Compatibility,interoperability, and market power in upgrade markets

We examine the market power of a seller who repeatedly offers upgraded versions of a product. In the case of pure monopoly, the seller also controls compatibility across versions. In the case of an entrant who offers an upgrade, the incumbent seller also controls subsequent interoperability across versions. We argue that control of compatibility and interoperability does not allow an incumbent seller to charge a price premium relative to when such control is absent and, consequently, neither is a necessary source of market power.     

Discretionary and Non-Discretionary Revisions of Loss Reserves by Property-Casualty Insurers: Differential Implications for Future Profitability, Risk and Market Value

We develop and estimate a PC-industry specific model in which proxies for both discretion and non-discretion are used to partition loss reserve revisions into discretionary and non-discretionary components. The use of such proxies enables us to test directional hypotheses about the relations between the revision components and future profitability, risk and market value. We predict and find that discretionary revisions are negatively associated with future profitability, positively associated with firm risk, and negatively associated with market-to-book ratios. We predict and find that non-discretionary revisions are positively associated with future profitability and risk but are not associated with market-to-book ratios.     

The timing of prepayment: A theoretical analysis

This article develops the analytical methods necessary to determine the prepayment patterns of a mortgage contract. The most obvious measure of how many years a mortgage is likely to last is the expected time to termination. It is this measure that we most fully explore. However, since the method employed is able to characterize the probability of prepayment in any given time period, the means is provided to determine any measure of the time to termination.     

Preventing HIV in injection drug users: exploring the tradeoffs between interventions

Injection drug users (IDUs) transmit the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) via both needle sharing and sex. Available interventions for this population have varying costs and effectiveness and focus on different risk behaviors. In this analysis, we look at two interventions. One is inexpensive, broad-based and provides modest risk reductions (street outreach (SO)); the other is narrowly focused, expensive and relatively effective (methadone maintenance). This analysis explores the effects of population risk behavior, intervention effectiveness, intervention costs, and decision constraints when allocating funds between these two interventions to maximize effectiveness. We develop a model of the spread of HIV, dividing IDUs into susceptibles (uninfected) and infectives, and separately portraying sex and injection risk. We simulate the epidemic in New York City for time periods from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, and incorporate the behavioral effects of two interventions performed singly or in combination to find the allocation that maximizes the number of infections averted in the IDUs and their noninjecting sex partners, assuming interventions have increasing marginal costs. We find that the optimal allocation nearly always involves spending the maximum allowable amount on SO. This result is largely insensitive to variations in risk parameters, intervention efficacy, or cost. The model's structure, however, makes clear that many factors contribute to this insensitivity, namely the scope of the interventions, the dual drug/sex nature of HIV risk in the population, the asymmetry of sexual risk for men and women, and the potential benefits to nonIDUs.     

Downtown parking meter demand in a border metropolitan economy

Prior research establishes that the price of parking in the city centre often impacts the decision to travel downtown and the mode of transportation utilized. Other factors that influence the decision to drive and park downtown have received less attention. This study uses time series data to analyse the demand for metered parking spaces in El Paso, Texas, USA. In addition to meter rates, the determinants of demand include personal income, gasoline prices and the price of a substitute good, parking garage spaces. Because international bridges connect downtown El Paso to neighbouring Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, the impacts of trans-boundary traffic flows, bridge tolls and other cross-border economic variables are also included as potential determinants of metered parking demand. Results indicate that parking meter rates, other transportation-related costs, and economic conditions in both countries affect meter use.     

The role of the seven dimensions of job satisfaction in salesperson's attitudes and behaviors

To date, the majority of studies on job satisfaction use either a global measure or the JDI measure. To extend current research, this study uses the seven dimensions of job satisfaction as described by Churchill et al. [Churchill, G.A., Ford, N.M., Walker, O.C. Measuring the job satisfaction of industrial salesmen. J Mark Res 1974; 11 (3): 254-260.] to explore the relationship between job satisfaction, emotional exhaustion, organizational commitment and propensity to leave. Findings suggest that: 1) emotional exhaustion only relates to certain dimensions of job satisfaction and 2) job satisfaction dimensions related to organizational commitment and propensity to leave are not necessarily the same. Overall, this research provides an argument for the use of the seven dimension job satisfaction scale, as opposed to global measures or the JDI measure.     

Factors affecting the acquisition and transfer of novel attribute relationships to new product categories

This article investigates two factors posited to affect consumers' ability to learn a novel attribute relationship (e.g., “no pesticides → USDA organic symbol”) and apply this recently acquired knowledge when making judgments in a new product category. The first factor concerns the nature of the attribute encoding process and, in particular, whether it allows for comparison of examples. The second factor focuses on the relationship between the learning and transfer domains, and examines the influence of perceptual similarity (manipulated two ways: similarity in the elements comprising the attribute relationships, and similarity between the base and target domains) on the transfer process. Study 1 revealed a significant improvement in inter‐domain transfer when a relationship was learned in a multiple‐domain/multiple‐attribute learning environment over a single‐domain/single‐attribute environment. When attribute and domain diversity were examined separately (Study 2), it was found that attribute, but not domain, diversity produced the greatest improvements in transfer. Study 3 showed that the benefits of adding a perceptual similarity cue were most apparent when the transfer conditions were neither too easy (within domain and within attribute) nor too difficult (inter‐domain and inter‐attribute). © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.