Consumption smoothing channels in open economies

Many intertemporal open economy macro models imply a theory of consumption smoothing channels; thus we build an empirical model to analyze the intertemporal smoothing role of saving components (fixed investments, inventories and trade balance) through the use of VAR impulse responses to different types of shocks. We find that for the OECD countries the bulk of intertemporal smoothing has been carried out domestically, via gross fixed investments and inventories, but the trade balance has also played a relevant – albeit volatile – smoothing role. We also characterize the dynamic behavior of each component: the trade balance and inventories are mostly used as short-run smoothing tools while fixed investment provides more and more smoothing over time. We can also address some empirical puzzles, such as the “excess sensitivity of investment” anomaly (Glick, R., Rogoff, K., 1995. Global versus country-specific productivity shocks and the current account. Journal of Monetary Economics, 35, 159–192) and the “saving-investment correlation puzzle” (Feldstein, M., Horioka, C., 1980. Domestic saving and international capital flows. Economic Journal, 90, 314–329).     

Tourists’ online reviews of convention centers

Investigating both the valence of online reviews and convention centers’ performance is an effective approach towards understanding convention center visitors’ needs, wants, and expectations. Understanding convention center experiences from the customer perspective can improve venue services and event products for both convention centers and event organizers in a business-to-business context. This study examined TripAdvisor online reviews using a combined automated and non-automated content analysis to explore the dynamic experiences of convention centers. The dual analysis of qualitative and quantitative characteristics resulted in the identification of key concepts, satisfaction/dissatisfaction factors, center-and event-related complaint issues, and tips/suggestions.     

Foodservice hygiene factors—The consumer perspective

Food safety is important to today's food industry operators as consumers have become increasingly concerned about risks related to food. Unlike foodservice operators or health inspectors, consumers can only rely on the visible cues, particularly those associated with food hygiene to judge the level of food safety in eating establishments. While previous research highlighted the influence of foodservice hygiene perception on consumer dining out decision, study examining the constructs of food safety cues that consumers employed is scant. This research aims to bridge the gap by exploring the topic from the consumer perspective. Results indicate that foodservice hygiene is one of the top three considerations when consumers select a dining place. Results of confirmatory factor analysis reveal a four-factor model encompasses staff and handling, food and location, premise and practices, and scent aspects. Further substantiation in different settings is needed for generalization purpose.     

Empirical regularity in academic research productivity patterns in marketing

In any academic discipline, published articles in their respective journals represent “production units” of scientific knowledge, and bibliometric distributions reflect the patterns in this productivity across authors or “producers”. We use a comprehensive data set from 11 leading marketing journals to examine whether there is any empirical regularity in the patterns of research productivity in the marketing literature. Our results present strong evidence that there is indeed a distinct empirical regularity. It is the so-called generalized Lotka's Law of patterns in scientific productivity: the number of authors publishing n papers is approximately 1/n^c of those publishing one paper. We find the empirically estimated value of the exponent c to be 2.05 for the overall bibliometric data across the leading marketing journals. For individual journals, the estimated values of c range from 2.15 to 2.83, with lower values indicating higher authorship concentration levels. We also find that variations in authorship concentration levels across journals and over time are driven by a journal's maturity, its topical focus, its attractiveness as a publication outlet, the characteristics of its review process, and the extent of author collaboration present in the journal. We discuss the general implications of our findings.     

Reversal of gender gaps in child development: Evidence from young children in India

This paper provides unique evidence of a reversal of gender gaps in cognitive development in early childhood. We find steep caste and gender gradients and few substantive changes once children enter school. The gender gap, however, reverses its sign for the upper caste, with girls performing better than boys at age 5 but thereafter following the general pattern in India of boys performing better.     

Understanding Airline Travelers’ Perceptions of Well-Being: The Role of Cognition,Emotion, and Sensory Experiences in Airline Lounges

This study investigated the relationships among cognition, emotion, sensory, well-being perception, satisfaction, word-of-mouth, and intention to revisit airline lounges. Results of the structural analysis revealed that travelers’ overall perceptions of well-being were more dependent on the cognitive and sensory dimensions of the lounge experience, and cognitive evaluation was more influential than sensory evaluation in enhancing this perception of well-being. Our results indicated that travelers’ perceived well-being with regard to the airline lounge experience induced high levels of satisfaction. Moreover, it was identified that this perception of well-being was not enough to generate travelers’ positive word-of-mouth, but it did ensure their repatronage.     

Emerging Asia: Decoupling or Recoupling

In this paper, we investigate the degree of real economic interdependence between emerging East Asian and major industrial countries to shed light on the heated debate over the ‘decoupling’ of emerging East Asia. We first document the evolution of macroeconomic interdependence for emerging East Asian economies through changing trade and financial linkages at both the regional and global levels. Then, by employing a panel vector autoregression (VAR) model, we estimate the degree of real economic interdependence before and after the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis. Empirical findings show that real economic interdependence increased significantly in the post‐crisis period, suggesting ‘recoupling’, rather than decoupling, in recent years. Output shocks from major industrial countries have a significant positive effect on emerging East Asian economies. More interestingly, the reverse is also true. Output shocks from emerging East Asia (and China) have a significant positive effect on output in major industrial countries. The result suggests that macroeconomic interdependence between emerging East Asia and industrial countries have become ‘bi‐directional’, defying the traditional notion of the ‘North–South relationship’ as one of ‘uni‐directional’ dependence.     

Nominal Revaluation of Cross-Border Assets,Terms-of-Trade Changes,International Portfolio Diversification,and International Risk Sharing

Using a simple theoretical model, I suggest that the nominal revaluation of cross-border assets (the international wealth redistribution through the changes in nominal variables) may work as an international risk-sharing mechanism at the aggregate level. Then, I empirically examine three risk-sharing channels: the nominal revaluation of cross-border assets, the terms-of-trade channel suggested by Cole and Obstfeld (1991), and cross-border security ownership (international portfolio diversification). Empirical results suggest that the nominal revaluation hedges country-specific consumption risks at the aggregate level but that the other two channels do not. The results have interesting implications on international risk-sharing and exchange rate regime comparison.     

Attitude towards fashion advertisements with political content: impacts of opinion leadership and perception of advertisement message

Fashion advertisements with political content are unique in that they go against the accepted strategy of advertising. As fashion advertisements with political content become more prevalent, consumers’ reactions to them become an important subject of research. This study examines consumers’ attitudes towards fashion advertisements with political content with respect to fashion and political opinion leadership, political views, perception of advertisement message and product attitude. Results showed that attitude towards advertisements with political content was influenced significantly by the viewer's political views and agreement with the advertisement message, but not by political opinion leadership. Fashion opinion leadership influenced product attitude only for advertisements without political content. The viewers’ advertisement attitudes were carried over to product attitudes regardless of the presence of political message.