From the early days of automated card sorting to the more recent times of the Internet and check imaging, payments and payments processing have continually embraced new technology. At the same time, the industry has been shaped by its share of entry and exit, through startups, mergers, and the reorganization of businesses seeking the proper scope of horizontal and vertical integration. Many of ...

There have been heated debates on the controversial role of healthcare Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs) which negotiate contracts with vendor on the behalf of healthcare providers. These GPOs cover their costs by charging manufacturers ‘‘Contract Admi nistrative Fees,’’ instead of being reimbursed by the providers. This causes conflicts of interests. Therefore, purchasing through GPOs migh...

Sustainable consumption is gaining in currency as a new environmental policy objective. This paper presents new research findings from a mixed-method empirical study of a local organic food network to interrogate the theories of both sustainable consumption and ecological citizenship. It describes a mainstream policy model of sustainable consumption, and contrasts this with an alternative model...

Firms in durable good product markets face incentives to intertemporally price discriminate, by setting high initial prices to sell to consumers with the highest willingness to pay, and cutting prices thereafter to appeal to those with lower willingness to pay. A critical determinant of the profitability of such pricing policies is the extent to which consumers anticipate future price declines,...

Introduction and summary A classic question facing macroeconomists is: How does an increase in government purchases affect the economy? Our interest in this question is motivated by the desire to evaluate the properties of different rules and institutions for setting fiscal policy. For example, should government purchases vary systematically over the business cycle? What would the macroeconomic...

Liquidity and deflationary spirals self‐generate endogenous risk and redistribute wealth. Monetary policy can mitigate these effects and help rebalance wealth after an adverse shock, thereby reducing endogenous risk, stabilizing the economy, and stimulating growth. The redistributive channel differs from the classic Keynesian interest rate channel in models with price stickiness. Central banks ...

If the market value of inventory declines below its original cost, for reasons such as damage or obsolescence, under U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles a company should write it down to the new market value and recognize a loss. This paper uses publicly available data to conduct an empirical investigation of 290 firms, which experienced a first-time inventory writedown of more than 1...

A working paper in the IN SEAD Working Paper Series is intended as a means whereby a fac ulty researcher's thoughts and findings ma y be communicated to interested readers. The paper should be considered preliminary in nature and may require revision. Printed a t INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France. Kindly do not reproduce or circulate without permission. We study the effect of anticipated regret on ...

A model of public and private liquidity is constructed that integrates financial intermediation theory with a New Monetarist monetary framework. Key features of the model are non-passive fiscal policy and costs of operating a currency system, which imply that an optimal policy deviates from the Friedman rule. A liquidity trap can exist in equilibrium away from the Friedman rule, and there exist...

Each year, billions of dollars in online spending are lost due to consumers’ fears about information security. Many studies are concerned with methods reduce perceived risk in online transactions. Of the studies that evaluate the effect of structural assurances, few use actual or simulated purchasing scenarios. This study uses a simulated purchasing scenario where participants were shown either...