Dynamic monopoly pricing and herding

We study dynamic pricing by a monopolist selling to buyers who learn from each other's purchases. The price posted in each period serves to extract rent from the current buyer, as well as to control the amount of information transmitted to future buyers. As information increases future rent extraction, the monopolist has an incentive to subsidize learning by charging a price that results in information revelation. Nonetheless, in the long run, the monopolist generally induces herding by either selling to all buyers or exiting the market.     

Trade Protection in Five EU Member Candidate Countries by Exchange Rate Adjustment,Customs Tariffs,and Nontariff Measures

Five central European candidate member countries for EU accession (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia = CE-5) entered into the transition period with undervalued exchange rates to stimulate exports and protect domestic industries. However, this policy was not maintained. During 1993–1995, real currency appreciation increased competitive pressure by foreign firms. To protect domestic firms, governments applied high third-country tariffs, temporary import taxes, and numerous administrative barriers to trade. As countervailing pressure by the EU and the U.S. increased and current account deficits soared in 1996 and 1997, the five countries more and more brought exchange rate policies in line with the changes in purchasing power parity.There seems to be a positive correlation between large current account deficits and the more intense use of nontariff protectionist measures. Using exchange rate measures, Slovenia keeps the current account rather balanced. It employs many less nontariff protectionist measures than the other four countries, which show strong tendencies towards real exchange rate appreciation.     

Wissenschaftskommunikation 2.0?Science communication 2.0?

The key question of this article is: How is scholarly communication changing under the conditions of the online world? A lot of online media have developed especially for science communication. Their basic principle is multidimensional convergence: elements that once were strictly separated grow together and create new differences, in all dimensions of communication. The more this potential is used, the stronger the structural change of science communication emerges, which includes all communication areas and all components of the research process. The structural change is mainly expressed by seven tendencies of change: the pluralization of communication players, the globalization of communication space, the acceleration of communication processes, amongst others. These tendencies are characterized by their ambivalence and formability. For scientific journals these tendencies offer the chance to strengthen their role as the core of science communication. Hence, there are options for the actors.     

Chinese institutional investors’ sentiment

We use daily survey data on Chinese institutional investors’ forecasts to measure investors’ sentiment. Our empirical model uncovers that share prices and investor sentiment do not have a long-run relation; however, in the short-run, the mood of investors follows a positive-feedback process. Hence, institutional investors are optimistic when previous market returns were positive. Contrarily, negative returns trigger a decline in sentiment, which reacts more sensitively to negative than positive returns. Investor sentiment does not predict future market movements—but a drop in confidence increases market volatility and destabilizes exchanges. EGARCH models reveal asymmetric responses in the volatility of investor sentiment; however, Granger causality tests reject volatility-spillovers between returns and sentiment.     

Vocational training and the labour market in liberal and coordinated economies

In recent decades, the differences between the education and training systems in the liberal and coordinated market economies have increased. It is not possible to understand such different developments by focusing exclusively on the internal dynamics of vocational and general education systems. Vocational education and training (VET), and particularly apprenticeship systems rather than school‐based VET, are deeply embedded in the different national production, labour market, industrial relations and status systems. In order to contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics of VET, we examine recent developments in general and vocational training and its links to the labour and product market in five contrasting countries, namely, Denmark, Canada, Germany, Korea and the USA. In particular, differences in industrial relations, welfare states, income distribution and product markets are the main reason for the persistent high level of diversity in vocational training systems. The difference can perhaps be summarized as follows: in the coordinated market economies, the modernisation of vocational training is seen as a contribution to innovation in the economy, while in liberal market economies, it is seen as a siding into which weaker pupils can conveniently be shunted.     

The effect of government-designed export promotion service use on small and medium-sized enterprise goal achievement: A multidimensional view of export performance

Extant literature is equivocal on the effect of government-designed export promotion instruments and services (EPS) on firm performance. Moreover, literature examining the effects of EPS on exporting firms' success is dominated by a single performance perspective, namely, financial goal achievement. Further, the majority of the studies are conducted in developed countries, with limited attention to exporters in developing countries. In order to address these gaps, this study examines the impact of EPS use on export goal achievement of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) from a developing country, while adopting a four-dimensional view of export performance. Based on a survey of 143 firms in Turkey, the findings suggest that EPS use improves all four export performance dimensions considered, namely, financial, stakeholder relationship, strategic, and organizational learning goal achievements. The article also delineates the performance effects of specific EPS. For example, stakeholder relationship goal achievement is influenced by only one EPS considered, namely, informational materials (e.g., brochures, pamphlets) on exporting. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for scholars, public policy makers, and managers.     

How loan portfolio diversification affects risk, efficiency and capitalization: A managerial behavior model for Austrian banks

The aim of this paper is to analyze how diversification of banks across size and industry affects risk, cost and profit efficiency, and bank capitalization for large Austrian commercial banks over the years 1997–2003. Employing a unique dataset, provided by the Austrian Central Bank, we test for several different types of managerial hypotheses, formalized according to a modified version of the Berger and DeYoung model [Berger, A.N., DeYoung, R., 1997. Problem loans and cost efficiency in commercial banks. Journal of Banking and Finance 21, 849–870]. We find that, although diversification negatively affects cost efficiency, it increases profit efficiency and reduces banks’ realized risk. Finally, diversification seems to have a positive impact on banks’ capitalization.     

The Dimensions of Service Quality: The Original European Perspective Revisited

The early pioneers of services marketing in Europe, especially the Nordic School, argued that service quality consists of two or three underlying dimensions. Lehtinen and Lehtinen [1985] referred to physical and interactive quality while Christian Grönroos [1984] identified a technical dimension, a functional dimension and the firm's image as a third dimension. In later years, Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry [1988] published empirical evidence from five service industries which suggested that five dimensions more appropriately capture the perceived service quality construct. This study uses an exploratory factor analysis approach to investigate the empirical factor structure of the SERVQUAL instrument developed by Parasuraman et al. [1988] to measure perceived service quality. Based on the results of five exploratory analyses performed on five SERVQUAL data sets, a model for SERVQUAL is proposed. It suggests that the SERVQUAL difference scores are measures of two factors termed ‘intrinsic’ and ‘extrinsic’ service quality. The model is then fitted to the SERVQUAL data obtained from five samples of clients who evaluated the services of five service industries or companies by means of confirmatory factor analysis. The results of this study provide empirical support for the European authors who, in the early 1980s, argued that service quality perceptions are largely determined by two (rather than five) dimensions.