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In 1979, Galbraith wrote a manuscript titled “The Social Consequences of Inflation and Unemployment and Their Remedies.” The manuscript was found in the John Kenneth Galbraith Personal Papers at the John F. Kennedy Library. The reasons for Galbraith to write the article might appear at first glance to be purely contextual. At the macroeconomic level, the United States was experiencing stagflation, a situation unseen since 1945, resulting in double-digit inflation rates and high unemployment. A policy debate was going on about the Phillips curve and whether there is a trade-off between inflation and unemployment. Milton Friedman challenged the Keynesian analyses of the Phillips curve in the mid-1960s (Friedman, 1977). Galbraith’s 16-page draft manuscript provides us an incisive summary of Galbraith’s views about the causes of stagflation and what can be done about it. He provides us with an alternative to the neoclassical synthesis of Samuelson and Solow and the neoliberal thinking of Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek.

The study's purpose is to investigate the price volatility of four dairy commodities (skim milk powder [SMP], whole milk powder [WMP], butter and cheddar cheese) in the three most significant regional markets (EU, Oceania and US) in the international dairy market.

The study uses a panel-Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedastic (panel-GARCH) modeling technique and data from January 12, 2001, to April 28, 2017.

Conditional volatility was higher during subperiods 2007–2010 and 2014–2016 when conditional cross-correlations between prices had the lowest values. In some cases, they were negative (i.e. between the EU and the USA and between Oceania and the USA for both butter and cheese). Interdependence across the three dairy markets, especially for SMP and WMP markets and for the butter market between EU and Oceania is also strongly evidenced. Interdependence is responsible for the spillover of price shocks across the three regions.

The data set used should be extended to cover the COVID-19 pandemic period.

This is the first study to use panel-GARCH to examine international dairy prices and volatility linkages, where previous studies mainly used multivariate GARCH models. Panel-GARCH allows a high-dimensional data series (i.e. 12 dairy prices) and generates potential efficiency gains in estimating conditional variances and covariances by incorporating information about heterogeneity across markets and considering their interdependence.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the challenges of pricing quantity surveying (QS) professional services to enhance the understanding of practitioners in developing strategies for the determination of fees for their services.

The paper adopts the quantitative approach by administering 150 survey questionnaires QS professionals out of which 79 questionnaires were retrieved for analysis using the mean, standard deviation, standard error and the Chi-Square test.

The study identified the challenges that continue to hamper the successful pricing of QS services as the inability to respond to changing contractual arrangements; lack of appropriate response to emerging services; slow response to changes in information and communication technology.

This paper focused on QS professionals. Hence, a future study to encompass other professionals in the built environment will be novel.

The findings of this paper have the potential to motivate QS firms to develop solutions that address the challenges identified to improve the efficiency of their service delivery to clients. The paper also has the practical importance of opening up new frontiers of research that focus on pricing of professional services in the built environment in general.

The paper contributes to the awareness and understanding of QS professionals about the challenges that continue to hamper effective pricing of their services.

Recently, powerful instruments for biomedical engineering research studies, including disease modeling, drug designing and nano-drug delivering, have been extremely investigated by researchers. Particularly, investigation in various microfluidics techniques and novel biomedical approaches for microfluidic-based substrate have progressed in recent years, and therefore, various cell culture platforms have been manufactured for these types of approaches. These microinstruments, known as tissue chip platforms, mimic in vivo living tissue and exhibit more physiologically similar vitro models of human tissues. Using lab-on-a-chip technologies in vitro cell culturing quickly caused in optimized systems of tissues compared to static culture. These chipsets prepare cell culture media to mimic physiological reactions and behaviors.

The authors used the application of lab chip instruments as a versatile tool for point of health-care (PHC) applications, and the authors applied a current progress in various platforms toward biochip DNA sensors as an alternative to the general bio electrochemical sensors. Basically, optical sensing is related to the intercalation between glass surfaces containing biomolecules with fluorescence and, subsequently, its reflected light that arises from the characteristics of the chemical agents. Recently, various techniques using optical fiber have progressed significantly, and researchers apply highlighted remarks and future perspectives of these kinds of platforms for PHC applications.

The authors assembled several microfluidic chips through cell culture and immune-fluorescent, as well as using microscopy measurement and image analysis for RNA sequencing. By this work, several chip assemblies were fabricated, and the application of the fluidic routing mechanism enables us to provide chip-to-chip communication with a variety of tissue-on-a-chip. By lab-on-a-chip techniques, the authors exhibited that coating the cell membrane via poly-dopamine and collagen was the best cell membrane coating due to the monolayer growth and differentiation of the cell types during the differentiation period. The authors found the artificial membrane, through coating with Collagen-A, has improved the growth of mouse podocytes cells-5 compared with the fibronectin-coated membrane.

The authors could distinguish the differences across the patient cohort when they used a collagen-coated microfluidic chip. For instance, von Willebrand factor, a blood glycoprotein that promotes hemostasis, can be identified and measured through these type-coated microfluidic chips.

This study probes the psychological interplay between investor sentiment and the returns of cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ethereum. Employing the Granger causality test, the authors aim to gauge how extensively the Fear and Greed Index (FGI) can predict cryptocurrency return movements, exploring the intricate bond between investor emotions and market behavior.

The authors used the Granger causality test to achieve research objectives. Going beyond conventional linear analysis, the authors applied Smooth Quantile Regression, scrutinizing weekly data from July 2022 to June 2023 for Bitcoin and Ethereum. The study focus was to determine if the FGI, an indicator of investor sentiment, predicts shifts in cryptocurrency returns.

The study findings underscore the profound psychological sway within cryptocurrency markets. The FGI notably predicts the returns of Bitcoin and Ethereum, underscoring the lasting connection between investor emotions and market behavior. An intriguing feedback loop between the FGI and cryptocurrency returns was identified, accentuating emotions' persistent role in shaping market dynamics. While associations between sentiment and returns were observed at specific lag periods, the nonlinear Granger causality test didn't statistically support nonlinear causality. This suggests linear interactions predominantly govern variable relationships. Cointegration tests highlighted a stable, enduring link between the returns of Bitcoin, Ethereum and the FGI over the long term.

Despite valuable insights, it's crucial to acknowledge our nonlinear analysis's sensitivity to methodological choices. Specifics of time series data and the chosen time frame may have influenced outcomes. Additionally, direct exploration of macroeconomic and geopolitical factors was absent, signaling opportunities for future research.

This study enriches theoretical understanding by illuminating causal dynamics between investor sentiment and cryptocurrency returns. Its significance lies in spotlighting the pivotal role of investor sentiment in shaping cryptocurrency market behavior. It emphasizes the importance of considering this factor when navigating investment decisions in a highly volatile, dynamic market environment.

Despite service downgrades' undisputed practical relevance, service downgrades (e.g. customers shifting the price tier downward) have received surprisingly little attention from scholars. Previous studies have focussed on either the public policy issue of tiered pricing or optimal pricing by the service provider. Only a few studies have examined why customers shift across different price tiers and how such activities indicate their future behaviour.

Based on customer data collected from a major telecommunications company, the authors use a logistic regression model to investigate how two service modification levers (i.e. transaction- and relationship-level factors) influence the likelihood of service downgrade. The authors apply a survival model to study how service downgrades affect customer churn.

Transaction-level factors such as service usage (e.g. the frequency and recency of underuse experiences) are positively associated with the likelihood of a downgrade. However, relationship-level factors (e.g. relationship duration and customer status) are negatively associated with the likelihood of downgrades. Customers engaging in downgrades are more likely to churn in the future.

The authors focus on downgrade behaviour, which can be perceived as customers' choice to move down the price tier, which likely ruins the service provider's performance. The authors conceptualise two fundamental driving forces behind a service downgrade: the misfits between the actual usage and the service plan chosen and the deteriorating relationships. The authors' empirical findings on the factors influencing downgrades provide insights for service providers seeking to prevent such behaviour.

The purpose of this study is to find out the factors that influence dental travelers’ revisit intention (RI) to Tijuana, Mexico.

Based on the push and pull model, five constructs were included: quality service, price, supporting services, cultural proximity and quality information. The information was obtained by applying an online survey to a sample of 384 dental tourists in Tijuana, Mexico, who were repeat patients of a dental clinic in Tijuana after the COVID-19 pandemic. Exploratory factor analysis, average variance explained and composite reliability were conducted to ensure the validity of each construct. Multiple regression analysis was done to identify predictors of travelers’ RI.

The results obtained show that cultural proximity, quality service, price and supporting services influenced the travelers’ revisit behavior after the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge on travel behavior in dental tourism after the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, which has been scarcely studied. Also, RI was analyzed, focusing on repeated travelers to propose a model mainly for borders or frontiers where developed and developing countries co-exist and interact.

Economists usually shy away from talking about power. They assume an economy comprised of many small and medium-sized firms, each competing for consumer dollars. This circumvents the problem of economic power. John Kenneth Galbraith, however, refused to ignore power. It stood at the center of his economics, and he saw it as a key reason the US economy thrived in the years following World War II (WWII). This chapter examines Galbraith’s changing views regarding economic power. American Capitalism explains how countervailing power, or power on the other side of the market, solves the problem of economic power. In The New Industrial State, scientists and educated managers within the firm (the technostructure) mitigate the negative consequences of economic power wielded by large firms. The Affluent Society and Economics and the Public Purpose look to the government as the main check on corporate power. It does this through labor legislation or programs such as the New Deal and Fair Deal. This chapter then evaluates the different solutions Galbraith proffered to the problem of economic power. It contends that Galbraith got three things right when analyzing economic power. First, we no longer live in a world of scarcity due to oligopolistic firms. Second, capitalism was different in the post-WWII era because the US economy thrived and gains were shared widely. Third, Galbraith understood that power was unequally distributed – both between the public and private sectors and within the private sector itself. On the other hand, Galbraith was overly optimistic in believing the market economy or the public sector could counter corporate power.

Business success and pricing are very closely intertwined. This study aims to explain how businesses can improve their profitability by relying on creative pricing strategies that managers across industries can adopt.

This study uses research from related fields and a detailed analysis of the airline industry to deconstruct its success and identify innovative pricing practices that have helped salvage it.

Based on our analysis, the authors propose several strategies that can help companies control their pricing and leverage it to increase profitability. These include decommoditizing, segmenting the market (up and down), scrutinizing customer behavior, offering versioning and ancillary services, actively promoting these add-ons and using dynamic pricing.

This study takes an unusual approach and look at the airline industry – literally a textbook example of an oligopoly. The authors argue that if companies in an oligopoly – with undifferentiated services – can dig themselves out of the depths of nonexistent profits by using innovative pricing, it should be much simpler for companies in other industries that offer easier differentiation.