Marketing insights from text analysis

Language is an integral part of marketing. Consumers share word of mouth, salespeople pitch services, and advertisements try to persuade. Further, small differences in wording can have a big impact. But while it is clear that language is both frequent and important, how can we extract insight from this new form of data? This paper provides an introduction to the main approaches to automated textual analysis and how researchers can use them to extract marketing insight. We provide a brief summary of dictionaries, topic modeling, and embeddings, some examples of how each approach can be used, and some advantages and limitations inherent to each method. Further, we outline how these approaches can be used both in empirical analysis of field data as well as experiments. Finally, an appendix provides links to relevant tools and readings to help interested readers learn more. By introducing more researchers to these valuable and accessible tools, we hope to encourage their adoption in a wide variety of areas of research.

     

Changing Food Consumption of Households in Developing Countries: A Bangladesh Case

Increasing incomes, urbanization, and population growth are transforming developing countries. This structural transformation is changing lifestyles and consequently food consumption and agri-food systems. The present study uses Bangladesh as a case study, a rapidly growing developing economy in South Asia to examine the changing food consumption pattern. Using information from more than 29,000 households, the present study demonstrates that, with the increase in income and urbanization, this traditional rice-consuming country is increasingly consuming more wheat. The changes in the relative consumption in Bangladesh are prominent both in rural and urban areas. The literature often is based on the premise that with increasing income, households switch from staple cereals to high food-value items. The present study highlights the need to also consider within-staple substitution.     

Substitution across profit shifting methods and the impact on thin capitalization rules

International Tax and Public Finance - Thin capitalization rules limit firms’ ability to deduct internal interest payments from taxable income, thereby restricting debt shifting activities of...     

Stock Returns and Exchange Rate Nexus in Ghana: A Bayesian Quantile Regression Approach

This paper presents analysis of the relationship and dependence structure between stock returns and exchange rates in Ghana using data of daily periodicity from January 4, 2011 to July 31, 2014. Analyses are conducted by means of Bayesian quantile regression (QR) technique and multiple causality tests. Our findings suggest high dependence of the equity market on the foreign exchange market in Ghana, and that the link between the two markets follows the international trade‐oriented model more than the portfolio balance theory. We report that among the six exchange rates used, only the cedi–dollar registers instantaneous effect on the equity market.     

Fraudulent collection of unemployment benefits : A theoretical analysis with reference to income tax evasion

The harshest abusers of the unemployment insurance program are those employed who collect benefits while working. This paper analyzes fraudulent claiming behavior and optimal deterrence policy under two alternative penalty schemes, commonly used in tax evasion analyses: one relates punishment to the magnitude of the dishonesty, whereas the other relates punishment to the amount of illegal returns. Two exclusive features of fraudulent benefit claiming are given special attention: the requirement to report at a labor exchange to demonstrate availability for work, and the need to serve a waiting period before benefits can be collected.     

Disconnecting: Understanding decline in universal service

At a time when choices for voice service and funding for universal service were growing, the United States experienced an unprecedented drop in household telephone penetration. Universal service in voice telephony is generally taken for granted in the United States. However, recent data from the FCC shows a significant decline in the number of U.S. households that have a telephone of any kind (including mobile), from a peak in telephone penetration of 95.5% in March 2003 down to 92.9% in November 2005. This decline is both statistically significant and meaningful, as approximately 2.6% of U.S. households could not easily reach 911 for emergencies. This study uses regression analysis of state-level data to determine what drove this decline in universal service. The results demonstrate that the recent decline in universal service in the U.S. is driven by an increase in black population, inadequate consumer protection laws, and increases in wireless telephones per capita. Lifeline effectiveness does not appear to mitigate the decline in penetration, while Link-Up effectiveness may have a limited effect.     

Technology and liquidity provision: The blurring of traditional definitions

Limit orders are usually viewed as patiently supplying liquidity. We investigate the trading of one hundred Nasdaq-listed stocks on INET, a limit order book. In contrast to the usual view, we find that over one-third of nonmarketable limit orders are cancelled within two seconds. We investigate the role these “fleeting orders” play in the market and test specific hypotheses about their uses. We find evidence consistent with dynamic trading strategies whereby traders chase market prices or search for latent liquidity. We show that fleeting orders are a relatively recent phenomenon, and suggest that they have arisen from a combination of factors that includes improved technology, an active trading culture, market fragmentation, and an increasing utilization of latent liquidity.     

难解的两种能源危机

多么令人震惊啊!澳大利亚国防部长布伦丹·纳尔逊说了几句大实话,让人们倒吸了几口凉气.他上周说,中东是"能源,尤其是石油的重要供应区",因此,人们"应当认真思考从伊拉克草率撤军的后果".     

The Red–Green Channel Dilemma: Customs Declaration and Optimal Inspection Policy

Despite the evolvement of an extensive literature on the economics of smuggling, the evasion of customs duties under the common red–green channel system has failed to attract any theoretical attention. The present paper develops a simple three‐passenger‐type model to examine the passenger's decision of whether to pass through the green or red channel, as well as to derive the optimal inspection policy for a revenue‐maximizing customs authority. The analysis reveals that if net revenue collection when inducing truthful declaration is positive, it is never optimal for the customs authority to provide incentives for passing through the green channel, although it may be optimal to provide incentives for cheating at the red channel. However, if the penalty for evasion is large enough to wipe out passengers' income, providing incentives for passing through the green channel may be the optimal policy.