Managing the Quality of Marketing Data: Cost/benefit Tradeoffs and Optimal Configuration

A large majority of work in database marketing deals with what to do with data when it is available. This paper focuses on an aspect of data that has not been visited frequently in the database/interactive marketing literature—managing the quality of data resources from a profit point of view. While costly to achieve and sustain, high data quality is essential for effective database marketing. The notion that “more is better” very often prevails in data quality management decisions, essentially with very little consideration, if any, of cost. This paper suggests that data quality management decisions should be driven by considerations of cost–benefit tradeoffs and profit maximization. It specifically addresses data quality decisions which are highly relevant in the database marketing area: the subset of data records managed, reflecting time-span coverage, and the targeted quality levels in this subset. Decisions of these types are routinely made based on satisfying technical and functional requirements. In this study, we propose a model that quantifies the benefits and the costs associated with these decisions, and permits optimizing them from a profit maximization standpoint. The paper describes the model development, discusses its implications for data quality management decisions, and highlights its potential contributions with illustrative examples.     

Inflation und Schuldenabbau

The European Central Bank (ECB) recently announced its willingness to do whatever is needed to save the euro. This has raised the question whether such a role of the ECB must lead to higher rates of infl ation. Under current recessive macroeconomic conditions in the eurozone, the ECB’s expansionary monetary policy will not lead to higher infl ation. On the contrary, there is a serious danger of defl ation. Higher infl ation would likely occur only if a permanent stabilisation function were assigned to the ECB. Yet historical examples show that mistakes can be made. During the stagnation in Japan, US economists heavily criticised the Bank of Japan’s timid monetary policy response. But in some sense, current Fed policy seems to be a direct copy of that strategy, caused by uncertainty about the proper communication channel. An infl ation tax could help to bring down the mounting public debt in the wake of the fi nancial crisis, but higher wealth taxes have more transparent distributional effects.     

产业结构影响中国贸易收支失衡的理论分析与实证检验

分析和解决中国当前的贸易收支失衡即巨额的贸易顺差问题是解决中国经济外部失衡的关键所在。从贸易方式看,加工贸易逐渐成为中国贸易收支失衡的决定性因素;从商品结构看,机械及运输设备类产品已成为工业制成品贸易顺差的重要来源。理论分析表明,中国巨额的贸易顺差是在特定的历史背景下形成的,具有一定的脆弱性。实证研究发现,产业结构和贸易结构及二者的相互影响对中国贸易收支失衡具有重要的影响作用;人民币升值虽然有利于改善中国的贸易收支失衡状况,但与结构变量相比,其改善的程度较弱。要从根本上解决中国经济的外部失衡,政策的着力点应更多地放在以产业结构调整为核心的结构性问题方面。     

International productivity and factor price comparisons

Using OECD input–output tables for a diverse group of 33 countries in the year 2000 and estimates of each country's factor stocks, I compute factor payments for aggregate labor and capital with value-added data adjusted for self-employment by sector. Using a detailed technology matrix for the U.S., I compute factor-specific productivity measures in each country relative to the U.S., and show that these measures are strongly correlated with the pattern of wages and rental rates. I find that many low income countries with low labor productivity have relatively high capital productivity. I also find a distinctive pattern between factor productivity and factor payments depending on whether a country has a high or low wage-rental ratio compared to the U.S. I show these findings are consistent with the existence of sector-based differences in production technology and complementarities between factors.     

The barriers to effective global talent management: The example of corporate élites in MNEs

This paper focuses on talent management failure by multinational enterprises (MNEs). It examines barriers to corporate advancement of talents located in subsidiaries and more specifically on promotion of talent already employed by the MNE to be part of the upper echelon management team at its centre. Drawing on agency and bounded rationality theories, we discuss the underlying causes of talent management failure in MNEs. At the subsidiary level, we draw on agency theory to delineate self-serving mechanisms displayed by subsidiary managers that might hinder effective talent management systems throughout the MNE. At the headquarter level, we use bounded rationality to explain how decision-making processes, and information top management teams use to make decisions about talent management results in overlooking talents at subsidiary level.     

Random variables with independent integer and fractional parts

For random variables with independent integer and fractional parts: a canonical form is given for those with positive differentiable densities, and a condition ensuring exponentially is made less restrictive.     

Alternative Approaches to Compensation and Producer Rights

When policies are changed, it is not uncommon for losers to be compensated. Economic theory and quantitative analysis are useful in determining the efficiency gains/losses associated with a policy change, but are little help in deciding what the approach to compensation should be. The amount of compensation varies, depending on, in part, the political clout of the parties being negatively affected by a policy change—compensation is what politicians and the sector demanding compensation can agree on. We formulate four approaches to producer compensation within the context of the Ontario Tobacco Transition Program, where producers would have suffered losses in the absence of compensation. The approaches range from providing zero compensation to providing compensation based on the entire value of the tobacco quota. The Canadian government chose the latter and compensated producers for the termination of the tobacco quota program based on an approach that far exceeded other possible compensation approaches.     

Competition in Canada's Agricultural Value Chains: The Case of Grain

To open this address, I would like to advocate for membership in the Canadian Agricultural Economics Society (CAES). The fact that applied economics offers theory and methods that help us address topics as diverse as the Canadian grain value chain and the economics of species at risk speaks well for the future of our discipline. There is a vast array of work for us to do. Membership in the CAES offers an excellent link to the most up‐to‐date research in this area through our journal and conferences. Every society I attend inspires me to examine my own research and look at problems in new ways using new tools I learned from presentations made by the members of CAES. The main message of my address is to promote the application of Game Theory strategies as a way to understand behavior in the grain value chain. These tools are already being applied in areas as different as optimizing tradable systems of environmental goods and assessing competitive behavior in beef packing. Tout d'abord, je tiens à mentionner que j'appuie l'adhésion à la Société canadienne d'agroéconomie (SCAE). Le fait que l’économie appliquée offre la théorie et les méthodes qui nous aident à examiner des sujets aussi variés que la chaîne de valeur des grains du Canada et l’économie des espèces en péril augure bien pour l'avenir de notre discipline. La diversité du travail à accomplir est immense. Être membre de la SCAE procure un lien privilégié à la recherche de pointe grâce à notre Revue et à nos conférences. Aujourd'hui, mon message vise principalement à promouvoir l'application des stratégies de la théorie des jeux pour comprendre le comportement au sein de la chaîne de valeur des grains. Certains domaines, tels que l'optimisation des systèmes d’échange des biens environnementaux et l’évaluation du comportement concurrentiel dans le secteur du conditionnement du b?uf, utilisent déjà ces outils. La panoplie d'outils à notre disposition est mise en valeur dans notre Revue et lors de nos congrès. Tous les congrès auxquels j'assiste me motivent à examiner ma propre recherche et à analyser les problèmes sous un angle différent grâce aux nouveaux outils mis au point et présentés par les membres de la SCAE.     

Candidate gene studies and the quest for the entrepreneurial gene

Candidate gene studies of human behavior are gaining interest in economics and entrepreneurship research. Performing and interpreting these studies is not straightforward because the selection of candidates influences the interpretation of the results. As an example, Nicolaou et al. (Small Bus Econ 36:151?C155, 2011) report a significant association between a common genetic variant in the DRD3 gene and the tendency to be an entrepreneur. We fail to replicate this finding using a much larger, independent dataset. In addition, we discuss the candidate gene approach and give suggestions to avoid the publication of false positives.