Impact of Payment Technology on Seasonality of Currency in Circulation: Evidence from the USA and India

Journal of Quantitative Economics - This paper examines the impact of payment technology on seasonality in currency in circulation. We specify that total transaction in a period follows a Gompertz...     

Estimating welfare changes from efficient pricing in public bus transit in India

Three different and feasible pricing strategies for public bus transport in India are developed in a partial equilibrium framework with the objective of improving economic efficiency and ensuring revenue adequacy, namely average cost pricing, marginal cost pricing, and two-part tariffs. These are assessed not only in terms of gains in economic efficiency, but also in changes in travel demand and consumer surplus. The estimated partial equilibrium price is higher in all three pricing regimes when compared to the current price. As a result, consumer surplus falls in all three cases. The price increase is much larger with average cost pricing compared to marginal cost pricing or two-part tariffs, and hence a larger fall in demand and consumer surplus occurs due to average cost pricing. While there is a gain in economic efficiency from marginal cost pricing and two-part tariffs, this improvement comes at the expense of reduced public bus transit demand and consumer surplus, given the price inelastic public bus transit demand estimated for India. Given the mobility needs and the developmental concerns of a growing economy such as India, the challenge for policy makers is to balance the gains in economic efficiency in the public bus transit sector against other social, political, and developmental goals.     

India's Evolving Economic Model:

Abstract Over the course of the past 50 years, India has developed as a stable economy. Economic policies of the Indian government have guided and shaped India into a mixed economy. Political stability has been a significant factor in this process. The United States and European economic and political systems had a significant impact on evolution of India's economic model. Financial and economic reforms since 1991 have accelerated the pace of change toward an open market economy both in its internal operations and in its linkages with the global markets. India's economic future is now promising as it moves forward on its unique path of economic policy.     

Rethinking Management Theory and Practice for the Indian Context: An International Management Perspective

The Indian economy characterized variously as a slumbering giant, powerful tiger, and the most promising market has witnessed a slowdown, occasional disturbances in the industrial relations space, and attention of the world in the last five years. In this special issue, we raise pertinent questions and present research on multiple dimensions of the dynamic and rapidly changing business environment of India. The suitability of management models and frameworks developed in the North American contexts in emerging markets like India and China is questioned. One example of how the well‐established models in the literature on success of international joint ventures were insufficient to explain the success of three international joint ventures in the insurance space in India is presented as case in point. Finally, the nine papers that materially contribute to the theme of this special issue are introduced. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Regulation,Minimum Wage and Informality: Introduction to Symposium

Are markets in developing and transition economies over‐regulated or under‐regulated? This is a perennial question in the development discourse, but one for which answers appear to come more from preset ideology than from context‐specific analysis and evidence. These issues become even more pressing when the debate turns to the links between regulation, deregulation and inequality. The recent experience of rising inequality in many countries has also brought to the fore predictable policy positions. A key aspect of labor regulation in developing countries, and one becoming more prominent in the era of rising inequality, is the minimum wage. The range of issues around regulation, minimum wage and informality was addressed by papers presented to a conference held in New Delhi on December 17–18, 2014. The conference was co‐sponsored by the World Bank, UK Department for International Development, Cornell University and Columbia University. The organizers of the conference were Kaushik Basu, Stefan Dercon, Ravi Kanbur and Jan Svejnar. A selection of papers from the conference which passed the usual review procedures of the Review of Development Economics, and a further selection of papers from those submitted to the journal, form this symposium.     

Consumer perceptions of product variants positioned on atypical attributes

How do consumers perceive new product variants that are positioned on atypical attributes? The authors investigate the joint effects of three factors? brand familiarity, retail shelf display, and consumer goal orientation. The study focuses on snack foods positioned on the atypical attribute of low fat. There are three main findings. First, although high (vs. low) brand familiarity causes relatively unfavorable perceptions on the positioning attribute, it also creates sufficiently favorable perceptions on another determinant attribute, product taste, resulting in a net positive effect for brand equity on purchase likelihood. Second, goal-based versus taxonomic shelf display (i.e., placement with health foods vs. regular snack foods) results in relatively negative perceptions on the positioning attribute, yet more favorable buying intentions. Finally, more (vs. less) health-oriented consumers rate such product variants less favorably on fat content but more favorably on product taste; the former segment is also more likely to buy such product variants.     

A Tale of Two Indices: The Story of the NASDAQ and the SENSEX

Using the daily data on SENSEX and NASDAQ from January to October of 2000, the paper attempts to find out to what extent the “news” on NASDAQ helps price formation at the beginning and at the end of a trading day at the Indian bourses. The possible impact of NASDAQ on SENSEX is analyzed through OLS equations under cointegration and error correction framework. The results indicate that the “news” on NASDAQ plays an important role in price formation at the beginning of a trading day at the Indian bourses. However, as the impact of NASDAQ fades a lot during the trading hours when the Indian market remains open and the US market remains closed, the closing figures at SENSEX could not be predicted well with this information.

     

Self-service innovativeness scale: introduction,development, and validation of scale

Consumer innovativeness is a central variable in innovation diffusion and adoption literature. The foremost challenge confronted by investigators involved in innovation diffusion and adoption research is the problem of measuring the innovativeness construct. Furthermore, a scale measuring innovativeness towards self-service technologies (SSTs) adoption is required as SSTs have grown considerably in the last few decades. To this end, this study develops and validates a self-service innovativeness (SSI) scale applicable across a variety of SSTs. The study presents a series of six distinct phases describing the development and validation of a six-item, self-report scale. The innovativeness scale has been validated in different contexts, allowing comparisons across distinct samples (i.e., student vs. non-student sample) and different industries (i.e., retail and hospitality industries). The SSI scale presented in this paper is short, valid, reliable, and easy to administer in service domains.