Creative Destruction, Investment Volatility, and the Average Age of Capital

In this article, a new numerical procedure is used to compute the equilibrium of a vintage capital growth model with nonlinear utility, where the scrapping time is nonconstant. We show that equilibrium investment and output converge nonmonotonically to the balanced growth path due to replacement echoes. We find that the average age of capital is inversely related to output, which is consistent with recent micro evidence reinforcing the importance of the embodied question. We also find that an unanticipated permanent increase in the rate of embodied technological progress causes labor productivity to slowdown in the short run.     

Grocery Purchase Behaviour for National and Own-Label Brands

This study compares the shopping habits for national and ownlabel brands to establish if there are differences in personal characteristics and purchase behaviour between those who buy national brands and those who buy own-labels in the UK. While statistical research could quantify how British grocery shoppers felt about food brands, it usually cannot explain why shoppers had the opinions they did, hence this study. It is thus an investigation, through the eyes of grocery shoppers, to answer the ‘WHY’ questions. Two distinct markets were found to exist. These grocery shoppers differ in terms of socio-economic status, personal characteristics and shopping behaviour. The findings provide information useful to both retailing and manufacturing interests as retail marketing strategies are developed in the face of intensifying competition for shoppers' food expenditure in the market-place.     

Acculturation and the influence of ethnicity on market orientation of African and Caribbean companies in Britain

Since acculturation is the process of acquiring the customs of an alternative society we assume that adapting to consumers from various cultures will be a fundamental task for African and Caribbean (A&C) companies in Britain. This study investigates market orientation of A&C service companies and their processes of cultural learning and adaptation using ethnicity as a basis for an exploratory study of the British market. The findings indicate that A&C companies serve as bicultural mediators, both accommodating their consumers and working to alter their consumption patterns to bring them into line with their own ethnic and British national market customs. The adaptation of A&C service companies to the cultural characteristics and needs of their customers results in changes to their companies, consumers and the British marketplace.     

The benefits and implementation of performance transparency: The why and how of letting your customers ‘see through’ your business

While some organizations swear by the benefits of transparency and are eager to learn and implement transparency practices, many managers are still reluctant or even afraid to use them. Our research reveals that only a few innovative companies have taken steps to leverage a potentially useful form of transparency: the provision of accessible and objective information to customers (e.g., sharing unbiased benchmark data, publishing unfiltered customer comments, or providing candid product reviews that may praise but also criticize the company’s products). Our study also shows that many companies remain wary and view greater calls for transparency as a challenge to be managed rather than an opportunity to be traded upon. This is partly due to limited research into the performance benefits of giving customers access to objective information, and lack of practical guidelines on how to actually implement it. This article addresses these shortcomings. First, we investigate whether performance transparency leads to customer outcomes that can be profitable for an organization and, second, we analyze the characteristics of successful transparency initiatives in a wide range of industries. Our research shows that customers exhibit more trust and are willing to pay a premium to deal with transparent businesses. Also, it uncovers seven effective strategies to leverage transparency. This article provides convincing empirical evidence for the benefits of performance transparency and the ways in which management may implement it successfully.     

The characteristic function of rough Heston models

It has been recently shown that rough volatility models, where the volatility is driven by a fractional Brownian motion with small Hurst parameter, provide very relevant dynamics in order to reproduce the behavior of both historical and implied volatilities. However, due to the non‐Markovian nature of the fractional Brownian motion, they raise new issues when it comes to derivatives pricing. Using an original link between nearly unstable Hawkes processes and fractional volatility models, we compute the characteristic function of the log‐price in rough Heston models. In the classical Heston model, the characteristic function is expressed in terms of the solution of a Riccati equation. Here, we show that rough Heston models exhibit quite a similar structure, the Riccati equation being replaced by a fractional Riccati equation.     

More leeway for unilateral trade measures?

The report of the WTO Appellate Body in the shrimp-turtle case may prove to be of fundamental importance for the development of the GATT/WTO system. It asserts that a WTO member can unilaterally condition access to its market on compliance with environmental policies, as long as the regulations are administered in an even-handed manner and do not amount to disguised protectionism. Will the incidence of unilateral trade measures increase dramatically as a result of this decision?     

Retail bank selection in developed and developing countries: A cross‐national study of students' bank‐selection criteria

This exploratory research article is concerned with students' selection of retail banks in the United States and Ghana. It is a comparative cross‐national study aimed at revealing the factors determining retail bank selection among students in different environmental settings. The key objective is to establish if there are any significant differences and/or similarities in students' selection of retail banks in developed and developing economies. A similar data‐collection method was employed in the United States and Ghana to facilitate constructive comparison. The results identified four key factors—convenience, competence, recommendation by parents, and free banking and/or no bank charges—to be consistent across the two economies. The recommendation of the study is that in the context of an open and liberalized market environment, retail bank marketing strategies should be standardized irrespective of the national development stage. It concludes that retail bank managers particularly in developing countries should learn to provide consistent and good customer care. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The effects of entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation, and marketing subunit influence on firm performance

The study investigates how an organization’s entrepreneurial orientation moderates the interplay between market orientation and marketing subunit influence on firm performance. The hypothesized model predicts that the positive interaction between market orientation and marketing subunit influence has a weaker effect on firm performance under conditions of high entrepreneurial orientation. The regression and supplementary analyses provide support for most predictions and, most importantly, for a negative three-way interaction effect: At higher levels of entrepreneurial orientation, the positive moderating effect of marketing subunit influence on the market orientation–business performance relationship is reduced. The authors discuss the managerial and theoretical implications of their findings and provide a number of directions for further research.

Masakhane case studies

The Masakhane Campaign in South Africa has received a fair amount of criticism, largely because its high media profile has not been accompanied by delivery and improvement of services at the local level. Contrary to this generally negative perception, there are a number of local authorities that have greatly improved the situation in their areas through pragmatic strategies and programmes under the banner of Masakhane. This article presents information on the current status of the campaign in a sample of local authorities, and attempts to interpret this information so as to ascertain those factors that influence on the success or failure of local authorities as service providers.     

Early Mortality Declines at the Dawn of Modern Growth*

We explore the hypothesis that demographic changes which began in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are at the root of the acceleration in growth rates at the dawn of the modern age. During this period, life tables for Geneva and Venice show a decline in adult mortality; French marriage registers reveal an important increase in literacy; historians measure an acceleration of economic growth. We develop an endogenous growth model with a realistic survival law in which rising longevity increases individual incentives to invest in education and fosters growth. We quantitatively estimate that the observed improvements in adult mortality account for 70% of the growth acceleration in the pre‐industrial age.