Venture-Capital Investment in Minority Business

This study analyzes the performance of mature investments made by venture-capital (VC) funds that specialize in financing minority business enterprises. We explore the hypothesis that VCs focusing on investing in minority businesses earn attractive returns because this market niche is underserved. Minority VC funds collectively earned yields on their realized investments that were estimated to be broadly equivalent to those of the mainstream VC industry. However, these yields vary greatly from fund to fund. VC fund traits that predict high yields on individual investments are identified by estimating multivariate regressions explaining net investment returns.     

Can Taxes Shape an Industry? Evidence from the Implementation of the “Amazon Tax”

For years, online retailers have maintained a price advantage over brick‐and‐mortar retailers by not collecting sales tax at the time of sale. Recently, several states have required that online retailer Amazon collect sales tax during checkout. Using transaction‐level data, we document that households living in these states reduced their Amazon purchases by 9.4% following the implementation of the sales tax laws, implying elasticities of –1.2 to –1.4. The effect is stronger for large purchases, where purchases declined by 29.1%, corresponding to an elasticity of –3.9. Studying competitors in the electronics field, we find some evidence of substitution toward competing retailers.     

Regime Shifts in Price‐Dividend Ratios and Expected Stock Returns: A Present‐Value Approach

We incorporate regime shifts in the mean of price‐dividend ratios into the present value model of van Binsbergen and Koijen (2010) who propose a latent variable approach to modeling expected returns and dividend growth rates. We find that accounting for regime shifts results in much lower persistence of expected returns and higher volatility of expected returns, and thus higher in‐sample predictability, when compared to the results from the van Binsbergen and Koijen (2010) model. We also show that the main source of the increase in the mean of price‐dividend ratios in the mid‐1990s is a decrease in the mean of expected returns.     

Uncovering the Hit List for Small Inflation Targeters: A Bayesian Structural Analysis

We estimate underlying structural macroeconomic policy objectives of three of the earliest explicit inflation targeters within the context of a small open economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model. We assume central banks set policy optimally, such that we can reverse engineer policy objectives from observed time series data. Joint tests of the posterior distributions of these policy preference parameters suggest that the central banks are very similar in their overall objective. None of the central banks show a concern for stabilizing the real exchange rate. All three central banks share a concern for minimizing the volatility in the change in the nominal interest rate. We also show that the resulting optimal policy rule responds to exchange rate movements, even in the case where the central banks do not explicitly care about exchange rate stabilization. This result is also corroborated by results from an alternative simple-rule characterization and estimation of central bank behavior. These last two findings point to the pitfalls of making inferences, from the level of ad hoc simple rules, about what central banks may care about.     

UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCES IN KOREAN AND U.S. EXECUTIVES’ STRATEGIC ORIENTATIONS

Competitive positioning in a global market requires an understanding of the decision processes and behavioral attributes of executives from different countries. These attributes reflect the executives’ cultural background, the national policies under which they have worked, and their home country’s level of economic development (institutional context). The current research compared strategic decision models of U.S. and Korean executives and the results suggest that criteria employed by the executives from the two countries differ. Differences in institutional context between Korea and the U.S.A. were reflected in the weightings of objective criteria used by the executives. Korean executives emphasized industry attractiveness, sales and market share (because of policies that encourage growth) and U.S. executives emphasized projected demand, discounted cash flow and ROI (because of policies and institutions that focus on profitability). The results suggest the importance of understanding the strategic orientations of international competitors, partners in international strategic alliances and managers of international subsidiaries or divisions. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

INVESTMENT SPIKES AND UNCERTAINTY IN THE PETROLEUM REFINING INDUSTRY*

This paper investigates the effect of uncertainty on the investment decisions of petroleum refineries in the U.S. We construct uncertainty measures from the commodity futures market and use data on actual capacity changes to measure investment episodes. Since capacity changes in U.S. refineries occur infrequently, we empirically model the investment process using hazard models. An increase in uncertainty decreases the probability that a refinery might adjust its capacity. The results are robust to various investment thresholds. Our findings lend support to theories that emphasize the role of irreversibility in investment decisions.     

COSTLY BUYER SEARCH IN LABORATORY MARKETS WITH SELLER ADVERTISING*

In this experiment, sellers simultaneously choose prices and advertising strategies. Buyers either purchase at an advertised price or search sequentially for other prices. In the unique symmetric equilibrium, sellers charge a high unadvertised price or advertise a price chosen from a lower interval. Increases in search or advertising costs raise equilibrium prices and affect equilibrium advertising intensity. Empirical results are consistent with most comparative static predictions. Sellers, however, price much lower and advertise more intensely than predicted. Consequently, market outcomes more closely resemble a perfect information, Bertrand‐like equilibrium than the imperfect information, mixed strategy equilibrium with significant seller market power.     

乡村旅游开发中女性村官参与行为影响机理研究--以湖南省女性村官为例

随着我国乡村旅游进入新的发展阶段,乡村旅游开发的组织机制问题越发引人关注,女性参与乡村旅游开发已经成为不争的事实,女性村官对乡村旅游开发的决策作用日渐显著。因此,乡村旅游开发中女性村官参与行为影响机理研究对于深入研究乡村旅游开发组织机制问题,促进我国乡村旅游可持续发展意义重大。文章在改进计划行为理论（TPB）模型基础上构建乡村旅游开发女性村官参与行为意向影响框架,以282位湖南女性村官的调查问卷为数据来源,应用结构方程模型（SEM）对女性村官参与乡村旅游开发行为意向的影响机理进行研究。研究发现：（1）女性村官对于借助旅游开发带动农村经济发展的参与行为意向较高;（2）主观规范、行为控制认知以及参政特征3个变量对乡村旅游开发中女性村官参与行为具有显著的影响,影响系数分别为0.406、0.258和0.250,其中,主观规范影响最大;（3）女性村官参与旅游开发的行为态度对行为意向没有直接影响,而是通过参政特征变量间接影响行为意向;行为态度的中介作用变得更为复杂,这与已有计划行为研究不同。     

入境游客对中国传统文化旅游产品满意度的实证研究——以禅宗少林音乐大典为例

本文选取禅宗少林音乐大典为研究对象,研究了入境游客对传统文化旅游产品的评价与整体满意度、推荐意识、再观赏意识之间的关系.通过因子分析法萃取出入境游客对传统文化旅游产品的评价因子为3项(传统性、教育性、魅力性);除职业变量之外,其他性别、年龄、学历、家庭收入、国籍等变量下,传统文化旅游产品的评价因子存在显著性的差异.多重回归分析验证了传统性因子、教育性因子、魅力性因子与游客的整体满意度、再观赏意识之间有显著的正相关关系;教育性因子、魅力性因子与推荐意识之间有显著的正相关关系.