Early Settlement in European Merger Control

We analyse the determinants of early settlement between merging parties and the European Commission over remedies that remove concerns of anticompetitive effects. This extends the previously narrow range of econometric literature on early settlement. Consistent with the theory of early settlement, our results confirm the importance of delay costs and of uncertainty, measured by the complexity of the economic analysis required for each merger. We also find a non‐monotonic effect of agency resourcing, which raises questions about the Commission's efficiency in times of high case load. Econometrically, we select a sample of merger decisions in which the European Commission intervened due to concerns of anticompetitive effects, and our selection model provides estimates of the factors determining intervention by the Commission. Conclusions are drawn for public policy.     

Explaining entrepreneurial intentions,nascent entrepreneurial behavior and new business creation with social cognitive career theory – a 5-year longitudinal analysis

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - Scholars conceptualize entrepreneurial behavior (EB) as the actions taken for new venture creation, which are said to manifest from an...     

The income elasticity of household energy demand: a quantile regression analysis

This article examines variation in the income elasticity of household energy demand across the energy expenditure distribution using expenditure data from the five most recent Household Budget Surveys (HBSs) in Ireland: the 1987, 1994/1995, 1999/2000, 2004/2005 and 2009/2010 HBS. The analysis uses a two-stage instrumental variable quantile regression approach and is based on each HBS cross section, as well as the overall pooled observations. The estimated elasticities are compared across low- and high-energy-consumption scenarios and to a benchmark elasticity estimated using two-stage least squares. The results provide evidence that there is significant variation in the income elasticities across the energy expenditure distribution and that care must be taken when using the constant mean elasticity for policy purposes. More specifically, any examination of the future impact of a change in income support policy measures on energy consumption should recognize the substantial context-dependent variation in the income elasticity.     

Professional Development Barriers and Benefits in a Tourism Knowledge Economy

This study investigates small to medium tourism enterprise (SMTE) owner–managers' intentions to seek professional development. SMTEs in a regional tourism destination were surveyed, and an exploratory factor analysis identified barriers to, and benefits of, professional development factors. Logistic regression analysis was used to predict SMTE owner–manager's intention to pursue professional development based on perceived benefits of and barriers to training factors, education level and business size. ‘Staff performance benefits’ and ‘time/cost barriers’ of owner–manager's intention to seek professional development opportunities for staff. ‘Business performance benefits’ predicted owner–manager's intentions to seek professional develop for themselves. Implications of the findings are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Internet: investigating new technology's evolving role, nature and effects on transport

In the space of only a few years the Internet has emerged as a mainstream communications medium providing a growing proportion of the population with virtual access to goods, people, opportunities and services. Against a backdrop of highlighting how teleshopping and teleworking alongside traveller information services are advancing as a consequence of the Internet, this paper suggests that the Internet and the virtual mobility it affords must in due course be explicitly addressed within an integrated transport policy. The paper explores the relationships between use of information and communications technology and personal travel highlighting the importance of social issues in gauging whether or not a net positive effect in terms of travel demand and tripmaking can arise from increasing use of the Internet. Suggestions for a policy approach are also made.     

Later is better: mobile phone ownership and child academic development,evidence from a longitudinal study

ABSTRACT

Digital technologies have become an increasingly prominent feature of children’s lives both within and outside educational environments (McCoy, Quail, and Smyth 2012. Influences on 9-Year-Olds’ Learning: Home, School and Community. Dublin: Department of Children and Youth Affairs). Despite considerable media debate, we have little robust evidence on the impact of technology use on children’s development, both academically and socially. Much of the literature in this area relies on small-scale cross-sectional studies. Using longitudinal data on 8500 9-year-old children in Ireland, we examine the influence of early mobile phone ownership on children’s performance in reading and maths between 9 and 13 years of age. Across both reading and maths domains, children who already report owning a phone by the age of nine fare less well in terms of their academic development as they move into adolescence. The measured effects are sizeable, implying about 4 percentile lower ranking on standardised tests for an average student. Our results are consistent with the idea that there may be significant educational costs arising from early mobile phone use by children. Parents and policymakers should consider whether the benefits of phone availability for children are sufficiently large to justify such costs. We suggest a range of direct and indirect cognitive effects that could help explain these results.     

Recruiting and Retaining Older Adult Volunteers: Implications for Practice

There is an increased interest in the promotion of volunteering within nonprofit organizations. In this paper organizational supports for recruiting and managing volunteering among older adults are explored. The paper describes an intervention comprising an intergenerational reading program delivered by volunteers in eight schools in the Republic of Ireland. The research draws on qualitative data from a mixed-methods research project (2009–2011) that evaluated outcome and process aspects of the reading program. The qualitative data was collected from a group of older volunteers aged 55 years and older. This present study frames the empirical findings within a volunteering framework that involved deductively analyzing the data using attributes associated with “volunteerability” and “recruitability.” Through this analytical framework a number of features were identified as contributing to greater knowledge of marketing strategies to recruit and retain volunteers within nonprofit organizations. The paper concludes with a set of core practice messages for organizations that rely on volunteers in the delivery of their service.     

Australian enrolment trends in technology and engineering: putting the T and E back into school STEM

There has been much political and educational focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in Australian schools in recent years and while there has been significant research examining science and mathematics enrolments in senior high school, little is known about the corresponding trends in Technologies and engineering. Understanding these subjects is essential for educators and policy-makers alike if Australians are to embrace the challenges of an innovation economy. We have collected raw enrolment data from each of the Australian state and territory education departments from 1992 to 2014 and analysed this across five Technology and Engineering subject areas. We also consider some of the relationships between these subject areas and other areas of the STEM equation. The results of these analyses are discussed in terms of absolute enrolments, participation rates and sex balance. We have found that the total number of students in Year 12 increased year on year and that this growth is echoed, to a lesser extent, in the participation rates for design technology, food technology and engineering. Digital Technologies however, grew rapidly until 2000, after which time it has been in steady decline. We identify that while the trends mostly show growth, there is a concerning male bias to many of these subject areas. We suggest that the broadening of the upper high school curriculum, confusion surrounding vocational training enrolments, and gamesmanship of the university entrance system, may be contributing to the limited growth observed. Finally, we identify a number of important areas for further research in this key learning area.     

Accounting for ARPU: New evidence from international panel data

Average revenue per user (ARPU) is commonly used by regulators and industry observers to compare the performance of mobile telephony markets. Under the new EU electronic communications regulatory framework, some national regulatory authorities (NRAs) have linked higher ARPU with ‘significant market power’. This paper empirically examines the determinants of ARPU in a systematic way, taking account of service quality, market environment, regulation and quantity of service. The robust results suggest that concentration may not be a reliable indicator of competition in mobile markets; there are economies of density in mobile markets; and higher GDP per capita increases ARPU.