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The purpose of this paper is to address the following questions: are sophisticated consumers more likely to be satisfied with their purchases? Are consumers who are more knowledgeable more apt to feel in control of their purchase decisions? Are they more likely to believe the transaction was fair? Are they less likely to have cognitive dissonance post‐purchase?

An empirical study examining the role of consumer sophistication on consumers' purchase satisfaction was conducted with a national sample of approximately 700 home purchasers.

The results revealed that shopping sophistication is a key determinant of whether consumers are satisfied with their purchase experience. Sophistication not only seems to affect satisfaction but also customer perceptions of control, fairness and dissonance.

Implications for marketing strategy and suggestions for future research are discussed.

This paper suggests that perception of sophistication plays a much more important role in affecting consumer purchase satisfaction than previously understood. Consequently, businesses need to be much more active in educating consumers so that they are better able to make more informed purchase decisions. Ultimately, by helping to facilitate this information flow, consumers will be more satisfied with the products and services they purchase, develop a greater loyalty to the company providing the data and be more likely to purchase similar products and services in the future.

This paper studies the dynamic effects of selected macroeconomic factors on the performance of the housing market in Kenya using Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Models. This study aims to explain the dynamic effects of the macroeconomic factors on the three indicators of the housing market performance: housing prices growth, sales index and rent index.

This study used ARDL Models on time series data from 1975 to 2020 of the selected macroeconomic factors sourced from Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, Central Bank of Kenya and Hass Consult Limited.

The results indicate that household income, gross domestic product (GDP), inflation rates and exchange rates have both short-run and long-run effects on housing prices while interest rates, diaspora remittance, construction output and urban population have no significant effects on housing prices both in the short and long run. However, only household income, interest rates, private capital inflows and exchange rates have a significant effect on housing sales both in the short and long run. Furthermore, household income, GDP, interest rates and exchange rates significantly affect housing rental growth in the short and long run. The findings are key for policymaking, especially at the appraisal stages of real estate investments by the developers.

The authors recommend the use of both the traditional hedonic models in conjunction with the dynamic models during real estate project appraisals as this would ensure that developers only invest in the right projects in the right economic situations.

The imbalance between housing demand and supply has prompted an investigation into the role of macroeconomic variables on the housing market in Kenya. Although the effects of the variables have been documented, there is a need to document the short-run and long-term effects of the factors to precisely understand the behavior of the housing market as a way of shielding developers from economic losses.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on a particular problem that arose in the course of teaching Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus to an MA English class in India. The insistence that Aaron could only be “read” in terms of already available stereotypes created a conflict with the nuanced depiction of Aaron within the text, leading to this essay.

The paper narrativizes the events and process by which the classes arrived at their interpretations regarding Aaron, the Moor in Titus Andronicus, and shows how contextual and textual evidence is overlooked in favour of other frames in reading a text.

It was seen that theoretical frames, in this case colonial and postcolonial, offer a certain ease of interpretation, irrespective of the text: key features within the text are often glossed over in the desire to posit a reading that is politically correct. Fidelity to the text and ethical considerations can be ignored in favour of easy readings, with frames that are already available to students being superimposed on the text.

While theoretical schools and framing devices offer additional modes of interpretation, they can also be used in a reductive manner, without attention to textual detail or social context. This essay will help teachers of English to think about the necessity of teaching students that a theoretical frame cannot be the only tool that determines a text’s interpretation.

While some libraries have done their best over the years to inform the public as to what they are doing and can do as regards helping readers, others seem to move along without making any special effort to publicise their facilities. In the old days modesty was a virtue, but now it is its own reward. Government departments, which used to shun the limelight, now employ public relations officers in large numbers, and professional bodies and big business houses constantly seek publicity. Times have changed, and the battle is to the strong; and it is unfortunately generally felt that the institution or service that does not speak for itself has little to speak about. It may frankly be said that if a service is in a position to enlarge its sphere of influence and esteem it should do so to the utmost of its endeavour. But it will be granted that if its publicity is not justified by performance, there will likely be an unhappy reaction.

“GIVE a dog a bad name and hang him,” is an aphorism which has been accepted for many years. But, like many other household words, it is not always true. Even if it were, the dog to be operated upon would probably prefer a gala day at his Tyburn Tree to being executed in an obscure back yard.

The figure of the female revenger has haunted the western imagination as far back as some of the earliest extant texts, most starkly in Euripides' tragedies Hecuba and Medea (c. 430–420 bc). She has tended to take on one of three forms: the scorned woman, the vengeful mother or the victim of physical violence, almost always sexual violence.

This chapter presents an interdisciplinary and transhistorical understanding of the troubling figure of the violent female revenger in her shifting incarnations. The investigation traces conceptual strands through a variety of cultural texts, focusing on specific instances that are both situated historically and simultaneously analysed for the ways in which they reflect recurring priorities and cultural anxieties through the centuries.

After considering key ideas such as revenge and justice and gender and revenge, the chapter looks more closely at the so-called rape-revenge genre, moving from the earliest examples such as I Spit on Your Grave (1978) to more recent films which are considered for the ways they intersect with the global feminist protest movement #MeToo, and other key cultural moments such as the Harvey Weinstein case and the very public trial of the USA Gymnastics national team doctor Larry Nassar: Revenge (2017), The Nightingale (2018) and Promising Young Woman (2020). The chapter draws direct lines of connection between imaginative works, cultural types and stereotypes, and lived reality in order to come to a fuller understanding of the female revenger.

The housing market in Kenya continues to experience an excessive imbalance between supply and demand. This imbalance renders the housing market volatile, and stakeholders lose repeatedly. The purpose of the study was to forecast housing prices (HPs) in Kenya using simple and complex regression models to assess the best model for projecting the HPs in Kenya.

The study used time series data from 1975 to 2020 of the selected macroeconomic factors sourced from Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, Central Bank of Kenya and Hass Consult Limited. Linear regression, multiple regression, autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) and autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) models regression techniques were used to model HPs.

The study concludes that the performance of the housing market is very sensitive to changes in the economic indicators, and therefore, the key players in the housing market should consider the performance of the economy during the project feasibility studies and appraisals. From the results, it can be deduced that complex models outperform simple models in forecasting HPs in Kenya. The vector autoregressive (VAR) model performs the best in forecasting HPs considering its lowest root mean squared error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) and bias proportion coefficient. ARIMA models perform dismally in forecasting HPs, and therefore, we conclude that HP is not a self-projecting variable.

A model for projecting HPs could be a game changer if applied during the project appraisal stage by the developers and project managers. The study thoroughly compared the various regression models to ascertain the best model for forecasting the prices and revealed that complex models perform better than simple models in forecasting HPs. The study recommends a VAR model in forecasting HPs considering its lowest RMSE, MAE, MAPE and bias proportion coefficient compared to other models. The model, if used in collaboration with the already existing hedonic models, will ensure that the investments in the housing markets are well-informed, and hence, a reduction in economic losses arising from poor market forecasting techniques. However, these study findings are only applicable to the commercial housing market i.e. houses for sale and rent.

While more research has been done on HP projections, this study was based on a comparison of simple and complex regression models of projecting HPs. A total of five models were compared in the study: the simple regression model, multiple regression model, ARIMA model, ARDL model and VAR model. The findings reveal that complex models outperform simple models in projecting HPs. Nonetheless, the study also used nine macroeconomic indicators in the model-building process. Granger causality test reveals that only household income (HHI), gross domestic product, interest rate, exchange rates (EXCR) and private capital inflows have a significant effect on the changes in HPs. Nonetheless, the study adds two little-known indicators in the projection of HPs, which are the EXCR and HHI.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.