Remittances as a social status signaling device

Like all human beings, migrants may have a concern about their prestige or social status in the eyes of left-home family and friends. They can remit money in order to signal their economic success and increase their status. We show that if migrants’ income is private information, unsuccessful migrants might accept a worsening of their living conditions and send back home large amounts of remittances only in order to make residents believe that they are successful. In some cases, successful migrants can signal their true favorable economic situation by remitting an even larger amount. The game presents various equilibria that differ with respect to the proportion and nature of the migrants who sacrifice consumption opportunities to status revealing actions.     

Predictors of registered nurses' willingness to remain in nursing

A major question about the adequacy of the future supply of nurses is how many will stay in the profession. The relationship between scheduling and propensity to stay or leave the nursing profession was examined in this study. This analysis suggests there are definite characteristics of the work schedules that can influence a nurse's inclination to stay or leave the profession. This is not simply a question of "overwork," but of matching work schedules and hours as closely as possible to employee expectations. This suggests management needs to find a way to pay attention when nurses request changes in hours. The mere fact of changing schedules will not solve the nursing shortage, but it is one action within the management control of any organization employing nurses that could have a positive effect on retention.     

Pattern of childhood falls in a low-income setting: a cross-sectional study in Dar es Salaam

The objective was to determine patterns and circumstances of childhood falls in a low-income setting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. This cross sectional study is based on a household survey conducted in July 2009. A total of 3927 children up to age 18 from 1928 households in 15 sampled wards were surveyed through a structured questionnaire. The current study includes information regarding fall occurrence, socio-demographic and economic factors. Data were analysed using chi-square, t-test and logistic regression. Male children had 42% higher odds of falls compared to females, and rural residents had more than two times higher odds compared to urban residents. Falls occurred three times more among age group 1-4 and two times more among age group 5-9 compared to those between 15 and 18 years. Most falls occurred outdoors (62%) while playing (51%) with boys being over-represented. Females and children aged 1-4 years fell more from stairs whereas most infants fell from furniture. Male gender, younger age groups and rural residence were significant factors for fall injuries. The circumstances in which these falls occur also differ significantly. Intervention efforts should emphasise these patterns.     

Nursing home choice,family bargaining,and optimal policy in a Hotelling economy

We develop a model of family bargaining to study the impact of the distribution of bargaining power within the family on the choice of nursing homes by families, and on the locations and prices chosen by nursing homes in a Hotelling economy. In the baseline (static) model, where the dependent parent cares only about the location of the nursing home, the markup of nursing homes is increasing in the bargaining power of the dependent parent, and nursing homes are located at the extreme periphery. We compare the laissez‐faire with the social optimum (which involves more central locations of nursing homes), and examine its decentralization in first‐best and second‐best settings. We explore the robustness of our results to introducing a bequest motive in a dynamic overlapping generations model, which allows us to study the joint dynamics of wealth accumulation and nursing home prices. If the bequest motive is strong, the markup is decreasing in the bargaining power of the dependent. However, wealth accumulation, by reducing interest rates, raises markup rates and nursing homes prices.     

Does Individualizing the Labor Contract Hurt Women?

The twenty‐first century has been marked by a retreat of the collective bargaining rights of public employees throughout the United States. This study exploits the variation in legal environments resulting from these reforms to estimate the causal impact of different collective bargaining policies on public employee compensation. Using data from the American Community Survey, results show a modest wage penalty at the aggregate level for employees covered by constraints on collective bargaining. However, this wage penalty is differential and is concentrated on women in all but one case—a legal environment in which collective bargaining over wages has either been prohibited or directly constricted, allowing governments to periodically institute wage freezes and caps on raises for public employees. In this case, a pre‐existing wage gap in which men earned more than women is disappearing as male and female earnings converge at a lower wage. The paper suggests that the long‐term effects of restricting collective bargaining occur through the individualization of the labor contract and should be examined along individual‐level characteristics, such as gender.     

Retail Mergers and Food Prices: Evidence from France

This paper analyzes the impact of a merger in the French supermarket industry on food prices. Using consumer panel data, we compare the changes in prices for merging and rival firms in affected and comparison markets. We use a novel definition of affected markets when some firms have a local pricing strategy and others a more centralized pricing strategy. We find that prices increase significantly following the merger, and that the merging firms lose market shares. For the rivals, the price increases are larger in local markets, in which concentration increased and differentiation changed after the merger.     

Business models among SMTEs: identifying attitudes to environmental costs and their implications for sustainable tourism

This paper examines how environmental resources and costs feature in business models of small- and medium-sized tourism enterprises (SMTEs). Several studies have pointed to the generally positive nature of the relationship between the economic and environmental performance of tourism firms. Yet, although business models act as a vector between these aspects of firm performance, they have been overlooked in sustainable tourism discourse. The paper reports findings from discussion groups of SMTE businesses in South West England during the global economic downturn. Environmental costs and cost control were afforded relatively little importance in terms of value creation; conversely, there was a strong and predictable emphasis on revenue generation. Indirect tactics emerged for dealing with guests’ environmental behaviours which reflected this prevailing commercial logic. Green credentials were routinely de-emphasized, sometimes regarded as liabilities, in a form of greenhushing. Responses were framed by reference to social media and how online reviews may negatively impact on future value capture. Conceptually, the business model emerged as an important lens for understanding how environmental resources and costs were valourized. The paper highlights the need to ensure that contemporary approaches to environmental management in SMTEs reflect the current and fast-changing conditions that frame business models.     

Three decades of productivity change in French beef production: a Färe‐Primont index decomposition

The Färe‐Primont index is used to evaluate total factor productivity (TFP) change and its components for a sample of French suckler cow farms in grassland areas in 1985–2014. The results reveal an increase in TFP of 6.6 per cent over the whole observation period, with technological progress being the major source of productivity growth. Meanwhile, efficiency decreased. Farms experienced great technological progress from 1991 to 2000. From a methodological point of view, the comparison with results obtained with Malmquist indexes shows similar trends but different magnitudes, with the Malmquist index overestimating the TFP and technological changes compared to the Färe‐Primont index. In addition, the use of a sequential approach that restricts technological change to being positive or null allows for the precise calculation of technology changes, disregarding the effects of external conditions that are captured in efficiency changes. Finally, the estimation of full dimensional efficient facets (FDEFs) that guarantees the positivity of all shadow prices used to assess the mix efficiency component of TFP change is promising.     

Collaborative apparel consumption in the digital sharing economy: An agenda for academic inquiry

While apparel businesses leveraging the sharing economy have begun to emerge in recent years, academic research on “sharing” consumption for apparel is extremely limited. To fill this research gap, the researchers analyze current literature to present a conceptual framework that offers a durable theoretical foundation about the concept of collaborative consumption for apparel. Using a metatheory approach, the researchers develop a framework that explores how two major Internet‐supported collaborative consumption modes (utility‐based nonownership and redistributed ownership) manifest in an apparel context. Next, the researchers explore the implications of each consumption mode to understand the consumer's relationship with the product, peers, and businesses involved in these sharing schemes. A series of research propositions are also developed to stimulate discussion and future research about collaborative apparel consumption.     

Schadenfreude: The (not so) Secret Joy of Another’s Misfortune

Despite growing interest in emotions, organizational scholars have largely ignored the moral emotion of schadenfreude, which refers to pleasure felt in response to another’s misfortune. As a socially undesirable emotion, it might be assumed that individuals would be hesitant to share their schadenfreude. In two experimental studies involving emotional responses to unethical behaviors, we find evidence to the contrary. Study 1 revealed that subjects experiencing schadenfreude were willing to share their feelings, especially if the misfortune was perceived to be deserved (i.e., resulting from unethical behaviors). Study 2 extends this work by incorporating schadenfreude targets of different status (CEO versus employee). Consistent with the “tall poppy syndrome,” subjects were more willing to share schadenfreude concerning high status targets than low status targets when the perceived severity of the target’s misconduct was low. This status effect disappeared at higher levels of perceived deservingness, however. Reported willingness to share schadenfreude was strongest at these levels but did not differ significantly between high and low status targets. These findings build on the social functional account of emotions, suggesting that sharing schadenfreude may signal normative cues to others regarding workplace behaviors that are deemed to be unethical.