The Impact of Power Distance and Uncertainty Avoidance on Real Options Exercise: Potential for Suboptimal Time Delays and Value Destruction

Real options (RO) valuation has been promoted as a way to evaluate investment opportunities and make investment decisions that takes into account the value of managerial flexibility in the face of uncertainty. Although RO enjoys a substantial body of literature considering its application and suitability in different situations, the impact of national culture on the application of RO has received little attention. Values embedded in national culture affect the behavior of managers. In particular, these values play a role in how managers frame information, communicate, and make decisions, directly and indirectly affecting behavior through cultural layers such as organizational culture. National culture, therefore, can systematically affect the application of RO, potentially leading to suboptimal outcomes. In this article, we hypothesize how 2 particularly relevant dimensions of culture, power distance and uncertainty avoidance, affect RO exercise, and estimate the magnitude suboptimality of these effects using a model we develop for the case of a put option. Our estimates suggest RO may not always be a superior valuation approach to net present value for national cultures with certain characteristics.     

科技服务业产出测算：指标确立、数据收集与未来预测

科技服务业产出测算是对科技服务业产出数据的统计与分析，加强科技服务业产出数据的规范统计和应用分析可为我国政府调整产业政策提供重要数据支撑。以科技服务业产出测算为研究对象，结合学者观点、国家标准及各级政府相关产业政策，提出将分支产业作为初始指标的横向统计思路，构建科技服务业产出测算指标体系。在数据收集方面，强调要做好“收”与“填”两个基本工作；在指标确立和数据收集基础上，进一步提出未来预测的两种方法，以此作为科技服务业产出数据预测的初步探索；提出应从统一数据统计标准、完善数据调查与公开制度、加强数据资源开发3个方面建立健全我国科技服务业产出数据测量与管理体制机制。     

Does the presence of professional football cause crime in a city? Evidence from Pontiac,Michigan

Using daily panel data from Detroit, we empirically explore the relationship between the National Football League (NFL) and crime in a city. We exploit the natural experiment of the Detroit Lions’ move from Pontiac, Michigan, to downtown Detroit in 2002. Pontiac is used as the treatment city and non-game day crime, other suburban cities, and other cities outside Detroit MSA are used as the comparison groups. Employing a difference-in-difference approach, we find decreases in assaults and vandalism on home game days in Pontiac relative to the control cities after the Lions’ move. We find weak evidence of a net decrease in larceny and vandalism in Pontiac on home game days following the loss of professional football. No changes in assaults and auto theft are reported. While not conclusive, our results suggest that professional football leads to additional larceny and vandalism incidents but no effects on assaults and auto theft.     

Customer reactions to self-checkout discontinuance

Self-service technologies (SSTs) increasingly permeate retail space. Yet, sometimes retailers decide to revert to human-delivered service mode by discontinuing their incumbent SST. In this study, we examine how self-checkout (SCO) discontinuance affects customers’ perceptions of SCO technology and purchase behavior. We conduct a natural field experiment by surveying two groups of customers pre- and post- SCO discontinuance: treatment group (who experience discontinuance) and control group (who do not experience discontinuance). Leveraging difference-in-differences analyses, we find that SCO discontinuance results in decreases in customers’ satisfaction with technology, intentions to use technology, perceived simplicity of technology, and basket size. Our results inform managers of the potential downsides of discontinuing SST and provide corroborating evidence of the technology’s benefits.     

An innovation to improve health outcomes in Amajuba district,KwaZulu-Natal,South Africa

Systems’ thinking places high value on understanding the context. This study focused on the collection of disaggregated data in order to understand the context, to facilitate improvement of health outcomes. The aim of this article was to assess the implementation of municipal ward-based health data collection (disaggregated data) and health care workers’ perceptions of this data collection process. This cross-sectional study used mixed methods in Amajuba district. The participants were professional nurses at the Primary Health Care level. Of the 131 respondents, 123 (93.9%) collected municipal ward-based health data, and found it useful. Opportunities for improving data collection were identified. Disaggregation of the data at ward level contributes to a better understanding of the target population’s health, assists planning for health needs and enables provision of targeted interventions in order to improve health outcomes, to prevent financial regression and waste of health resources.     

中国城市科学20年

回顾中国城市科学研究会和城市科学发生发展的历史 ,总结城市科学研究的经验 ,并反思城市思想和城市发展过程中的经验教训。     

城市科学20年的发展历程--祝贺中国城市科学研究会成立20周年

回顾北京市城市科学研究会的发展历程,分为多学科协同研究城市问题阶段;城市发展多学科综合研究阶段;城市发展综合研究向重点领域开展阶段.概括了北京城科会的主要学术成果.     

我国自然垄断产业的民营化改革

在自然垄断产业,国有企业垄断经营低效是一个世界性的问题。自然垄断产业在一定范围内具有可竞争性,即使是在不可竞争性的领域,也可以通过建立潜在的竞争性替代机制,形成模拟竞争环境。自然垄断产业的可竞争性为民营化提供了可能。自然垄断产业民营化就是通过产权制度变革,提高垄断企业的效率。     

The curse of natural resources in the transition economies*

The curse of natural resources is a well‐documented phenomenon for developing countries. Economies that are richly endowed with natural resources tend to grow slowly. Among the transition economies of the former ‘Eastern Bloc’, a similar pattern can be observed. This paper shows that a large part of the variation in growth rates among the transition economies can be attributed to the curse of natural resources. After controlling for numerous other factors, there is still a strong negative correlation between natural resource abundance and economic growth. Among the transition economies the prime reasons for the curse of natural resources were corruption and a neglect of basic education. In order to overcome the curse of natural resources and move to a sustainable path of development, the resource abundant transition countries should fight corruption and ensure that their resource revenues are invested in human capital or the preservation of natural capital.     

如何提高我国金融业的国际竞争力

针对经济全球化和我国金融业的对外开放，文章从金融创新、金融风险、金融体制改革等方面论述了我国金融业面对挑战应采取的措施。