scholarly journals The Effects of Corporate Bonds on Employment: Early Evidence from Greece

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-253
Author(s):  
Sotirios Karagiannis ◽  
Dimitrios Thomakos

This study investigates the impact of corporate bonds issued by Greek listed firms on employment. Even though external financing and the effects on employment has been studied in the literature, we extend the existing literature by focusing for the first time on the specific role of corporate bonds on employment. We have collected all the relevant papers on this line of the literature and concisely report them in a table format and then use them in analyzing our results. Our empirical analysis is based on a panel dataset from 2001 to 2014 and we examine the effect of corporate bonds in the pre and post period of the Greek economic crisis, in which the banking system is vulnerable and unable to provide financing to the firms. The results suggest that corporate bonds have a positive effect on employment in the pre-crisis sample, denoting that firms hire employees and proceed to investment choices. On the contrary, during the recession, corporate bonds have a negative effect on employment. Firms reduce their costs and try to control their debt obligations by issuing corporate bonds.

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 319-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beatriz Naranjo Sánchez

Abstract Based on previous findings about the role of music as an emotional stimulus, as well as the potential benefits of music-driven emotional engagement in written production and creative behaviour, the present study investigates the impact of emotional background music on translation quality and creativity. A translation experiment in two different conditions (music vs. silence) was conducted in a controlled environment. Participants translated two literary texts of opposing emotional contents (happy vs. sad) while they listened to an emotionally-matching soundtrack. Statistical analysis of within- and between-group comparisons only revealed conclusive results for the sad condition, showing a positive effect of sad music on translation creativity and a negative effect on accuracy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 6361
Author(s):  
Wojciech Trzebiński ◽  
Radosław Baran ◽  
Beata Marciniak

The paper aims to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and possible future global epidemic events on shopping behavioral patterns. Specifically, the paper investigates consumer pandemic-related isolation behavior (which manifests itself via preference for shopping without leaving home, and avoiding contact with other people while shopping offline) as a consequence of consumer interdependent self-construal, with the mediating role of consumer pandemic-related emotions of disgust, fear for oneself, fear for others, and sadness. The results of two surveys conducted in different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland (October 2020, and January 2021, respectively) suggest two opposing indirect effects of interdependent self-construal on isolation behavior: a positive effect through disgust, and a negative effect through sadness. Additionally, a positive indirect effect through fear was visible in the second study. Moreover, two dimensions of interdependent self-construal (i.e., vertical and horizontal) are demonstrated to have opposing effects (a positive effect and a negative one, respectively) on pandemic-related disgust, and in turn on isolation behavior. The above results indicate that, in the context of the pandemic, consumer self-construal influences pandemic-related emotions, and in turn consumers’ tendency to isolate themselves. Implications for marketers and society were discussed from the perspective of economic and sustainability goals.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-40
Author(s):  
Zahra Bahararjmand ◽  
Mohammad A. Khalilzadeh ◽  
Farshad Saberi-Movahed ◽  
Tae Hyung Lee ◽  
Jinghan Wang ◽  
...  

The impact of Si3N4 content on the hardness and microstructural developments of ZrB2-SiC material has been investigated thoroughly in the present investigation. Having prepared the raw materials in a jar mill, the ZrB2-SiC samples containing various amounts of Si3N4 were hot-pressed at 1850 °C. Furthermore, XRD, FESEM, and HRTEM were utilized to evaluate the microstructure of samples. The formation of in-situ h-BN was proved by the mentioned methods. Also, it was shown that the Vickers hardness of ZrB2-SiC increases up to 20 GPa in presence of 4.5 wt% Si3N4 which is 3 GPa more than the sample without Si3N4. Results show that the positive effect of increased relative density on hardness is more than the negative effect of h-BN soft phase formation.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksandr Gritckevich ◽  
Zsolt Katona ◽  
Miklos Sarvary

In recent years, ad blocking has become a significant threat to advertising-supported content. Adblockers typically negotiate with publishers, allowing some ads to go through in return for a payment, a practice called (partial) whitelisting in the industry. Ad blocking has a direct positive effect on consumers by reducing advertising intensity. On the other hand, the practice clearly hurts publishers and reduces their incentives to invest in content quality. Lower content quality, in turn has an indirect negative effect on consumers. This paper builds an analytic model to explore the net impact of ad blocking on consumers, how it depends on various market characteristics, and how uniformly it affects consumers. The results show that under a broad set of market conditions, total consumer surplus and even total welfare decline under ad blocking. Whereas some consumers are always better off with an ad blocker, for the average consumer, the impact of quality decline is larger than that of ad reduction. The analysis highlights the detrimental role of ad blockers’ current revenue model—in which value is created for the consumers but it is captured from publishers—in decreasing quality, consumer surplus, and total welfare. Analyzing the impact of varying levels of negotiation power between the ad blocker and publisher reveals that full negotiation power is not preferred by the ad blocker. A lower negotiation power allows the ad blocker to commit to less value extraction from the publisher, thereby leading to higher content quality. Additional model extensions show that the main results are robust. In the case of multiple publishers with different levels of competition between them, the strong negative effect of ad blocking on quality holds. This paper was accepted by Juanjuan Zhang, marketing.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-50
Author(s):  
Habib GUENOUNI ◽  
Abderrahmane AMEUR

Several economic studies have shown that the banking system has a positive effect on economic development, through its ability to transfer a large mass of savings resources to the productive investment needs of the private sector. This work has a purpose to study these demonstrations in the case of Algerian banks and its role in development. To arrive at the final result, we used an econometric method that helped us to study the impact of banking variables on economic growth - as an indicator of economic development - in Algeria during the period 1962-2016. We have found qs result of this work, that banking variables have a negative effect on economic growth, especially the credit variable, so for this, the banking role in Algeria is still far from achieving economic development.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Tessa Hoffman

<p>Smartphones have become ubiquitous in consumers’ lives and have been identified as an important online channel. However, consumers have indicated a preference for purchasing products through their fixed devices, such as computers, and few studies have investigated situations where consumers might indicate greater purchase intentions on their mobile devices. This research examines the influence of scarcity messages and popularity cues on purchase intention in the context of online shopping. Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the differences between consumers using mobile and fixed devices.  Study one was a 3 (scarcity: limited quantity vs limited time vs no scarcity) x 2 (device: fixed vs smartphone) between-subjects design (N = 236). Study one found that in an online shopping context, limited-quantity scarcity messages (e.g. limited stock available) had a negative effect on purchase intention regardless of the consumer’s device. Furthermore, a consumer’s scepticism of advertising moderated the relationship. Perceived risk of online shopping was found to moderate the relationship between device and purchase intention.  Study two was a 2 (scarcity: limited quantity vs no scarcity) x 2 (popularity: ranking vs no ranking) x 2 (device: fixed vs smartphone) between-subjects design (N = 244). The study showed that a popularity cue had a positive effect on purchase intention. However, scarcity had no effect on purchase intention. Consumers in the smartphone conditions also had lower purchase intentions but this was not impacted by the inclusion of a scarcity message or popularity cue. Interestingly, credibility of the content did not moderate the relationships between scarcity and purchase intention, or popularity ranking and purchase intention.  These findings suggest that online scarcity messages do not increase purchase intention, in contrast to previous offline studies. The moderating role of scepticism on the scarcity message and purchase intention relationship indicates that consumers are suspicious of scarcity messages in an online context. However, it appears popularity cues enhance consumer purchase intentions online. Neither a scarcity message or a popularity cue increased purchase intention on a smartphone. The research demonstrates that scarcity messages are not as effective online as they have been shown to be in an offline context and that further research is required to understand how to increase consumer purchase intentions when shopping on a smartphone.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (10) ◽  
pp. 963-973 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominik Szwajgier ◽  
Ewa Baranowska-Wójcik

Background: Cholinesterase inhibitors are routinely applied in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, and seeking new cholinesterase inhibitors is a priority. Objective: Twenty seven compounds were compared, including ones not previously tested. An attempt was undertaken to precisely describe the role of alcohol in the inhibitory activity. This paper underlines the role of a “false positive” blank sample in the routine analysis. Methods: The inhibition of cholinesterase was measured using Ellman’s colorimetric method with a few modifications designed by the authors (including the “false-positive” effect). The inhibitory role of ethanol and methanol was also carefully evaluated. The present and past results were compared taking the source of enzyme and alcohol content into consideration. Results: For the first time, new inhibitors were identified, namely: methyl jasmonate, 1R-(−)-nopol ((anti-acetyl-(AChE) and butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) activity)) and 1,4-cineole, allo-aromadendrene, nerolidol, β-ionone, and (R)-(+)-pulegone (anti-BChE activity). Oleanolic acid and (+)-β-citronellene (not previously studied) proved to be inefficient inhibitors. For a number of well-known inhibitors (such as nerol, (−)-menthol, (+)-menthol, isoborneol, (−)-bornyl acetate, limonene, α-pinene, β-pinene, α- ionone, and eugenol) some serious discrepancies were observed between our findings and the results of previous studies. Ethanol and methanol showed no anti-AChE activity up to 0.29% (v/v) and 0.23% (v/v), respectively. Similarly, ethanol up to 0.33% (v/v) and methanol up to 0.29% (v/v) did not inhibit the activity of BChE. Conclusion: It can be stated that the impact of alcohol should be precisely determined and that blank “false-positive” samples should be processed together with test samples. Furthermore, the effect of the enzyme origin on the result of this test must be taken into consideration.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
pp. 9422
Author(s):  
Susan D. Clayton

Research indicates that beautiful nature can have positive impacts. Does polluted nature have a corresponding negative impact? This paper presents two experiments investigating the impact of viewing images of natural settings, on a college campus, that do or do not contain litter. The moderating role of environmental identity was also examined. Study 1 showed that landscapes with litter evoked more negative emotions among a sample of 332 U.S. residents on MTurk than did landscapes without litter. Surprisingly, natural landscapes did not have a more positive effect than images of buildings. In Study 2, using an MTurk sample of 310 U.S. residents, results were similar to Study 1 but were qualified by an interaction between condition and EID: those high in EID were more strongly affected by the images. These results suggest that viewing polluted landscapes can have a negative effect on emotions (hedonic wellbeing), and that these effects are stronger among those who have a stronger relationship with nature. There was no evidence for an impact on eudaimonic wellbeing as represented by a sense of meaning, efficacy, or ethicality. Given the continuing degradation of our natural environment, further research on the impacts of polluted landscapes is needed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheng Wei ◽  
Jiaqi Xu ◽  
Shengxiang She ◽  
Yan Wang ◽  
Ying Zhang

In view of the fact that vigorously promoting recycling has become a viable means to promote sustainable development, it is important to better understand the impact of recycling efforts on subsequent resource saving behavior. This research empirically examines the effects of recycling efforts on subsequent resource saving by analyzing the survey data of 356 college students in China. The recycling efforts, environmental self-identity and feeling of pride were measured using existing scales while saving behaviors and recycling cost were measured by developing new scales. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was performed to test the structural relationships among recycling efforts, environmental self-identity, feeling of pride, and saving behaviors. Further, the moderation role of recycling cost was tested. The results showed that (1) saving behaviors could be classified into two types based on their costliness; (2) recycling efforts have a positive effect on costless saving behaviors, while having a negative effect on costly saving behaviors; (3) both the positive and negative effect of recycling efforts on resource saving is mediated by pride feeling and environmental self-identity; and (4) recycling cost negatively moderates the effects of recycling efforts on pride feeling. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of the findings.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Tessa Hoffman

<p>Smartphones have become ubiquitous in consumers’ lives and have been identified as an important online channel. However, consumers have indicated a preference for purchasing products through their fixed devices, such as computers, and few studies have investigated situations where consumers might indicate greater purchase intentions on their mobile devices. This research examines the influence of scarcity messages and popularity cues on purchase intention in the context of online shopping. Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the differences between consumers using mobile and fixed devices.  Study one was a 3 (scarcity: limited quantity vs limited time vs no scarcity) x 2 (device: fixed vs smartphone) between-subjects design (N = 236). Study one found that in an online shopping context, limited-quantity scarcity messages (e.g. limited stock available) had a negative effect on purchase intention regardless of the consumer’s device. Furthermore, a consumer’s scepticism of advertising moderated the relationship. Perceived risk of online shopping was found to moderate the relationship between device and purchase intention.  Study two was a 2 (scarcity: limited quantity vs no scarcity) x 2 (popularity: ranking vs no ranking) x 2 (device: fixed vs smartphone) between-subjects design (N = 244). The study showed that a popularity cue had a positive effect on purchase intention. However, scarcity had no effect on purchase intention. Consumers in the smartphone conditions also had lower purchase intentions but this was not impacted by the inclusion of a scarcity message or popularity cue. Interestingly, credibility of the content did not moderate the relationships between scarcity and purchase intention, or popularity ranking and purchase intention.  These findings suggest that online scarcity messages do not increase purchase intention, in contrast to previous offline studies. The moderating role of scepticism on the scarcity message and purchase intention relationship indicates that consumers are suspicious of scarcity messages in an online context. However, it appears popularity cues enhance consumer purchase intentions online. Neither a scarcity message or a popularity cue increased purchase intention on a smartphone. The research demonstrates that scarcity messages are not as effective online as they have been shown to be in an offline context and that further research is required to understand how to increase consumer purchase intentions when shopping on a smartphone.</p>


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