Issues in Marketing Online Insurance Products: An Exploratory Look at Agents' Use, Attitudes, and Views of the Impact of the Internet

This article uses a survey of insurance agents in Florida to examine the manner in which insurance agents use and view the Internet as a method of marketing insurance products. The results of the survey suggest that the agents’ use of the Web and their attitudes toward the Web do not vary by demographic characteristics (including age, education level, gender, and income). In addition, the agents’ perception of the Internet as a threat (rather than an opportunity) does not vary by age or education level and is not correlated with their attitudes toward the use of the Web. However, while Internet marketing and other means of direct selling are viewed by the agents as equal threats to their sales, the agents believe that such marketing by other companies is a greater threat than that done by the companies they represent.     

Modeling Conditional Yield Densities

Given the increasing interest in agricultural risk, many have sought improved methods to characterize conditional crop-yield densities. While most have postulated the Beta as a flexible alternative to the Normal, others have chosen nonparametric methods. Unfortunately, yield data tends not to be sufficiently abundant to invalidate many reasonable parametric models. This is problematic because conclusions from economic analyses, which require estimated conditional yield densities, tend not to be invariant to the modeling assumption. We propose a semiparametric estimator that, because of its theoretical properties and our simulation results, enables one to empirically proceed with a higher degree of confidence.     

Animating the Pioneer versus Late Entrant Debate: An Historic Case Study

This paper examines the debate about whether early entrants/pioneers to an industry enjoy long–term advantage over their successors. While most of the research suggests that pioneers are advantaged, there are methodological problems with these studies that tend to enhance the likelihood that pioneers will be found to be more successful. Through a case study of the US animation industry, it is shown that being a late entrant was almost certainly advantageous to some of the companies concerned. The paper explores the reasons why some late entrants prevailed over others and some of the mechanisms that allowed late entrants to overcome pioneers. The factors involved in survival relative to pioneers include the limited protection of patents, complacency, the mobility of staff with expertise in a new technology (in this case cel animation), and the neglected importance of managerial and organizational factors. It is shown that the findings also have implications for the population ecology approach.     

Speculative attack against the Hungarian forint

In mid-January 2003 a severe speculative attack was launched against the exchange rate of the Hungarian forint. The attack was very unusual in the history of foreign exchange speculations, since it was aimed at enforcing the appreciation — and not the depreciation — of the currency targeted. The specific nature of this kind of speculation is closely related to Hungary’s accession to the European Union in general and to EMU in particular. Since the other Central and Eastern European acceding countries face similar problems and challenges, the Hungarian experience may involve some instructive lessons on monetary and economic policy for them too.