representing very few, if any. This study aims at analysing the adoption of two private food standards, BRC Food Technical Standard and GlobalGAP, at an aggregated cross-country level using data of 2007. Negative binomial models are applied to quantify the determinants of standards’ spread at an aggregated level. The results of the econometric analysis reveal some (potential) barriers for farms and firms in developing countries to access this type of organisational innovation. Certificates of both standards seem to be issued more likely in countries with established trade relations with Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, home countries of the standards. Furthermore, larger countries and countries with better institutional quality host more certified firms. Finally, a country’s level of economic development displays a clear non-monotonic relationship to the number of certified enterprises. Although no evidence for a general exclusion of developing countries can be found, the main implication of this paper is that third-party certification for export purposes seems to reinforce already existing trade relations, potentially hampering new entrants.     

Supplier integration in new product development: Computer mediated communication,knowledge exchange and buyer performance

In new product development (NPD), the buyer–supplier relationship is changing. Suppliers are becoming an integral part of the design team. This study investigates the effectiveness of computer-mediated and face-to-face communication channels on knowledge exchange between buyer and supplier firms, and ultimately buyer NPD and market performance. Open innovation literature and media richness theory are used to develop hypotheses which are then empirically tested using data collected from 157 R&D project managers from U.S. manufacturing firms. To date, empirical studies on the link between supplier integration and buyer performance show conflicting results. Structural equation modeling found a significant positive link between knowledge exchange and NPD performance, measured both in terms of effectiveness and efficiency, and a significant positive link between effective and efficient NPD and market performance. A surprising finding is that contrary to media richness theory, email can perform like face-to-face communication transmitting rich information and having a positive relationship to knowledge exchange between buyer and supplier. It was also found that with face-to-face communication, knowledge exchange fully mediates the relationship with effective NPD while with email communication knowledge exchange fully mediates the relationship with efficient NPD. Video conferencing was found to have no significant effect on knowledge exchange and the effect of web-based tools was significant and negative. The implications of these findings in theory and practice are discussed.     

Determinants of idea sharing in crowdsourcing: evidence from the automotive industry

Drawing on external ideas through crowdsourcing has become common practice for firms that seek to improve and extend their product portfolios. As these initiatives often address the users of products, it is essential for firms to recognize those attributes that determine these individuals' willingness to share their ideas. This study takes the example of the automotive industry to examine how three attributes of car drivers determine their sharing behavior – that is, altruism, psychological ownership of ideas, and trust in car manufacturers. Our findings suggest that trust and altruism strengthen idea sharing, while psychological ownership weakens it. Furthermore, we find that car drivers' perception of sharing‐related risk acts as an important boundary condition for these relationships.     

Poaching and Firm‐Sponsored Training

A series of seminal papers argues that poaching hampers company‐sponsored general training. Empirically, however, the existence and extent of poaching remain open questions. We provide a novel empirical strategy to identify poaching. We find that only few apprenticeship training firms in Germany are ‘poaching victims’ or ‘poaching raiders’. Victims are more likely to be in a temporary downturn and raiders are more likely to be growing. Victims hardly change their training strategy after poaching and poaching seems be a transitory event. This is an important result for countries that intend to introduce apprenticeship‐type training and need to convince firms to participate in training.     

Incubation matters: Measuring the effect of business incubators on the innovation performance of start‐ups

This article explores the role of business incubators on the innovation performance of start‐ups; in addition, we also investigate how the incubation effect moderates other important factors driving their innovation performance. The empirical evidence comes from a sample of firms located in Northern Italy belonging to the manufacturing (mechanical engineering firms) and service sectors (knowledge‐intensive business services). The results suggest that the incubation effect is very important in shaping the innovation performance of new ventures (measured as a percentage of sales of new‐to‐market innovations). Moreover, it positively moderates the impact of (1) the internal technical capabilities and (2) the adoption of a limited portfolio of collaborations for innovation.     

Commuting Costs and Geographic Sorting in the Housing Market

The demand for housing is heavily influenced by access to employment opportunities. The cost of gasoline determines, in part, the cost of such access and therefore the relative demand across markets with varying commuting needs. Locally exogenous gasoline price movements demonstrate the causal impact of higher fuel costs on housing markets: a shift of market demand toward real estate markets with less costly commutes. Higher fuel prices increase the value of real estate with shorter commutes and easier access to driving alternatives relative to more driving dependent homes. Every incremental $1 per gallon of gasoline reduces home values by 0.143% for every additional mile relative to counterfactual markets, or $5,200 for the average home and commute. This translates into a discount rate of 6.4%, comparable to mortgage rates for the period.     

Geographical aspects of state travel marketing in the USA

Almost all of the formal Federal and state government involvement in domestic travel marketing in the United States has been undertaken by state travel offices. Of particular interest to the geographer are state-to-state variations in the size and activities of these travel offices. In this discussion, differences in the total budgets of state travel offices are presented and compared to differences in state population and domestic travel expenditures by state. A three-fold classification of state travel marketing strategies with a geographical basis is then introduced. While the overall discussion provides some explanation for the differences observed, the conclusion is reached that political and other considerations regarding state travel offices are too subtle to be explained by just a few variables.