Are your students absent,not absent,or present? Mindfulness and student performance

The concept of mindfulness has received significant attention in recent years as the effects of ubiquitous distractions become more apparent in the workplace and in education. This study examines the relationship between three measures of mindfulness and student performance among a sample of 922 students in introductory economics classes from two large public universities. The authors’ measures of mindfulness include general dispositional mindfulness levels, frequency of mobile device usage during class as a measure of classroom mindfulness, and frequency of test anxiety as a measure of assessment mindfulness. The results show a positive association between all three measures of mindfulness and overall performance. The association between dispositional mindfulness and performance was greater for female students and students with lower grade point averages.     

Productivity spillovers from foreign multinationals and trade protection: firm‐level analysis of Vietnamese manufacturing

This paper examines how the presence of foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) affects productivity in domestic private firms in Vietnamese manufacturing in 2005–10. The paper also examines how import protection has affected these productivity spillovers and how spillovers from wholly foreign MNEs and joint ventures differ. The most consistent result suggests wholly foreign MNEs impart negative spillovers while joint ventures tend to generate positive spillovers. Theory and random effects estimates also indicate that import protection reduces local firm productivity and weakens the effect of spillovers from all MNEs; but this result is not obtained when a fixed effects estimator is used. Results are similar in samples of labour‐intensive industries, which include close to three fourths of all sample firms, but differ markedly for more capital‐intensive groups.     

Effects of $9 Price Endings on Retail Sales: Evidence from Field Experiments

Although the use of $9 price endings is widespread amongst US retailers there is little evidence of their effectiveness. In this paper, we present a series of three field-studies in which price endings were experimentally manipulated. The data yield two conclusions. First, use of a $9 price ending increased demand in all three experiments. Second, the increase in demand was stronger for new items than for items that the retailer had sold in previous years. There is also some evidence that $9 price endings are less effective when retailers use Sale cues. Together, these results suggest that $9-endings may be more effective when customers have limited information, which may in turn help to explain why retailers do not use $9 price endings on every item.     

A Guadagni–Little Likelihood Can Have Multiple Maxima

Despite many advances in marketing models, the Guadagni–Little (1983) model is still in widespread use by both practitioners and academics. For many new marketing models, the Guadagni–Little model serves as a benchmark. The key variable that allows the Guadagni–Little model to accurately fit data is the loyalty variable, which is an exponential smoothing of past purchases. In this paper, I show that inclusion of this variable in the logit model may result in a likelihood function that can have multiple maxima. I am able to demonstrate this using simulated data and actual household scanner panel data. In addition, I document a systematic relationship between the loyalty coefficient and the loyalty smoothing parameter. Insight for this systematic relationship and the multiple maxima is obtained by recognizing a trade-off between capturing household heterogeneity and state dependence. Finally, in the Guadagni–Little model extreme parameter values capture two different idealized forms of consumer behavior. However, reported studies rarely find these extreme parameter values. I show that procedures commonly used to initialize loyalty biases against these extreme parameter values. This bias offers some explanation for the observed empirical regularity in Guadagni–Little parameter estimates and suggests that researchers should be cautious concluding these parameters capture regularity in consumer behavior.     

Modeling Marketing Dynamics by Time Series Econometrics

This paper argues that time-series econometrics provides valuable tools and opens exciting research opportunities to marketing researchers. It allows marketing researchers to advance traditional modeling and estimation approaches by incorporating dynamic processes to answer new important research questions. The authors discuss the challenges facing time-series modelers in marketing, provide an overview of recent methodological developments and several applications, and highlight fruitful areas for future research. This discussion is based on the First Annual Conference on Modeling Marketing Dynamics by Time Series Econometrics at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA on September 16–17, 2004.Insights from the First Annual Conference, Tuck School of Business at DartmouthThis revised version was published online in May 2005 with a corrected cover date.     

Administrative Compensation and Organizational Performance in Texas Nursing Facilities

This study examines the link between compensation and performance by comparing profit-seeking versus nonprofit nursing homes in Texas. Using both cost and profit functions to measure facility performance, that is, resource allocation efficiency by firm management, we find that: (1) the highest paid administrators (profit-seekers) are also the most efficient allocators of firm resources; (2) rural administrators are paid more than their urban counterparts but there is no significant difference in their overall ability to allocate resources; and (3) chain administrators are not compensated more than independent administrators yet are significantly superior in resource allocation. Further, management compensation is strongly influenced by firm size and capacity utilization. These results provide very weak support for the agency theorist's pay/performance paradigm.     

Defaults, Framing and Privacy: Why Opting In-Opting Out1

Differences in opt-in and opt-out responses are an important element of the current public debate concerning on-line privacy and more generally for permission marketing. We explored the issue empirically. Using two on-line experiments we show that the default has a major role in determining revealed preferences for further contact with a Web site. We then explore the origins of these differences showing that both framing and defaults have separate and additive effects in affecting the construction of preferences.     

Choice in Computer-Mediated Environments

In the last several years, the increased diffusion of computer andtelecommunications technologies in businesses and homes has produced newways for organizations to connect with their customers. These computermediated environments (CMEs) such as the World Wide Web raise new researchquestions. In this paper, we examine the potential research issuesassociated with CMEs in five areas: (1) decision processes, (2) advertisingand communications, (3) brand choice, (4) brand communities, and (5)pricing.     

Price competition with repeat, loyal buyers

Extant theoretical models suggest that greater consumer loyalty increases a firm’s market power and leads to higher prices and fewer price promotions (Klemperer, Quarterly Journal of Economics 102(2):375–394, 1987a, Economic Journal 97(0):99–177, 1987b, Review of Economic Studies 62(4):515–539, 1995; Padilla, Journal of Economic Theory 67(2):520–530, 1995). However, in some markets large, national brands that are able to generate more consumer loyalty than their rivals offer lower prices and promote more frequently. In this paper, we develop a two-period game-theoretic, asymmetric duopoly model in which firms differ in their ability to retain repeat, loyal buyers. In this market, we demonstrate that it is optimal for a firm that generates more loyalty to offer a lower average price and promote more frequently than a weaker competitor. Numerical analysis of a more general infinite period version of this asymmetric model leads to three additional results. First, we show that there is an inverted-U relationship between a weak firm’s ability to attract repeat, loyal consumers and strong firm profits. Second, we show that the relative ability of firms to attract repeat buyers affects whether serial and contemporaneous price correlations are positive or negative. Finally, we highlight the effect of dynamics on firms’ expected prices and profits.