Family environment,educational aspiration and performance in St. Vincent

Father-absence occurs with unusual frequency among people of African descent in the Caribbean. Yet concern over possibly harmful effects of this condition to children and society which is most obvious in the United States is not informed by scientific findings from this region. The present study yielded no evidence that father-absence retards the aspiration or performance of secondary school students in St. Vincent, West Indies, although twelve different groupings of the available cases were analyzed. Findings from this and some American studies suggest that father-absence is not harmful if it is not strongly condemned by the culture with which youths identify.     

The Influence of Food Expenditure on Tourist Response to Festival Tourism: Expenditure Perspective

Festival tourism, which combines the theme of a festival with the local characteristics of an area, has become an extremely attractive marketing method in recent years. In addition, local food and beverages are items that many visitors enjoy consuming and that can become attractions in their own right. The aims of this study are: (a) based on expenditure theory, to explore how spending on food and beverages and other items such as accommodations and transportation influences intentions to revisit and make positive recommendation; and (b) to examine whether or not tourists with different lifestyles use or experience different sources of information, evaluation criteria and travel expenses. A questionnaire survey was conducted using visitors to the 2009 Penghu Sea fireworks festival, and 308 valid samples were collected. The results were as follows. First, food and beverages had a significant positive influence on revisit and recommendation intentions. Second, the total expenditure on a tourist visit had a significantly negative effect on revisit and recommendation intentions. Third, there were statistically significant differences with regard to information searching, evaluation criteria and tourism expenditure among tourists with different lifestyles. Based on these results, we can conclude that food and beverage expenditure during festival tourism is an important factor in whether or not tourists plan to revisit an area and recommend it to others. The findings also show that more tourists can be attracted if festivals are well suited to local conditions and characteristics (such as the availability of seafood in the example examined in this work).     

Consumers’ collision insurance decisions: a mental models approach to theory evaluation

Using interviews with 74 drivers, we elicit and analyze how people think about collision insurance coverage and decide whether to buy coverage, and if so, what deductible level to carry. We compare respondents’ judgments and behaviors to predictions of three models: baseline expected utility (EU) theory, which predicts that insurance is an inferior good, meaning more wealthy people buy less; a modified EU model, which incorporates income constraints and suggests that property insurance is a normal good, meaning more wealthy people buy more; and a mental accounting model which predicts that consumers budget income across consumption categories. The results suggest they purchase insurance as a normal good, guided by a cognitive model that emphasizes budget constraints. Verbal reports reveal a desire to balance two conflicting goals in deductible decisions: keeping premiums ‘affordable’ and keeping deductible level ‘affordable.’ Thus, wealth does not distinguish people by risk aversion, but by ability to pay. In other words, the behavior of less wealthy people is not driven by greater risk aversion, but by their lesser ability to pay, both now and later. We find that a simple heuristic using only vehicle value accounts for most decisions of whether to purchase optional collision coverage: out of 45 respondents who did not have loans on their vehicles, 90% of those with vehicles worth more than $1000 carried collision coverage, while less than 30% of those with lower‐valued vehicles did.     

The executive compensation implications of the tax component of earnings

We extend prior research by examining the weight applied to earnings generated by changes in ETRs (i.e., the tax component of earnings) in determining CEO and CFO compensation. We examine both bonus and total compensation and find that the predicted relationships between compensation and the tax component of earnings are largely limited to bonus compensation. This is not surprising since bonus compensation represents an unambiguous link between contemporaneous performance and compensation, while equity compensation is in part determined by agency considerations. Our evidence suggests that both CEOs and CFOs are compensated for the tax component of earnings. We find that CEOs are rewarded equally for the tax component of earnings relative to other components of earnings, while CFOs are rewarded more for the tax component of earnings relative to other components of earnings. Additionally, the weight applied to the tax component of earnings when determining CFO bonus compensation is greater when; (1) the tax component of earnings does not appear to be related to earnings management; (2) ETRs decrease rather than increase, (3) the firm pays bonus based on after-tax earnings rather than pre-tax earnings, and (4) the firm is tax aggressive rather than non-tax aggressive. The variations in the weighting of the tax component of earnings for CFO bonus compensation noted above in combination with evidence that CEO bonus compensation is indifferent to ETR-related earnings versus other components of earnings, suggests that the tax component of earnings is a contractual component of CFO bonus compensation.     

Project 1990: educational planning at the metropolitan level

The fragmentation of metropolitan areas into large numbers of relatively small school districts has rendered long range educational planning highly unreliable when conducted at the district level. This article discusses a cooperative planning venture which was undertaken by the forty school districts in the Buffalo, New York metropolitan area. The planning organization is described and the general procedures for making student population projections, expenditure projections and revenue projections are reported. Although the article focuses on methodology, findings of general interest are reported including organizational alternatives which were generated. The project was financed with funds appropriated under Title III of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.     

Income disclosure and consumer judgment in a multilevel marketing experiment

Consumer protection concerns have been raised related to income misrepresentation in multilevel marketing (MLM) recruitment. Though not required by law, some MLM firms choose to voluntarily disclose income information about previous participants. Through replication and extension of the experiment created in Bosley, Greenman, and Snyder (2020), we investigate the impact of these disclosures on consumer interest and earnings expectations. We test the external validity of their findings with subjects from Mechanical Turk and explore issues regarding treatment heterogeneity and better-than-average bias. Supporting prior findings, we present evidence that income disclosures, on average, do not significantly affect subjects' interest in the MLM opportunity, but they do decrease earnings estimates for most while increasing earnings estimates for a few. These effects depend on a subject's numeracy skills and whether they see their earnings potential as better-than-average. We also find that asking about earnings estimates first tends to decrease interest.     

Managing heritage attractions: marketing challenges at sensitive historical sites

Historical sites now feature strongly as sites of visitation. However, such sites are often connected with historical events, which are sensitive to visitors and thus highly contentious when utilised in the development of tourism. The paper, from the perspective of the visitor, examines some of the critical issues that generally determine the nature of visitation at sensitive historical sites. The issues identified are the visitor's emotional state at the site, prior expectations of the site and what is to be learnt and perception of site presentation and interpretation. They also include the primary visitor objective to learn about the site, the ease with which access to the site can be obtained and the existence of social experiences between relevant visitor groups that may be extended to the site. The issues identified place significant challenges on how marketers communicate with potential visitors and other stakeholders of the site and require the marketing function to take cognisance of the different emotional states of visitors. Similarly, the nature of the packaging of the site, the channels of visitor access to be encouraged and how pricing is to be used as a marketing tool in a way that it is appropriate for the different groups of visitors to the site, all present unique marketing challenges. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.