Browsing by Subject "Consumption behavior"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

Open Access
Accounting for materialism in four cultures
(1999) Ger, G.; Belk, R. W.
Accounts for materialism are examined based on qualitative research in Romania, Turkey, the USA, and Western Europe. Various spontaneously offered accounts reconcile the discrepancy between the belief that materialism is bad and materialistic consumption behavior and aspirations. These accounts include justifications - passionate connoisseurship, instrumentalism, and altruism - and excuses - the compelling external forces, the ways of the modern world, and deservingness. The differences in accounts can be understood culturally and historically. In negotiating the 'bad' material world with their own consumption worlds, informants draw from various ethics prevalent in their cultures to moralize their personal materialistic consumption. Our findings suggest ways in which materialism, moralized by local accounts, is able to grow globally in spite of its condemnation.
Open Access
eBay in the economic literature: analysis of an auction marketplace
(Springer New York LLC, 2010) Hasker, K.; Sickles, R.
This survey brings together theoretical and empirical questions that have been addressed in the economic literature on eBay, focusing on understanding the behavior of buyers and sellers. We discuss several puzzles of bidder behavior and the explanations that have been put forward by the literature for each. We then discuss structural estimates of bidder behavior and measuring the consumer surplus derived from eBay. We then try to understand why there are so many selling formats being used simultaneously, and then focus on the critical decision variables for a seller in an eBay English auction. Finally we analyze how trustworthy eBay sellers are on average, and whether the feedback system provides strong incentives for good behavior. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.
Open Access
Foreign banks, financial crises and macroeconomic fluctuations
(Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2016) Önder, Z.; Özyıldırım, S.
Understanding the implications of increased foreign bank presence is especially compelling in periods of financial crisis. In this paper, we explore this issue by examining the relationship between the involvement of foreign banks in the banking systems and the volatility of key macroeconomic variables in normal and crisis periods. Using a sample of 20 Emerging European countries from 1998 to 2013, we find that an increase in the assets of foreign banks in the banking system reduces output and consumption growth volatility in general but does not significantly affect the volatility of investments. However, these banks were found to play a significant role in increasing output, consumption and investment volatility in 2009. Our findings suggest that foreign banks’ harmful impact during the global crisis was only temporary and that they seem to help Emerging European countries stabilize macroeconomic volatility in normal times and after the global crisis.
Open Access
Strategic interaction and catching up
(Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, 2016) Özer, M.; Sağlam, Ç.
In this study, we prove that the strategic interaction among agents differing in initial wealth levels leads the poor to be able to catch up with the rich, which is not the case for the standard Ramsey model where the initial wealth differences perpetuate. Extending the analysis to account for relative wealth concern and the adjustment cost of consumption, the strategic interaction among agents is shown to affect not only the distribution of wealth in the long run but also the transitional dynamics substantially. In particular, we show that structurally very simple frameworks may lead to limit cycles thanks to the strategic interaction among agents in the economy. © 2015 Board of Trustees of the Bulletin of Economic Research and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.