Accounting for Negative,Zero and Positive Willingness to Pay for Landscape Change in a National Park

In contingent valuation, despite the fact that many externalities manifest themselves as costs to some and benefits to others, most studies restrict willingness to pay to being non‐negative. In this paper, we investigate the impact of allowing for negative, zero and positive preferences for prospective changes in woodland cover in two UK national parks, the Lake District and the Trossachs. An extended spike model is used to accomplish this. The policy implications of not allowing for negative values in terms of aggregate benefits are also investigated, by comparing the extended spike model with a simple spike making use of only zero and positive bids, and a model which considers positive bids only. We find that ignoring negative values over‐states the aggregate benefits of a woodland planting project by up to 44%.     

NO MARGINAL ARBITRAGE OF THE SECOND KIND FOR HIGH PRODUCTION REGIMES IN DISCRETE TIME PRODUCTION–INVESTMENT MODELS WITH PROPORTIONAL TRANSACTION COSTS

We consider a class of production–investment models in discrete time with proportional transaction costs. For linear production functions, we study a natural extension of the no‐arbitrage of the second kind condition introduced by Rásonyi. We show that this condition implies the closedness of the set of attainable claims and is equivalent to the existence of a strictly consistent price system under which the evaluation of future production profits is strictly negative. This allows us to discuss the closedness of the set of terminal wealth in models with nonlinear production, functions which may admit arbitrages of the second kind for low production regimes but not marginally for high production regimes.     

Using Signals to Initiate Importer-Exporter Relationships: Evidence from Vietnamese Importers

ABSTRACT

Purpose: Realizing the existence of information asymmetry in export markets and the use of signals to distinguish high-qualified sellers from low-qualified sellers, this study investigates the effects of signal consistency and signal clarity on exporter credibility, and subsequently, importer relationship intention.

Methodology: Using a survey data set collected from a systematic sample of 418 Vietnamese importers, the authors tested a model hypothesizing the impact of signal consistency and signal clarity on exporter credibility, and subsequently, on importer relationship intention.

Findings: The authors found that signal consistency and clarity have a positive impact on exporter credibility. Signal consistency also enhances the level of signal clarity. They also found that exporter credibility underlies importer relationship intension.

Research Implications: Under the condition of information asymmetry, importers face difficulties in identifying and evaluating the best supplier among available suppliers in order to make the most appropriate selection decision. The findings confirm that signal clarity and consistency can help exporters to overcome such problems. Exporters should ensure that all signals sent to importers are clear and consistent over time to encourage importers to build long-term business relationships with them.

Contributions: The findings of this study add to the literature on signaling in exporter–importer relationships and can serve as an initiation for further research in the area in transitioning economies.     

The impact of foreign investors on the risk-taking of Japanese firms

Consistent with a bank-centered governance system, Japanese firms exhibit an exceptionally low level of performance variability. The increased involvement of foreign investors motivated by shareholder value is thus likely to have triggered a major shift in their risk-taking behavior. My results confirm this assumption as all standard measures of performance volatility appear to have significantly increased with the level of foreign ownership. Controlling for endogeneity provides higher point estimates supporting anecdotal evidence that foreign investors have targeted firms taking unusually low risk. Overall, the evidence highlights the considerable impact that this category of investors can have on a firm’s decisions and, by consequence, on its performance.     

How sensitive are bargaining outcomes to changes in disagreement payoffs?

We use a human-subjects experiment to investigate how bargaining outcomes are affected by changes in bargainers’ disagreement payoffs. Subjects bargain against changing opponents, with randomly drawn asymmetric disagreement outcomes that vary over plays of the game, and with complete information about disagreement payoffs and the cake size. We find that subjects only respond about half as much as theoretically predicted to changes in their own disagreement payoff and to changes in their opponent’s disagreement payoff. This effect is observed in a standard Nash demand game and a related unstructured bargaining game, in both early and late rounds, and is robust to moderate changes in stake sizes. We show theoretically that standard models of expected utility maximisation are unable to account for this under-responsiveness, even when generalised to allow for risk aversion. We also show that quantal-response equilibrium has, at best, mixed success in characterising our results. However, a simple model of other-regarding preferences can explain our main results.     

The diary of a charity donor: an exploration of research information from the Royal Mail Consumer Panel and Mail Characteristics Survey

This paper looks at direct mail in the United Kingdom across all market sectors and in detail at the charity sector. It uses the research information that Royal Mail has been collecting foroveradecadetoshowthegrowthofthe medium. The diary system used by the Consumer Panel gives an insight into the typical donor and their relationship with charities. This paper looks only at direct mail: ‘personally addressed advertising material that is delivered through the post’. This definition means that leaflets put through the letterbox are excluded. Copyright © 1999 Henry Stewart Publications     

Characterization of Normal Distribution Related to Two Samples Based on Regression

Characterization of normal distribution related to two samples based on second conditional moments has been obtained. This characterization has been transformed to a characterization based on the UMVU estimators of the density function. These results are generalized to k samples from normal distributions. Finally applications of these characterization results to goodness-of-fit test are discussed.     

Investigation of factors affecting the diffusion of mobile telephone services: An empirical analysis for Vietnam

This paper analyzes the diffusion of mobile telecommunications services in Vietnam and examines how telecommunications regulation and potential substitute/complement services affect the growth of the number of mobile telephone subscribers. Using a logistic diffusion model, it is found that fixed telephone services are a complement while data services have a negative relation to mobile telephone services in Vietnam. As for regulation, the policy of introducing competition has been found to be the most effective in influencing the adoption of mobile services. Another important result is that the estimated potential market is roughly 76% of the total population. The findings suggest that suitable regulation that guarantees competition in the mobile telecommunications market in a developing country such as Vietnam is one of the most important factors for a positive diffusion process.     

A Nonlinear Model of the Term Structure of Interest Rates

We present an economically motivated two–factor term structure model that generalizes existing stochastic mean term structure models. By allowing a certain parameter to acquire dynamical behavior we extend the two–factor model to obtain a nonlinear three–factor model that is shown, in a deterministic version, to be equivalent to the Lorenz system of differential equations. With reasonable parameter values the model exhibits chaotic behavior. It successfully emulates certain properties of interest rates including cyclical behavior on a business cycle time scale. Estimation and pricing issues are discussed. Standard PCA techniques used to estimate HJM type models are observed to be equivalent to dimensional estimates commonly applied to 'spatial data' in nonlinear systems analysis.
It is concluded that techniques commonly used in the analysis of nonlinear systems may be directly applicable to interest rate models, offering new insights in the development of these models. Tests of nonlinearity in interest rate behavior may need to focus on long cycle times.