Does the educational management model matter? New evidence from a quasiexperimental approach

A growing literature has appeared in the last 2 decades with the aim to explore if the way in which publicly funded private schools are managed (a ver     

Pricing strategies: who leads and who follows in the air and rail passenger markets in Italy

In this paper, we aim at empirically uncovering the existence of price leadership in the passenger transport market, whose oligopolistic structure facilitates the strategic interaction among companies, with price being one of the principal elements of competition. The strategic interaction is particularly favoured by the fact that prices are easily observable online by all competitors. The analysis focuses on selected Italian city-pair markets that differ from one another with respect to the degree of inter- and intra-modal competition and to the characteristics of the transport services provided. We exploit this heterogeneity to study transport operators’ strategic interactions in different competitive environments. We find evidence of the existence of price leadership, even though results differ across city-pair markets. In particular, it emerges that the incumbent operator, in either the air or the rail sector, always holds the role of leader.     

Using System Dynamics to assess the impact of RFID technology on retail operations

The application of item-level radio frequency identification (RFID) technology in retail supply chains creates cost savings and promises large potential benefits from revenue growth. However, the economic assessment of the impact on improved store operations, labor utilization, and increased sales is still not fully explored. We propose to use System Dynamics as a structural modeling and simulation approach to integrate conventional return on investment evaluations. Building on previous research about RFID technology in retail supply chains, we developed a model based on the case exploration of a leading Italian apparel retailer. Simulations show that RFID implementations are profitable whenever they contribute to increase sales, especially when a fashion retailer is focused on clerk-assisted sales strategies. Sales growth results from the dynamic and integrated impacts of RFID technology on better inventory control, faster inventory turnover, and longer time available for store personnel to assist consumers as an effect of more efficient backroom operations.     

Time,uncertainty and trade flows

This paper quantifies the impact of international transport time on bilateral trade flows in goods using previously unexploited information drawn from a large data set on international parcel delivery times. In line with previous work, we find that an extra day spent in international transit reduces bilateral trade by just under 1% at the sample median. In addition, and for the first time in the literature, we examine the impact of time-related uncertainty, which requires traders to hold costly inventories or build costly redundancies into supply chains. We find that a one day increase in international transport time uncertainty reduces bilateral trade flows by just over 1%. Splitting the sample into developing and developed countries shows that international transit time matters primarily for south–south trade, whereas uncertainty is relatively more important for north–north trade. Using new data on trade in intermediate versus final goods, we also find some evidence that time and uncertainty both matter more for movements of intermediates of the type that takes place within global value chains.     

Do High‐Skill Immigrants trigger High‐Quality Trade?

This paper investigates the links between product quality and the pro‐trade effect of ethnic networks using a large panel on bilateral stocks of immigrants with information for 19 OECD destination countries and 177 origin countries. In line with the approach of Rauch and Trindade, we classify traded goods according to their quality level and separately estimate pro‐trade elasticity of ethnic networks for each subgroup. We allow for heterogeneity of immigrants according to both the level of per capita income of their country of origin and their education level. Our findings suggest that the trend of the pro‐trade effect of immigrants over quality seems to be driven by the North–South specialisation across varieties for both supply and demand. Indeed, ethnic networks mostly facilitate imports of those varieties for which their countries of origin have a comparative advantage; as for exports, ethnic networks are more effective in promoting exports to their homeland of those varieties for which there is relatively higher demand. We show that the same trend applies to products characterised by the same degree of differentiation according to the classification proposed by Rauch and – given their lower liquidity constraints and advantages in human capital – we find a greater impact of high‐skilled migrants consistent across all quality levels.     

Decomposing inequality change from the perspective of reranking and income growth between income groups

This paper proposes a decomposition of the change in inequality from the perspective of income groups. For every dichotomisation of the income distribution into poorer and richer parts, the decomposition allows to detect the change in the relative income gap between the two parts and the reranking between poorer and richer individuals. This decomposition approach is particularly suitable when analysts split the population between the individuals initially below the poverty line and those above the poverty line, since the decomposition allows to capture the effects of reranking and disproportional growth in income between poor and non-poor individuals and to compare these effects with those detected for the entire population. An application to Italian income data illustrates the proposed decomposition.     

“Service” in Luxury Retailing in the Twenty‐First Century: An Exploratory Look at the Pleasure Boating Sector

This study explores the most effective retailing strategies with which luxury retailers can achieve a competitive advantage. The central role of services in enhancing the consumption experience in the luxury segment has been analyzed considering the pleasure boating sector, with a focus on the role that the dealer may have, both in the integration of different services and in the development of a durable competitive advantage. A qualitative study has been carried out through semistructured, in‐depth, one‐to‐one interviews with representatives of companies that deal with the pleasure boating sector. The results show that in the luxury pleasure boating sector, the introduction of a better‐defined retail strategy focused on services and its integration within the entire distribution channel may be crucial but also difficult to achieve in contexts that lack a marketing orientation. The contribution to extant literature on service in the pleasure boating sector and in luxury retailing in general is outlined. The managerial implications for practitioners in the pleasure boating sector are also discussed.     

Employment,job turnover,and trade in producer services: UK firm‐level evidence

Abstract We provide the first firm‐level evidence of the impact of the trade in producer services (‘offshoring’) on the labour market. Using a new data set from the UK that measures trade in services at the firm level, we find no evidence that importing intermediate services is associated with job losses or greater worker turnover. Using regression to control for observable differences between firms that import service inputs and those that do not, we show that firms that start importing intermediate services experience faster employment growth than equivalent firms that do not. This seems likely to be the result of positive demand shocks, which cause a simultaneous increase in employment, output, and use of imported service inputs.     

Kindness,confusion, or … ambiguity?

Other-regarding preferences or decision errors are the main explanations put forward to justify contributions exceeding the non-cooperative optimum in VCM games. An alternative rationale relies on ambiguity aversion. Ambiguity aversion increases the perceived marginal benefit of own contributions, which in equilibrium will exceed the Nash level. We present a series of experiments testing this hypothesis. To control for other-regarding preferences, we run a two-player game in which a human player plays with a virtual agent. Players are assigned either to a risky setting (known probabilities of opponent’s choices) or to an ambiguity setting (probabilities of opponent’s contribution are vague). Results show that ambiguity affects contributions. However, attitude to ambiguity appears to be affected by the location of the aggregate Nash optimum inside the decision space.     

FINANCIAL MARKET IMPERFECTIONS AND IRREGULAR GROWTH CYCLES

In this paper we analyze the generation of endogenous growth and irregular fluctuations in a simple New Keynesian model whose background assumptions are borrowed from a class of asymmetric information models popularized by Greenwald and Stiglitz. We extend the framework put forward by Greenwald and stiglitz taking explicitly into account technological progress as the engine of growth. We show how irregular endogenous fluctuations can arise around an endogenous trend: the traditional view of fluctuations as 'short run' phenomena must be abandoned in favour of models of fluctuating growth.