DURATION OF UNEMPLOYMENT IN SPAIN: RELATIVE EFFECTS OF UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT AND FAMILY CHARACTERISTICS

ABSTRACT We estimate the effects of unemployment benefit and family situation on the unemployment duration in Spain. Empirical results indicate that the distinctions between the exits into employment and the exits from the labour force and between men and women are important. Although unemployment benefit reduces significantly the job-finding probabilities, its effects are much larger on exits from the labour force. Many people who decide to go out of the labour force delay their exits until they exhaust their unemployment benefits. Family situation also has strong effects on the duration of unemployment in Spain. Household heads have about twice larger job-finding probability than non-heads, and having a working household head or other working household members improves employment probability. This suggests that family connections in the labour market are important determinants of unemployment duration in Spain.     

Option Pricing When Jump Risk Is Systematic1

This paper generalizes the Merton jump-diffusion option pricing model to the case in which jump risk cannot be eliminated in the market portfolio. the option pricing formula is obtained using a general equilibrium asset pricing model. Since jump risk is systematic, the correlation of the underlying stock's jump with the market portfolio's jump affects the option price.     

Co-marketing alliances between heterogeneous industries: Examining perceived match-up effects in product, brand and alliance levels

To scrutinize the emerging phenomenon of co-marketing alliance between heterogeneous industries, this study adapts the concept of ‘perceived match-up’ as a theoretical platform.Employing two fictitious co-marketing alliance scenarios, this study empirically demonstrates the conceptual structure of how consumers evaluate a co-marketing alliance. This suggests that if consumers perceive a harmony across paired products or brands, they are more likely to engage in the association process of evaluating a brand alliance.     

Dimensions of Luxury Brand Personality: Scale Development and Validation

Both the marketing industry and academia have been paying more attention to the growth and potential of the luxury market. This research developed a theoretical framework for understanding the dimensions of luxury brand personality and a reliable and valid scale that measures these dimensions. When 30 luxury brands, ranging from fashion to automobile and retail, were assessed on a set of diverse personality attributes, six dimensions representing luxury brand personality were identified: Excitement, Sincerity, Sophistication, Professionalism, Attractiveness, and Materialism. Findings indicate that while three dimensions, Sincerity, Excitement, and Sophistication, share similar qualities with those identified in Aaker's (1997) scale for general brand personality, the other three dimensions, Professionalism, Attractiveness, and Materialism, reflect meanings unique and specific to luxury brands. Altogether, the results of this research hold the notion that luxury brands serving as consumption symbols provide both utilitarian benefits and symbolic meanings to contemporary consumers.     

Racial differences in self-employment exits

Using detailed work history data in the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, I investigate the reasons behind the racial gap in self-employment. My analysis of an “age uniform” sample of men, all of whom are observed from age 22 to 40 years, reveals that racial differences in cross-sectional self-employment rates are largely due to the fact that minority workers’ self-employment spells are relatively short-lived. Moreover, I find that minority workers’ relatively high exit rates are driven primarily by transitions to nonemployment. Estimates from a multinomial logit model of self-employment exits suggest that minority workers’ weak attachment to the labor market prior to entering self-employment is an important determinant of their transition from self-employment to nonemployment, while lack of prior industry and self-employment experience contributes to minorities’ transitions to wage employment. When I assign blacks and Hispanics the same (mean) work histories as whites, the predicted black–white gap in the first-year self-employment survival rate decreases by 31% and the Hispanic–white gap decreases by 14%.     

BEVQUAL: a tool for measuring performance quality in beverage operations

The main objective of this study was to develop an instrument to measure the multidimensional nature of performance quality in beverage establishments. This study was based on a sequential exploratory mixed methods design. Interviews with beverage managers and customer focus groups were conducted to create an initial instrument. After that, 405 customers were surveyed, and the final BEVQUAL instrument was developed, including six dimensions that were measured with 23 items. Atmosphere, service quality, and pricing were shown to be good predictors of customer satisfaction, while ambiance, beverage quality, and location did not affect customer satisfaction.     

How Feasible is Carbon Sequestration in Korea? A Study on the Costs of Sequestering Carbon in Forest

In recent years, carbon sequestration has become a more attractive policy in Korea due to the increasing trend of marginal cropland and enhanced public awareness on adverse climate change phenomena. This study aims to calculate the unit costs of carbon sequestration programs through afforestation in Korea and examine the cost-effectiveness of programs. The basis of our simulation is an econometric land use share model, and province level of aggregated panel data are used for model estimation. Four scenarios are considered depending on whether the program includes the harvest and which tree species are planted. The approach of sequestration program is to pay the landowners to convert their lands to forest for a period of time in exchange of fixed annual payment in addition to tree establishment cost. Our results show that the unit cost varies from $122 to $486 per ton of carbon stored depending on the scenarios and payment levels. We found that the carbon sequestration can be a cost-effective mitigation policy in Korea although it is not the least cost option.     

Paying to queue: a theory of locational differences in nonunion wages

Traditional theories of the effect unions have on nonunion wages are difficult to reconcile with firm and worker mobility. We show how differences in nonunion wages can persist in a two-city search model. Nonunion wage differences across cities are driven by transition rates into the union sector. Should union queues form in the nonunion sector, union power decreases nonunion wages as workers are willing to take lower wages to line up for union jobs. However, if queues are formed in the unemployed sector, union power increases nonunion wages as nonunion firms pay premiums to induce workers to leave the queue.     

On the Economics of Callback Services

This paper investigates the economic effects of callback services, an issue which has previously brought much disputes and conflicts. Whereas the existence of callback services has been attributed to a rate disparity between countries, we show that it can arise either from the inefficiency of domestic markets or from the accounting rate which is far from cost-based. Although callback service is an inefficient means of utilizing resources, its introduction may lead the international telephony markets in an efficient direction when inefficiencies exist in the market. It also helps us understand why conflicts occur among the agents with respect to the legitimacy of callback services by comparing the international telephony markets before and after the introduction of callback services.     

A parametric nonlinear model of term structure dynamics

Recent nonparametric estimation studies pioneered by Ait-Sahaliadocument that the diffusion of the short rate is similar tothe parametric function, r^1.5, estimated by Chan et al., whereasthe drift is substantially nonlinear in the short rate. Theseempirical properties call into question the efficacy of theexisting affine term structure models and beg for alternativemodels which admit the observed behavior. This article presentssuch a model. Our model delivers closed-form solutions for bondprices and a concave relationship between the interest rateand the yields. We show that in empirical analyses, our modeloutperforms the one-factor affine models in both time-seriesas well as cross-sectional tests.