Collaborative economy,a society service? Involvement with ethics and the common good

The company at the service of today's society is reinventing itself to satisfy people's needs in a more efficient and adapted way. Globalization and digitization promote increasing interaction and new forms of economic organization such as collaborative economy. However, can it be understood that this new business model, more than others, has as its raison d'être in the search for the “common good”? A first approach suggests the presence of values related to collaboration between equals aiming at a common good. However, the possible existence of a profit motive and the labor relations framework in which certain activities are carried out have created a debate on their ethical qualification. In this context, considering 278 companies in the collaborative economy sector, the relationship between the concept of “common good” and the collaborative economy is analyzed, while examining whether these new realities have an explicit ethical intention (of search for goods for people). According to the results, it is not possible to assert that these platforms have an ethical concern, but it is observed that they are in line with the common good and implicitly contribute to the service of society.     

Market power and price discrimination in the US market for higher education

We estimate an equilibrium model of private and state college competition that generates realistic pricing patterns for private colleges using a large national data set from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS). Our analysis distinguishes between tuition variation that reflects efficient pricing to students who generate beneficial peer externalities and variation that reflects arguably inefficient exercise of market power. Our findings indicate substantial exercise of market power and, importantly, sizable variation in this power along the college quality hierarchy and among students with different characteristics. Finally, we conduct policy analysis to examine the consequences of increased availability of quality public colleges in a state.     

Financial Decisions and Financial Capabilities in the Andean Region

This paper analyzes the importance of numerical abilities, conscientiousness, and financial literacy for individuals' financial decision making and participation in formal financial markets. Our analysis is based on the Financial Capabilities Survey, which was applied in four countries of the Andean Region: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. The empirical analysis underlines the centrality of numerical abilities, different subfacets of conscientiousness (propensity to plan, perseverance, and scrupulosity), and financial literacy in developing a propensity to save and borrow, and in participating in the formal financial sector.     

Commitment of independent and institutional women directors to corporate social responsibility reporting

This paper examines how independent and institutional women directors on boards affect corporate social responsibility (hereafter CSR) reporting. Most of the previous empirical evidence has shown a linear association between female directors and CSR disclosure, but to the best of our knowledge, no research has investigated the individual effect of independent and institutional female directors on CSR reporting. Therefore, the analysis of how the disclosure of CSR information is affected by independent and institutional women directors in a separate way merits our attention. Thus, we posit that there is a nonlinear association, concretely quadratic, between independent and institutional female directors on boards and CSR reporting. Our results demonstrate that, in line with the monitoring hypothesis, as the presence of independent and institutional women directors on boards increases, the CSR disclosure improves, but when their presence on boards reaches a tipping point (20.47% and 13.32%, respectively), CSR reporting decreases, which is consistent with the collusion hypothesis. This research contributes to the existing literature on the relationship between board gender diversity and CSR disclosure by suggesting that board structures formed by institutional and independent female directors have an effect on CSR reporting. Hence, female directors play a relevant role on boards since they may influence the CSR disclosure.     

Correction to: A multi-country,multi-sector replication challenge to the validity of the cultural tightness-looseness measure

Asia Pacific Journal of Management - The original version of this article unfortunately contained mistakes. Appendix heading was misplaced and first entry of the Appendix table was incorrectly...     

Online drivers and offline influences related to loyalty to airline websites

This paper explores users loyalty to airlines’ websites, by examining differences among users belonging to the Y, X and baby boomer generations. The results indicate that to obtain users loyalty to a company’s site, it is necessary to first, affective e-loyalty, through e-trust, which is also positively influenced by offline perceived value, e-satisfaction, and indirectly by e-quality. We also demonstrates that significant differences exist among the various generations, implying airlines need to fine-tune their online strategies retain customer loyalty.     

Valuing the social cost of corruption using subjective well being data and the technique of vignettes

Corruption can have an effect on people's happiness and satisfaction, and therefore, can generate a social cost. However, the perceptions of corruption and satisfaction can also vary across subjects, due to socioeconomic and cultural characteristics. This article studies the differences in the perceptions of corruption and satisfaction across subjects, utilizing the technique of vignettes for the correction of the bias that follows from the differences in the response scale across individuals. The evidence comes from a sample of citizens in Spain, who are asked about their perceptions of corruption and personal satisfaction. The results show that there exists a response scale bias, both for corruption and satisfaction. These results are utilized to approximate the social cost of corruption.     

Intraday patterns and trading strategies in the Spanish stock market

Different rating and investment companies have recently pointed out Spain’s brightening growth outlook, which has energized the Spanish stock market. By anticipating greater interest in the behaviour of the Spanish stock market, we show that the best trading strategy is that in which the investor enters long or short after the opening of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) till the end of the trading day at 17:30. This strategy should be complemented with that of entering long or short from the opening of the trading day till the closing price before the opening of the NYSE in no-coincidence phases.     

Assessing tax reforms through the elasticity of reported income: an empirical analysis for Spain

This paper demonstrates the usefulness of the elasticity of reported income to assess tax reforms from the perspectives of tax revenue and well-being. Employing different identification strategies, evidence is provided of the value of the elasticity of gross reported income in Spain and, based on this elasticity, a detailed assessment is made of the impact of the increase in marginal tax rates which the Spanish government approved in 2012. We use microdata from the Taxpayers Panel of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The mean value of this elasticity for Spain is 0,363 with considerable heterogeneity depending on taxpayers’ characteristics.