In “The Variant,” an episode from the Disney+ hit streaming show “Loki,” it’s tough to miss the barrage of product placements, with fast-paced action and dialogue taking place in front of Charmin toilet paper, Dove soap and Arm & Hammer deodorant. At one point, Loki barrels down an aisle with vacuum cleaners and fights off...
The coronavirus pandemic disrupted the U.S. economy, yet the dynamics of micro-level consumer spending among low-income populations are not well understood. A study published in PLOS One by Song Gao at University of Wisconsin, Madison, United States and colleagues suggests the stimulus program largely curbed the post-lockdown spending declines and stimulated spending following pandemic-related income loss by...
Economics is broadly divided into macroeconomics and microeconomics. The big picture, macroeconomics, concentrates on the behavior of a national or a regional economy as a whole: the totals of goods and services, unemployment and prices. Then there’s a more detailed picture: the economic decisions that people and businesses make. Microeconomics analyzes behavior. It looks at...
When an excise tax hike was levied on cigarettes, New York City taxi drivers who smoked were one and a half times more likely to cheat their customers by overcharging the fare than those who didn’t smoke. That finding comes from forthcoming research in Accounting, Organizations, and Society. In the first-known study to document that sin...
Setting a price just below a round number ($39.99 instead of $40) may lead consumers into thinking a product is less expensive than it really is – but it can sometimes backfire on sellers, a new study shows. Researchers found that this “just-below” pricing makes consumers less likely to upgrade to a more expensive version...
During the COVID-19 pandemic months of March 2020 to September 2020, U.S. alcohol retail store sales increased compared to usual trends while food services and drinking places sales decreased markedly during the same period, according to a new study at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. These results indicate an increase in home drinking...
Researchers from University of Bath, University of Melbourne, and King’s College London published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that explains a four-stage process that can help firms create pleasurable social atmospheres for consumers. The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled “Social Atmospheres: How Interaction Ritual Chains Create Effervescent Experiences of Place” and...
A new paper in The Economic Journal, published by by Oxford University Press, indicates that the presence of adult entertainment establishments may decrease sex crimes, significantly. The role of entertainment establishments (strip clubs, escort services, adult bookstores, and adult movie theaters) in communities is controversial. Citizens often view them as centers of vice. While some have...
Rude behavior at work has come to be expected, like donuts in the breakroom. Two decades of research on employee relationships shows that 98 percent of employees experience rude behavior at work, but now a new study suggests a large majority of workplace relationships are not characterized by rudeness. Isolated incidents of rude behavior at...
Multi-business firms have flexibility advantages over single-business rivals because they have the option to redeploy resources across businesses. This flexibility, it has been assumed without empirical evidence, is purported to inspire quicker exits from markets. A 2017 survey revealed that 70 percent of corporate executives expected to make at least one divestment in the subsequent...
