Domestic political connections and international expansion: It's not only ‘who you know’ that matters

Former politicians on the board of directors bring to the firm domestic political connections and political knowledge. Previous research has mainly highlighted the role of contacts, without fully recognizing the role of political knowledge accumulated at home. By focusing on the effect of domestic political connections on foreign direct investment, we show that domestic political knowledge also shapes foreign expansion. We argue that contacts provided by former politicians may not be useful for foreign expansion whilst their political knowledge can be of help in countries with discretionary governments and with similar institutional environments to the one of the home country.     

资本外逃的经济效应与应对政策选择研究

资本外逃是一个复杂的经济问题,是由多种原因造成的,并会给一国经济发展带来不可估量的风险和损失。基于此,论文梳理了资本外逃的研究现状,提出了资本外逃所产生的经济效应,在此基础上,提出了资本外逃的政策选择,为一国在治理资本外逃时提供了政策选择和借鉴。     

Customer reactions to self-checkout discontinuance

Self-service technologies (SSTs) increasingly permeate retail space. Yet, sometimes retailers decide to revert to human-delivered service mode by discontinuing their incumbent SST. In this study, we examine how self-checkout (SCO) discontinuance affects customers’ perceptions of SCO technology and purchase behavior. We conduct a natural field experiment by surveying two groups of customers pre- and post- SCO discontinuance: treatment group (who experience discontinuance) and control group (who do not experience discontinuance). Leveraging difference-in-differences analyses, we find that SCO discontinuance results in decreases in customers’ satisfaction with technology, intentions to use technology, perceived simplicity of technology, and basket size. Our results inform managers of the potential downsides of discontinuing SST and provide corroborating evidence of the technology’s benefits.     

Effects of individual resources and team-member exchange on service quality

While workplace resources are generally viewed as positively affecting performance, some studies indicate that not all resources increase performance. This study addresses the controversial disparate effects of workplace resources on performance by exploring functionally classified workplace resources in self-managing service teams and their relative impacts on team service quality. Considering membership dynamics and consequences between members, a field experiment was conducted in a cafeteria, with data collected through a working diary for workplace resources and a customer survey to evaluate service quality. Results suggest that efficacy-resources in self-managing teams should be controlled with caution as they may adversely affect team service quality. Supporting the person–situation interactionism perspective, workplace resources interact dynamically with individual employees and with situations. Esteem-resources were found to increase team service quality, while team-member exchange not only improved team service quality but also moderated the impact of esteem-resources on team service quality.     

Chinese consumers’ preferences for food quality test/measurement indicators and cues of milk powder: A case of Zhengzhou,China

Many food regulations focus on test/measurement indicators, such as hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP) and traceability, etc. Other than these indicators, the food industry uses various cues such as product origin as indicators of product quality. However, in an environment where consumers’ confidence in food safety is low due to frequent food safety scandals, little is known about the efficiency of these test/measurement indicators and cues. This paper used the primary data collected in Zhengzhou (China) to estimate consumers’ preferences for test/measurement indicators and a new cue of “own farm” for milk powder. Our results show that country of origin is the most important cue attribute, followed by price and own farm. The importance of test/measurement indicators such as organic, traceability, and HACCP certification is relatively low. Also, the individual parameter estimates show that consumers’ preferences for test/measurement indicators currently in the market are weak and fragile. Interestingly, price has an inverse-U-shaped relationship with consumer utility, implying that Chinese consumers may perceive low-price milk powder as low quality. The results of this study provide important insight for regulatory authorities and the food industry to develop more effective policies and programs to improve consumer preferences for milk powder.     

A destination imagery processing model: Structural differences between dream and favourite destinations

The present paper aims at understanding how destination imagery is processed in tourists’ working memory. The research focuses on two highly desirable, but contrasting, destination brand categories: Favourite Destination, which involves retrospective memory of positive experiences in situ; and Dream Destination, based on tourists’ prospective memory. Through an online multilingual survey, 23,446 responses consisting of perceptions, evoked by way of free-recall, associated to Dream and Favourite Destinations, were collected. Findings point to clear structural differences between the imagery of Dream and Favourite Destinations. Additionally, a theoretical destination imagery model that offers a basis for future studies is proposed, and some managerial implications of significant relevance to destination marketing are discussed.     

社会地位来源对欺骗行为的影响——来自实验室实验的证据

如何减少欺骗是当前中国社会普遍面临的问题。文章结合社会地位理论和自我概念理论，研究了减少欺骗行为的机制。我们利用实验室实验，区分先赋性和自致性两种地位获取方式，用欺骗博弈来检验不同社会地位来源对欺骗决策的影响。结果发现，个人通过真实劳动获得的自致性社会地位可以显著减少欺骗行为；由于幸运得到的先赋性社会地位不能减少欺骗行为。同时，非物质收益的社会地位比赋予物质收益的社会地位更有效减少欺骗行为，说明物质收益是对市场化自我概念的提醒，从而无助于降低欺骗。研究结果在剔除策略性行为后依然稳健。研究有效验证了Mazar et al.（2008）关于影响欺骗行为的自我概念内在决定机制，并对各类组织提升诚信管理具有重要借鉴意义。     

Predicting the equity market with option-implied variables

We comprehensively analyze the predictive power of several option-implied variables for monthly S&P 500 excess returns and realized variance. The correlation risk premium (CRP) and the variance risk premium (VRP) emerge as strong predictors of both excess returns and realized variance. This is true both in- and out-of-sample. Our results also reveal that statistical evidence of predictability does not necessarily lead to economic gains. However, a timing strategy based on the CRP leads to utility gains of more than 5.03% per annum. Forecast combinations provide stable forecasts for both excess returns and realized variance, and add economic value.     

Business groups,the financial market and modernization*

Business groups are an important aspect of the industrial organization of many developing countries. This paper develops a theory suggesting that they may be organizations that facilitate modernization in the presence of financial market constraints. An important function of the stockmarket is the diversification of risk that comes with specialized, productive technology. But in the face of serious information problems a well functioning stockmarket may fail to emerge, relegating the economy to a low productivity‐poverty trap. Bilateral links between a firm and a group of others may be a more cost effective way to achieve risk‐sharing. Such business groups may be feasible when a full‐fledged stockmarket is not. As modernization takes place, either because information problems become less severe or more firms enter the economy, business groups actually expand in size before being abruptly rendered obsolete by the stockmarket. This is consistent with empirical results from a number of emerging economies.     

Neutrality in arrow and other impossibility theorems

Summary. Although not assumed explicitly, we show that neutrality plays an important role in Arrow and other impossibility theorems. Applying it to pivotal voters we produce direct proofs of classical impossibility theorems, including Arrow's, as well as extend some of these theorems. We further explore the role of neutrality showing that it is equivalent to Pareto or reverse Pareto, and to effective dictatorship for non-null social welfare functions satisfying the principle of independence of irrelevant alternatives. It is also equivalent to Wilson's Citizens' Sovereignty--which is related to the intuition that symmetry over alternatives makes social preference depend only on citizens' preferences. We show that some of these results are more fundamental than others in that they extend both to infinite societies and to considerably smaller domains of preferences. Finally, as an application of Arrow's theorem, we provide a simple proof of the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem.Received: 13 April 2000, Revised: 6 December 2002, JEL Classification Numbers: D71, C70.I thank Salvador Barberá, Luis Corchón, Cesar Martinelli, Eric Maskin, Tomas Sjöström, Ricard Torres, José Pedro Ubeda, and an anonymous referee for feedback. The proofs of Arrow's theorem and two Wilson's theorems come from a note I wrote in 1987 at Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona (Ubeda [16]). In 1996 Geanakoplos [7] wrote a proof of Arrow's theorem similar but not identical to mine. All work in this paper is independent of his.