Performance-sensitive government bonds - A new proposal for sustainable sovereign debt management

We argue that current sovereign debt management lacks important incentives for governments and politicians to fulfill it in a sustainable and long-term orientated way. This paper outlines that the mechanisms to solve sovereign debt problems within the EMU are not only missing the right incentives but also setting the wrong ones. In contrast to current policy, we argue that only an instrument which is sufficiently sensitive to the performance of a country (i.e. its debt level) will motivate the players to engage in sustainable debt management. Specifically, we propose performance-sensitive government bonds (PSGB) where coupon payments are closely linked to debt policy, giving strong incentives to limit debt levels and to timely restructure the economy.Sovereign debt management, government bonds, incentives, EMU, debt crisis

Can a Button Change your Purchase? – The Effect of the Accessibility of Consumer Reviews on Consumers’ Online Purchase Decisions

This study investigates whether the accessibility of consumer reviews matters for consumers’ purchase decisions. Current research does not provide guidance on how to access consumer reviews to improve consumers’ decision-making. Moreover, there is no consensus on the actual implementation of the access (i.e., immediate access or explicit access by clicking) to consumer reviews on existing online shopping websites. Building on the anchoring-and-adjustment model of belief updating and using an experimental approach, we find that requiring participants to explicitly access consumer reviews (by clicking on a button) significantly improves their purchase decisions: When choosing between products of different quality, they better align their perceived product values with the actual product quality. As a result, they are more likely to purchase the high-quality product. These findings provide important insights for e-commerce retailers and policy makers, as they offer guidance on how consumer reviews should be accessible to support consumers’ decision-making

Being Informed or Getting the Product?

Scarcity cues, which are increasingly implemented on e-commerce platforms, are known to impair cognitive processes and influence consumers’ decision-making by increasing perceived product value and purchase intention. Another feature present on e-commerce platforms are online consumer reviews (OCRs) which have become one of the most important information sources on e-commerce platforms in the last two decades. Nevertheless, little is known about how the presence of scarcity cues affects consumers’ processing of textual review information. Consequently, it is unclear whether OCRs can counteract the effects of scarcity or whether OCRs are neglected due to scarcity cues. To address this gap, this study examines the effects of limited-quantity scarcity cues on online purchase decisions when participants have the possibility to evaluate textual review information. The results of the experimental study indicate that scarcity lowers participants’ processing of textual review information. This in turn increases perceived product value and has considerable negative consequences for the final purchase decision if the scarcity cue is displayed next to a low-quality product. The study’s findings provide relevant insights and implications for e-commerce platforms and policymakers alike. In particular, it highlights that e-commerce platforms can easily (ab)use scarcity cues to reduce consumers’ processing of textual review information in order to increase the demand for low-quality products. Consequently, policymakers should be aware of this mechanism and consider potential countermeasures to protect consumers

Explaining Reviewing Effort: Existing Reviews as Potential Driver

Online review systems try to motivate reviewers to invest effort in writing reviews, as their success crucially depends on the helpfulness of such reviews. Underlying cognitive mechanisms, however, might influence future reviewing effort. Accordingly, in this study, we analyze whether existing reviews matter for future textual reviews. From analyzing a dataset from Google Maps covering 40 sights across Europe with over 37,000 reviews, we find that textual reviewing effort, as measured by the propensity to write an optional textual review and (textual) review length, is negatively related to the number of existing reviews. However, and against our expectations, reviewers do not increase textual reviewing effort if there is a large discrepancy between the existing rating valence and their own rating. We validate our findings using additional review data from Yelp. This work provides important implications for online platforms with review systems, as the presentation of review metrics matters for future textual reviewing effort

Bargain Hunting on Black Friday - Making Great Deals and Bragging About Them

Online customer reviews (OCRs) are helpful when they provide an unbiased view on a product. Large-scale shopping events (e.g., Black Friday) generate large volumes of OCRs. We hypothesize that OCRs from such events are biased due to price discounts and smart shopper feelings. To test our hypotheses, we use OCR data of a large US electronics retailer that emerge from Black Friday purchases and regular purchases. We find that numerical ratings from Black Friday purchases are considerably higher. This effect is also observable in an increase of the average numerical rating through Black Friday purchases. We further observe that textual OCR content from Black Friday purchases focuses more on the purchase conditions (e.g., price discounts) at the expense of other, potentially more helpful content. We further provide managerial implications on how retailers may counteract the negative consequences of such biased OCRs on the quality of their OCR systems

TAG ME IF YOU CAN – (HOW) SHOULD PLATFORMS TAG FAKE REVIEWS AND FAKE USERS?

Although fake online consumer reviews (OCRs) and fake users are an increasing problem for online review systems, there is no consensus on how digital platforms should handle them after their detection. Therefore, platforms use different displaying strategies for detected fake OCRs and fake users, such as “doing nothing”, censoring, or tagging them. It is, however, still unclear how these different strategies affect trust in multiple dimensions (i.e., trust in OCRs, reviewers and platform) and willingness to pay of consumers. We therefore propose in this research in progress paper an incentive-compatible experimental design for examining how different displaying strategies for fake OCRs and fake users influence consumers’ trust dimensions and willingness to pay. By conducting the proposed experiment, we expect to provide relevant insights for researchers and practitioners on how platforms should display fake OCRs and fake users to mitigate negative implications on consumers, producers and platforms

Deep-Red Luminescent Molybdenum(0) Complexes with Bi- and Tridentate Isocyanide Chelate Ligands

In octahedral complexes, molybdenum(0) has the same 4cr valence electron configuration as ruthenium(II), which is beneficial for establishing energetically low-lying metal-to-ligand charge transfer (MLCT) excited states. Those MLCT states often show luminescence, and they can furthermore undergo photoinduced electron and energy transfer reactions that are of interest in the context of solar energy conversion, sensing, or photocatalysis. Molybdenum is roughly 100 times more abundant than ruthenium, and it seems desirable to increase our fundamental understanding of the photophysical properties of complexes made from non-precious metals. We report here on the luminescence behavior of two new homoleptic molybdenum(0) isocyanide complexes, one with three bidentate, the other with two tridentate chelate ligands. The key novelty is the incorporation of thiophene units into the ligand backbones, causing strongly red-shifted photoluminescence with respect to comparable molybdenum(0) isocyanides with phenylene units in the ligand backbones. Combined experimental and computational studies provide detailed insight into the photophysical properties of this compound class. This work is relevant for the development of new luminescent compounds with possible applications in lighting and sensing, and it complements current research efforts on photoactive complexes with other abundant transition metal and main group elements

Dynamic Pricing on Two-Sided Platforms: Consequences on Customers’ Fairness Perceptions and Purchase Intentions

Technological advancements simplify the application of dynamic pricing, i.e., the flexible and rapid adjustment of prices to changes in demand. Consequently, companies increasingly use dynamic pricing in their business models, although research reports negative consequences on customer fairness perceptions. This holds not only for one-sided businesses, but also for popular two-sided platforms. However, these platforms differ from one-sided businesses in that the total prices paid by customers consist of product prices and platform fees – and both price components can be dynamically adjusted. In an online experiment, we examine customers’ fairness perceptions and purchase intentions when product price and platform fee change dynamically. We find that dynamic price increases reduce fairness perceptions and purchase intentions, while the cause of the price increases is irrelevant to customers. These results indicate an imbalance in the risks and benefits of dynamic pricing between the pricing strategies of the platform and the provider

Cranial shape evolution of extant and fossil crocodile newts and its relation to reproduction and ecology

The diversity of the vertebrate cranial shape of phylogenetically related taxa allows conclusions on ecology and life history. As pleurodeline newts (the genera Echinotriton, Pleurodeles and Tylototriton) have polymorphic reproductive modes, they are highly suitable for following cranial shape evolution in relation to reproduction and environment. We investigated interspecific differences externally and differences in the cranial shape of pleurodeline newts via two-dimensional geometric morphometrics. Our analyses also included the closely related but extinct genus Chelotriton to better follow the evolutionary history of cranial shape. Pleurodeles was morphologically distinct in relation to other phylogenetically basal salamanders. The subgenera within Tylototriton (Tylototriton and Yaotriton) were well separated in morphospace, whereas Echinotriton resembled the subgenus Yaotriton more than Tylototriton. Oviposition site choice correlated with phylogeny and morphology. Only the mating mode, with a random distribution along the phylogenetic tree, separated crocodile newts into two morphologically distinct groups. Extinct Chelotriton likely represented several species and were morphologically and ecologically more similar to Echinotriton and Yaotriton than to Tylototriton subgenera. Our data also provide the first comprehensive morphological support for the molecular phylogeny of pleurodeline newts