Celebrity endorsements in destination marketing: A three country investigation

The present study extends research on the role of celebrity endorsements in destination marketing by exploring various facets of the effect of celebrity endorsements in destination marketing on the consumer. More specifically, theories of source credibility, congruence, social identity and consumer cosmopolitanism, are used to build research questions that investigate the relative effectiveness of a celebrity endorsed tourism advertisement vis a vis a generic advertisement and the boundary conditions governing the same such as destination type (local/global), celebrity country of origin and consumer level factors. The research questions are addressed using four experimental studies in sequence. The same four experiments are run in three countries with different socio-cultural backgrounds to enhance generalization, with a combined sample size of 1073 respondents. Major findings suggest that a celebrity endorser is effective for a destination advertisement. Significant cross-country differences were observed in consumer affect depending on the choice of celebrity (local or global) and the destination type (i.e., domestic or international). The effects are also moderated by consumer cosmopolitanism. The study has multiple theoretical and managerial implications.     

Assessing customers’ perceived value of the online channel of multichannel retailers: A two country examination

Given the constant and often dramatic technological advancements that facilitate retailing, especially online channel adoption by industry and customers, research focusing on customers perceived value of the online channel of multi-channel retailer’s requires conceptual and empirical elaboration. This study advances understanding of customer perceived online channel value and how customer perceptions of value effect online channel satisfaction and online channel loyalty. Using data from a multi-country study, we provide a deeper understanding for multi-channel retailers of how to balance investments in various value drivers to enhance online channel satisfaction and customer loyalty.     

Technology shocks around the world

This article investigates the effects of a permanent technology shock on labor input in the major seven developed countries. The recent empirical literature which uses Structural Vector Autoregressions (SVAR) with long-run restrictions has argued that technology shocks lead to a persistent and significant decline in employment in most of the G7 countries. We claim that the international transmission of shocks prevents the use of existing SVAR models, but also suggests alternative specifications to properly uncover their effects. We show in a quantitative two-country model that a measure of labor productivity aggregated across countries is more immune to persistent, if not permanent, shocks and allows to accurately identify the responses of the labor input to a technology shock. Using labor productivity at the G7 aggregate level, we find that the response of employment changes critically in most of the major seven developed countries.     

Solving the multi-country Real Business Cycle model using a monomial rule Galerkin method

I propose a Galerkin projection method for solving dynamic economic models with many state variables. This method employs non-product monomial integration formulas for the computation of weighted residuals, and its computational cost therefore increases only polynomially in the model's dimensionality. I illustrate the practical implementation of the proposed algorithm by solving several specifications of the multi-country Real Business Cycle model described in Den Haan et al. [2010. Computational suite of models with heterogeneous agents: multi-country Real Business Cycle models. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, this issue], and briefly discuss two possible routes for further improving its numerical accuracy.     

Interacting factor endowments and trade costs: A multi-country, multi-good approach to trade theory

We provide a synthetic analysis of the different ways in which countries participate in the world economy. Classic trade questions are reconsidered by generalizing a factor-proportions model to multiple countries, multiple goods or multi-stage production, and country-specific trade costs. Each country's production specialization, trade and welfare is determined by the interaction between its relative endowment and its trade costs. We consider the effects of allowing one good to ‘fragment’ into component and assembly production. The volume of trade and welfare levels are higher with fragmentation for most countries, although for many countries these variables fall with fragmentation.     

Mind the gap: A multi-country BVAR benchmark for the Eurosystem projections

The Eurosystem staff forecasts are conditional on the financial markets, the global economy and fiscal policy outlook, and include expert judgement. We develop a multi-country BVAR for the four largest countries of the euro area and we show that it provides accurate conditional forecasts of policy relevant variables such as, for example, consumer prices and GDP. The forecasting accuracy and the ability to mimic the path of the Eurosystem projections suggest that the model is a valid benchmark to assess the consistency of the projections with the conditional assumptions. As such, the BVAR can be used to identify possible sources of judgement, based on the gaps between the Eurosystem projections and the historical regularities captured by the model.     

On the mechanism of international technology diffusion for energy technological progress

As a needed methodological complement to the existing large-scale complex policy modelling for energy technology diffusion, this paper contributes to an analytical exposition of the fundamental mechanism of international technology diffusion (ITD) for energy technological progress. We offer two different and complementary perspectives to explore the dynamics of energy technology diffusion and progress. We first develop a Solow-type efficiency-improving model of energy technological progress which is described by improvements in primary energy-augmenting efficiency. We further provide a Romer-type variety-expanding model of energy technological progress which is represented by the expansion of differentiated varieties of primary energy technology blueprints. Analysis based on two different models reaches consistent results: there are potential forces in the world economy – working through ITD – that pull individual countries to advance energy technology, ensuring a cross-country convergence in the growth rates of energy technology in the balanced growth path. While ITD plays a role in a cross-country convergence in technological growth rates, cross-country differences in the efficiency of undertaking indigenous research and the capacity of absorbing foreign technology spillovers would lead to a cross-country divergence in the absolute levels of energy technology.     

Identifying salient forest SES attributes for sustainability: A multi-country study

The question of under what settings locally managed forests will lead to successful conservation without frustrating the local people’s subsistence outcomes remains contested. This research investigates the relationship between attributes of locally managed forest SES and its forest and livelihood outcomes using data from 83 forest SESs across seven countries. The data were obtained from the International Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI) database. Thirteen predicators that were selected from the attributes of forest, user group and governance of the local forest SES were used to evaluate their influence on SES sustainability. Our results showed that sustainable forest SES was significantly associated with forest size, diversity of the NTFP that is extracted from the forest, networks among the forest users, rule making by external non-forest harvest organizations in dispute resolution, and benefits sharing. On the other hand, the distance of forest users’ settlements in the forest, rule making for forest protection and harvest quantity as well as sanctions by external non-forest harvest organizations were found to be significantly associated with unsustainable forest SESs. Our findings have important implications for the ongoing discourse on how to promote sustainable forest management at local level. The results on the success factors can assist decision makers to improve the chances for the success of forest governance that rely on local people who depend upon forests.     

A multi-country study of bank reputation among customers in Africa: Key antecedents and consequences

This paper studies the antecedents related to service quality and the consequences of bank reputation among bank customers in three prominent markets in Africa, the continent on which one of the banking industries with the highest potential in the world is located. The research hypotheses were tested through the use of partial least squares modelling and by employing data collected from almost 1000 retail-banking customers from Ghana (n = 349), Kenya (n = 337), and South Africa (n = 300). An analysis of these data indicates that service quality dimensions, namely service offering appeal and customer care, meaningfully contribute to the strong perceptions customers have of their banks as regards reputation. The positive role of bank reputation in the development of trust and customer loyalty is also validated in this study. Furthermore, the multi-group analysis shows differences among countries in the case of all the relationships analysed, with the exception of the weight of customer care on bank reputation. Finally, the conclusion is reached that bank managers should focus their reputational strategies on improving the competitiveness of their bank products and should consider subtle institutional differences outside the bank's home-country in order to succeed in their internationalization strategies on the continent.     

Impact of fiscal stimulus on volatility: A cross-country analysis

This study investigates the short-to-medium-term impact of Covid-19-related fiscal stimulus relief packages on reducing investor uncertainty expectations in eight major economies. We use three measures of volatility to assess investor uncertainty: implied volatility, volatility index, and realized kernel volatility of ETFs in each country. The data covers a three-year period from January 2019 to December 2021. Our findings indicate an increase in all three measures of volatility in the post-Covid to pre-stimulus period, which decreases after the announcement of the stimulus packages. The results show that, on average, the stimulus announcements alleviate investor uncertainty and facilitate economic recovery. However, the effectiveness of the stimulus packages varies across countries but not across sectors. Our results remain robust to several checks, including alternate econometric specifications, such as the Arellano-Blundell-Bond estimation for dynamic panel data.