Antecedents and outcomes of digital influencer endorsement: An exploratory study

The advertising and marketing literature have established that celebrity endorsements constitute an effective way to enhance attitudes toward brands and increase purchase intents. However, there are no relevant studies on digital influencers. This study addresses the research gap by examining the effect of digital influencers' attractiveness and the effect of the congruence between a digital influencer and a brand on consumer attitudes and purchase intentions. By applying structural equation modeling to a sample of 307 followers of digital influencers, a model was tested and group analysis was performed for two categories (“entertainment & video games” and “fashion & beauty”). The results show that both brand attitudes and purchase intentions are influenced by the digital influencer's attractiveness (which includes both likeability and familiarity) and by the congruence between the digital influencer and the brand. This study makes several contributions to both theory and practice, which are highlighted in this paper.     

Domestic and Foreign Price/Marginal-cost Margins: an Application to Spanish Manufacturing Firms

The authors investigate the differences in margins of export and domestic markets for Spanish manufacturing firms in the period 1990 to 1997. They estimate jointly a multiproduct cost function, a variable factor share equation, and two price/marginal‐cost margin equations. The results indicate that the marginal cost of production sold in export markets is slightly greater than in domestic markets. At the same time, the price/marginal‐cost margins in export markets are smaller than in domestic markets. There is also strong evidence that margins are procyclical in domestic markets, but this evidence is less clear in foreign markets.     

Product differentiation and dynamic price behavior in fish markets

The objective of this paper is to estimate the dynamics of aquaculture and fish prices as a response to price shocks. The vector autoregression approach will be used to explain the dynamics of the sea bream market in both cultured and wild fishing. The main result is that changes in public regulation or in production conditions could stimulate production responses which may take time to settle. Usually, the change is a matter of adjusting between equilibria over a period of time, with the pattern and speed of the adjustment, depending on the nature and degree of disequilibrium in the fishing system. Comments from reviewers have been incorporated into the paper and are gratefully acknowledged. Financial support was provided by Direcció General de Recerca, Departament d'Universitats, Recerca i Societat de la Informació project N^o SGR2001-160.     

Economic mobility along the business cycle. The case of Peru

The performance of Latin American countries in reducing poverty and expanding the middle class has been remarkable. By taking a close look at the Peruvian experience, we examine how this aggregate behavior relates to business cycle conditions and whether different population groups share this behavior. We find that social mobility is cyclical; it decreases in recessions but increases with strong economic growth. The reduction in poverty in Peru appears to be the result of a sustained increase in the poverty exit rate together with a prolonged decrease in the poverty entry rate. These results hold among heterogeneous groups and are particularly marked for households regarded as initially disadvantaged.     

Improving an outpatient clinic utilization using decision analysis-based patient scheduling

This study presents a predictive model to be used in scheduling patients in an urban outpatient clinic. The model is based upon actual patient characteristics from a physical therapy clinic within an urban health and wellness center situated in a public university. A number of reported patients' characteristics such as age, education level, distance from the clinic, historical attendance records, etc. were examined to determine if they significantly impacted the patients' missing scheduled appointments (no-shows.) Decision tree analysis was used to develop a model that assessed the likelihood of a patient's no-show, using key patient characteristics and attendance records. Such a model can be used to assist with scheduling patients in an outpatient clinic, while attempting to increase the clinic's overall utilization. Four tree growing criteria were examined to develop the model with the strongest predictive power. Predictive power of each method was assessed by using the entire dataset as well as using split sampling. The results were then compared with those of a Bayesian networks model and a neural networks model. In addition, the trade-off between the selected decision tree model's predictive power versus simplicity of the associated classification rules was examined. We also assessed the impact of various levels of overbooking on the clinic's utilization when using patients' schedules based on the predictive model.     

Successful eco‐innovators: Exploring the association between open inbound knowledge strategies and the performance of eco‐innovative firms

The main purpose of this paper is to analyse the association between open inbound knowledge strategies and the performance of eco‐innovative firms in the food and beverage industry. We propose a mixed framework based on the eco‐innovation literature and the open innovation approach. We consider the characteristics in a traditional sector based upon a resource‐based perspective. Three types of firms are distinguished in terms of their sales growth in the Spanish food industry from the least to the most successful eco‐innovators. Using multinomial logistic regression models, it is shown that the diversity of collaborators (breadth of external sources of knowledge) and joint adoption of product and process eco‐innovations are positively associated with the probability of achieving high sales growth. Moreover, we find an inverted U‐shaped relationship between the breadth of the external search and firm performance, but only for the group of the most successful firms. Moreover, operational flexibility, knowledge‐based capabilities and company size are also positively related to the group of successful eco‐innovators.     

Monetary policy rules with PID control features: evidence from the UK,USA and EU

ABSTRACT

This paper considers the extent to which the monetary policy operations of three major central banks can be regarded as an application of Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) control rules. The paper outlines the general PID framework and estimates a series of dynamic models to identify how interest rate policy adjustments are affected by the rate of inflation and the level of macroeconomic activity. The paper examines data for the UK, the USA and the Eurozone. The results suggest that the PID rules can provide a useful theoretical and empirical framework for estimating central bank responses to the inflation and macroeconomic activity variables by improving the explanatory power of the Taylor rule model and determining the effect of the parameters.     

Markups,Bargaining Power and Offshoring: An Empirical Assessment1

This paper tests the pro‐competitive effect of imports on product and labour markets for Spanish manufacturing firms in the period 1990–2005. In doing so, it takes into account the type of imported products: final versus intermediate. Markups are estimated following the procedure suggested by Roeger and including an efficient bargaining model. The observed heterogeneity among firms is parametised to consider additional product standardisation and market concentration. The results support the imports as market discipline hypothesis for importers of final goods, while firms that offshore intermediate inputs show similar markups to nonimporters. Additionally, the union bargaining power is smaller for importers and the more homogeneous is the type of goods elaborated by firms.     

Pedagogical and technological replanning: a successful case study on integration and transversal skills for engineering freshmen

Replanning is often used to optimize results of an activity in an ever changing world. To address the challenge of preparing future engineers for success, a special course was created for all engineering freshmen of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, in Portugal. Presented as a case study, this special course underwent a careful replanning as a result of several years of experience in teaching practice alongside with a theoretical deepening in pedagogical and technological issues, under the aegis of the action-research methodology. Within the context of the case study course, the mentioned replanning was also based on a theoretical approach that clearly identifies teaching–learning-assessment methodologies that promote regulation from those that foster emancipation, using a specific instrument: a taxonomy of educational processes. The replanning was designed to globally boost results regarding the educational aims of the course such as furthering freshmen’s integration into work environment and preparing them for success by fostering transversal skills (needed for study and work). Technology is seen as a mean of education enrichment as well as a productivity tool. The introduced innovations include fun-but-educational activities, several types of assessment over time and specific technological tools which were critical for the educational impact/achievement of this course. Success is demonstrated by encouraging feedback from the stakeholders, high students’ classifications and a steady reduction in retention. It is advocated that large portions of the reasoning behind the replanning can be extrapolated to other courses.