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on Cultural Economics |
| By: | Hynes, Stephen; Norton, Daniel; Hanley, Nick |
| Abstract: | Values for non-market goods can be expected to be sensitive to variations in the cultural contexts of beneficiaries. However, little progress has been made to date in adapting benefit transfer procedures for cultural variations. Using information from a study that ranked 62 societies with respect to nine attributes of their cultures, we develop an index that is then used to re-weight multiple coastal ecosystem service value estimates. We examine whether these culturally-adjusted Benefit Transfer (BT) estimates are statistically different than simply transferring the income-adjusted mean transfer estimates for each coastal ecosystem service from international study sites to the policy site. We find that once differences in income levels have been accounted for, the differences in cultural dimensions between study and policy sites actually have little impact on the magnitude of our transfer estimates. This is not a surprising result given that the majority of the study site estimates are derived from countries that share many ethnic, linguistic and other cultural similarities to the policy site. However, benefit adjustments based on cultural factors could have a much higher impacts in settings different to that investigated here. |
| Keywords: | Non-market goods, Benefit Transfer, coastal ecosystem service, Environmental Economics and Policy, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:semrui:148828&r=cul |
| By: | Liu, Yizao; Lopez, Rigoberto |
| Abstract: | This article estimates the impact of social media exposure on consumer valuation of product characteristics. We apply the Berry, Levinsohn and Pakes (1995) model of market equilibrium to sales data for 18 carbonated soft drink brands sold in 12 cities over 17 months (June 2011 to October 2012) and social media conversations on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Empirical results show that social media exposure is a significant driver of consumer behavior through altering evaluation of product characteristics and purchase choices. |
| Keywords: | Social Media, Demand, Consumer behavior, Internet, Carbonated soft drinks, Consumer/Household Economics, Demand and Price Analysis, Industrial Organization, D12, M37, L66, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea13:148913&r=cul |
| By: | Yamauchi, Isamu; Nagaoka, Sadao |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effects of outsourcing of prior art search on the efficiency of patent examination, using a large scale Japanese patent examination data. Outsourcing may increase examination quality by expanding the scope of prior art search, while it may have a negative effect if the synergy between search and examination is important. If examination quality is the predominant concern for outsourcing decision and the outsourcing is constrained by budgetary resources, we expect that outsourcing enhances examination quality at its margin. On the other hand, if an examiner can save private cost by outsourcing, an increase in outsourcing can decrease the quality. Controlling for the endogeneity of outsourcing decision as well as examiners’ fixed effects, we found that the outsourcing of prior art search significantly decreased the frequency of appeals against both examiners’ rejection and grant decisions and reduced the length of examination duration. At the same time we found that the prior art search of complex inventions is not outsourced. These suggest that the opportunity for exploiting external knowledge and capability can increase the quality as well as the speed of examination. |
| Keywords: | patent, examination, outsourcing, search, prior art |
| JEL: | O38 O34 O30 |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:iirwps:13-12&r=cul |
| By: | Jennie Bai; Jia Guo; Benjamin Mandel |
| Abstract: | We analyze two reasons for export prices to be different across markets--namely, quality differentiation and variable markups--and attempt to parse their relative importance and some of their underlying drivers. To overcome the substantial measurement issues in this task, we consider a particular industry as a special case: Chinese fine art. The simplicity of the supply side of art vis-á-vis marginal cost and the wealth of data on its quality characteristics make it possible to separately identify the markup and quality components of international relative prices for Chinese artworks. Through this lens, we trace the process of growth and internationalization of Chinese art since the year 2000. We find strong support for quality sorting into international markets at both the level of artist and artwork, as well as substantial markup differences across destinations. Using a structural model of endogenous quality choice by Feenstra and Romalis (2012), we argue that much of the international quality premium is driven by per unit distribution costs (whether physical or informational) rather than destination-specific preferences for quality. |
| Keywords: | Exports - China ; Prices ; International trade ; Supply and demand |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fednsr:614&r=cul |