Considering the complex linkages between exchange rate pass-through, energy prices, and inflation, involving monetary policy interactions in inflation-targeting and non-targeting economies, we examine the effect of exchange rate pass-through, the central bank's inflation management, and money on aggregate energy price for a sample of 25 countries using panel VAR and Bayesian VAR techniques. Results show that exchange rate pass-through, inflation, oil prices, and liquidity are causally linked, with oil prices impacting inflation, liquidity, and policy rates. We also find that countries that enforce inflation targeting in monetary policy can better manage sudden inflation by a readjustment in policy rates. The findings have insightful consequences for policy-making authorities.
The metaverse marks a transformative frontier in educational technology; however, factors influencing students' adoption of metaverse-based learning environments remain unclear. This study extends the Technology Acceptance Model by integrating hedonic quality stimulation, cognitive engagement, immersion, subjective norms, and personal innovativeness as antecedents, while examining perceived privacy risk as a moderating factor. Using a hybrid partial least squares (PLS) and artificial neural networks (ANN), we analyzed survey data from 353 computer science students across three Malaysian public universities. The PLS-SEM results indicate that hedonic quality stimulation, subjective norms, immersion, cognitive engagement, and personal innovativeness significantly influence perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, which collectively explain 66% of the variance in students' intention to use metaverse technologies. Perceived privacy risk negatively moderates the relationship between perceived usefulness and usage intention, showing that privacy concerns can offset the benefits of perceived utility. The complementary ANN analysis captures nonlinear relationships and identifies subjective norms, hedonic quality stimulation, and perceived usefulness as the strongest predictors of perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and usage intention, respectively. Overall, the findings offer actionable insights for institutions designing immersive yet privacy-conscious metaverse learning ecosystems and demonstrate the methodological advantages of a hybrid PLS-ANN approach.
Advice is a vital form of interpersonal influence, and some advice concerns advising others (i.e., meta-advice). In today's competitive information environment, individuals often encounter both recommendations that support their stance and those that challenge it. Drawing on psychological reactance and normative influence theories, this study examines how people respond to position-disconfirming meta-advice when it is presented in different message contexts-either paired with another position-disconfirming message (consistent) or with a position-confirming message (conflicting). In an experiment, U.S. participants who were either pro- or anti-advising others to get vaccinated received position-disconfirming meta-advice under consistent or conflicting conditions. Results revealed two countervailing effects: pairing position-disconfirming with position-confirming meta-advice mitigated reactance, leading to more favorable responses to the position-disconfirming message, but it also lowered perceived norms, which in turn undermined favorable responses. These findings illuminate how context shapes responses to position-disconfirming meta-advice, with theoretical and practical implications for interpersonal influence in multi-message environments.
Families are usually displayed in advertising with happy, living, biological children, but what is missing from advertising is a reference to the more than one in four families that have lost a pregnancy or experienced the death of a baby born living prior to the age of one. Our research investigates this important absence from advertising practice and accompanying contributions to advertising literature through four studies. Study 1 uses qualitative interviews to examine bereaved mothers' reactions to family-themed advertising, revealing feelings of marketplace exclusion due to their lack of representation in advertising. Studies 2a-2c increase generalizability and practicality by extending the sample to all consumers, regardless of bereavement background, and collaborating with a real brand to test inclusive versus traditional family-themed advertising. Findings show that an inclusive ad acknowledging bereaved parents and portraying family life realities increases purchase intentions, willingness to pay a premium, and website interaction behavior compared to a traditional ad among all consumers, regardless of bereavement background.
The advancement in digital and information technology (DIT) has profound effects on individuals, corporations, and society. The benefits of DIT, such as enhanced efficiency, easily access to information, and increased connectivity, are clear. However, scholars have raised various concerns regarding the plethora of information. For example, how DIT affects investors' information acquisition behavior is unclear. Competing theories offer conflicting predictions in investor information acquisition. These predictions have different implications regarding whether investors acquire more information about local firms (local attention bias), versus about non-local firms, when information becomes easily accessible. Our empirical results show that as DIT develops, investors pay more attention to local firms, amplifying local attention bias. Economic development and a better developed institutional environment amplify rather than attenuate local attention bias. Mediation analysis further shows that DIT development increases attention co-movement and stock return correlation not only directly but also indirectly through local attention bias as a mediator. Our novel evidence suggests that when information is more easily accessible associated with DIT development, information asymmetry can be amplified when agents can choose what to learn, increasing polarization of information acquisition and selective exposure to information.
