The bright and dark side of staging: Investment performance and the varying motivations of private equity firms

Previous papers that examined investment decisions by private equity funds are divided on whether staging has a positive or negative effect on returns. We believe these opposing views can be reconciled by studying when staging is used during the life of the investment relationship: We find that staging has a positive effect on investment returns in the beginning of the investment relationship, consistent with the notion that staging helps mitigate information asymmetry. However, staging appears to be negatively associated with returns when used prior to the exit decision. Our unique dataset allows us to measure these intertemporal effects precisely.     

Cross-selling,switching costs and imperfect competition in British banks

This paper attempts to evaluate the competitiveness of British banking in the presence of cross-selling and switching costs during 1993–2008. It presents estimates of a model of banking behaviour that encompasses switching costs as well as cross-selling of loans and off-balance sheet transactions. The evidence from panel estimation of the model indicates that the consumer faced high switching costs in the loan market in the latter part of the sample period, as a result of weaker competitiveness in the loan market. Additionally, the weaker competitiveness in the loan market appears to facilitate the cross-selling behaviour of British banks, which helps explain the rapid growth of non-interest income during the last two decades.     

International Pricing with Costly Consumer Arbitrage

Consumer arbitrage affects international pricing in several ways. If all consumers face the same arbitrage costs, a monopolist's profit increases with arbitrage costs, and world welfare declines with them (if output does not rise). If arbitrage costs differ across consumers, a monopolist may sell in a second country even if there is no local demand—it can use the second country to discriminate across consumers in the first country. Again, world welfare typically falls with arbitrage costs. When there is also local demand in the second country, world welfare may be increasing in arbitrage costs, even if output falls.     

Service quality in restaurant operations in China: Decision- and experiential-oriented perspectives

Using the decision- and experiential-oriented perspectives as theoretical guides, this article reported an empirical assessment of service quality in restaurant operations. We proposed and tested a conceptual model of service quality using structural equation modeling. Using data from a sample of 284 customers from two large full-service restaurants in southern China, we investigated the relationships of service quality, customer satisfaction, and frequency of patronage. The results supported the significant links between service quality and customer satisfaction, service quality and repeat patronage, but not customer satisfaction and repeat patronage. The study has provided important insights into service quality and customer satisfaction in the field of restaurant operations.     

Geographic factors affecting tourism in Zambia

This paper discusses several geographical factors critical to tourism planning and development in Zambia. The paper focuses on the size, seasonality of climate, and population distribution of the country as well as the location of tourism resources and distances between tourist attractions. Individually and collectively, these factors have a major influence on the levels of occupancy in hotels and game lodges, and air and land transportation. The infrastructural development and its utilization for tourism are evaluated, and a number of constraints to tourism development are also examined. A discussion of appropriate tourism policies highlights the delicate relationship between economic and environmental factors. This study concludes that Tourism Master Plans should be more cognizant of geographic as well as economic factors when developing destinations such as Zambia.