We argue that differences between the landscapes of influence situations in Indian and American societies induce Indians to accommodate to others more often than Americans. To investigate cultural differences in situation-scapes, we sampled interpersonal influence situations occurring in India and the United States from both the influencee's (Study 1) and the influencer's (Study 2) perspectives. We found that Indian influence situations were dramatically more likely than U.S. situations to feature other-serving motives and to result in positive consequences for the relationship. Yet Study 3 found that targets of influence felt no less free to decide whether to accommodate in India than the United States, but felt more concerned about the influencer. To investigate the effects of situation-scapes on people's expectations and decisions, we exposed Indian and American participants to descriptions of situations from both societies (with their origins obscured). Study 4 found that both groups of participants expected more positive consequences from accommodation in Indian situations than in American situations. Finally, Study 5 found that both groups decided to accommodate more often in Indian situations than in American situations. At the same time, Indian participants were more likely than Americans to accommodate across all situations, but both groups converged over 100 trials as they were exposed to more and more situations drawn from each other's cultures. We interpret these effects in terms of the default decisions or biases conditioned by people's recently encountered situations.

People everywhere select among multiple alternatives, but are they always making choices? In five studies, we found that people in U.S. American contexts, where the disjoint model of agency is prevalent, are more likely than those in Indian contexts to construe their own and other individuals' behaviors as choices, to construe ongoing behaviors and behaviors recalled from memory as choices, to construe naturally occurring and experimentally controlled behaviors as choices, to construe mundane and important actions as choices, and to construe personal and interpersonal actions as choices. Indians showed a greater tendency to construe actions as choices when these actions involved responding to other people than when they did not. These findings show that whether people construe actions as choices is significantly shaped by sociocultural systems of meanings and practices. Together, they suggest that the positive consequences associated with maximizing the availability of personal choice may not be universal and instead may be limited to North American contexts.

This study examines the process of information transmission in futures prices of bullion (gold and silver) and metals (aluminum, copper, and zinc) between India, represented by MCX, and its global counterparts trading platforms, such as COMEX, LME, and SHFE, for the period of 2005 to 2012. Structural breaks are identified for all sample series, which capture the impact of the recent economic crisis on these commodity markets. The price discovery results confirm that there is a long-term equilibrium relationship among the futures prices of examined trading platforms in each commodity series, with the exception of aluminum. The MGARCH results of volatility spillovers indicate that, in the case of bullion, MCX seems to be more dominant than COMEX, implying that it is no longer a satellite market, while in case of metals, LME seems to play the dominant role followed by MCX and SHFE. The research contributes to the commodity market literature for emerging economies.

This paper examines the price discovery and volatility spillovers between spot and futures as well as futures prices of three strategically linked oil markets viz., ICE, MCX and NYMEX from 05 February, 2006 to 15 October, 2012. The results confirm the long-run relationship between futures and spot prices in each market, futures prices lead spot prices in the price discovery process. Analysing the futures prices, we find that ICE is the most dominant futures trading platform followed by NYMEX and MCX in price discovery process. Thus, MCX an emerging market platform seems to act like a satellite market vis-à-vis international platforms. The volatility spillover results suggest that there is a long-term spillover from ICE to MCX and from MCX to NYMEX. The volatility information seems to flow from NYMEX to ICE. The GARCH-CCC & DCC model results confirm both cross market and with in market co-movements which become weak during the crisis period and tend to become stronger during the stable period. The study provides relevant implications for policy makers and market traders. The outcome of this study contributes to commodity market literature especially relating to information transmission between strategically linked markets.