Self-managers: Social contexts,personal traits,and organizational commitment

This study adopts self-determination theory to examine a path model that focuses on the effects of charismatic leadership and private self-consciousness on self-management, which in turn, leads to organizational commitment. We articulate that the relationships between self-management and each of charismatic leadership and private self-consciousness represent identified and integrated regulation, respectively. Thus, we test whether the relationship between self-management and private self-consciousness is stronger than that between self-management and charismatic leadership. The hypotheses are tested using data gathered from 981 employees. The result of the stronger path from private self-consciousness to self-management than the one from charismatic leadership is consistent with the literature on flow, organizational change, and followership. Moreover, our result of the mediating effects of self-management provides explanations for the little empirical research on follower processes in leadership effectiveness and on the association between private self-consciousness and organizational commitment.     

American option valuation under stochastic interest rates

By applying Ho, Stapleton and Subrahmanyam's (1997, hereafter HSS) generalised Geske–Johnson (1984, hereafter GJ) method, this paper provides analytic solutions for the valuation and hedging of American options in a stochastic interest rate economy. The proposed method simplifies HSS's three-dimensional solution to a one-dimensional solution. The simulations verify that the proposed method is more efficient and accurate than the HSS (1997) method. We illustrate how the price, the delta, and the rho of an American option vary between the stochastic and non-stochastic interest rate models. The magnitude of this effect depends on the moneyness of the option, interest rates, volatilities of the underlying asset price and the bond price, as well as the correlation between them. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Does the liquidity effect guarantee a positive term premium?

This paper examines the liquidity effect and the term structure in two versions of the limited participation model—an imperfect information model and an adjustment cost model. With a discrete-state solution approach, I find a striking contrast: while the imperfect information model successfully generates the liquidity effect and the positive term premium seen in the data; the adjustment cost model replicates only the liquidity effect. This is because the adjustment cost that drives the liquidity effect in the adjustment cost model also creates an adjustment cost effect, which leads to a negative term premium.     

On the Existence of Stable Roommate Matchings

This paper identifies a condition called “no odd rings” that is sufficient for the existence of stable roommate matchings in the weak preferences case. It shows that the process of allowing randomly chosen blocking pairs to match converges to a stable roommate matching with probability one as long as there are no odd rings. This random-paths-to-stability result generalizes that of Roth and Vande Vate (1990, Econometrica58, 1475–1480) and may not hold if there are odd rings. The “no odd rings” condition can also be used to prove a number of other sufficient conditions that are more economically interpretable. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C78, D71.     

Fairness of prices,user fee policy and willingness to pay among visitors to a national forest

Imposing user fees in Nature-Based Tourism (NBT) contexts has been a controversial issue. Based on the notions of justice and fairness, this study extended previous work examining the relationship between attitudes toward user fees and spending support. In a proposed structural model of price fairness, fee spending support, and willingness to pay (WTP), this paper identified the antecedents of WTP user fees, and empirically examined to what extent the data fit the model. Furthermore, the moderating role of place attachment in the model was investigated by using multiple-group structural equation modeling. Subjects (n = 562) were recreational tourists to a forest area in the southeast U.S. Results revealed that spending support partially played a mediating role in the relationship between perceived price fairness and WTP user fees. A multiple-group invariance test also demonstrated that while the degree of place identity moderated the effect of price fairness on spending support, the degree of place dependence did not influence the relationships among the antecedents of WTP.     

Foreign debt supply in an imperfect international capital market: Theory and evidence

We investigate the determinants of foreign borrowing costs in a stochastically growing economy. We find that these increase with the debt-wealth ratio, depending also upon the volatilities of domestic and foreign origin, and the length of debt contract. In addition, the sensitivity of the short-term debt supply to the debt-wealth ratio exceeds that of long-term debt, and the effects of volatility on the borrowing premium, growth of wealth, and its volatility, depend on the relative size of a direct effect and a secondary portfolio-adjustment effect of the initial shock, as well as the length of the debt contract. Panel regressions suggest that the empirical evidence generally support the theoretical predictions.     

Markets, Culture and Institutions: The Emergence of Large Business Groups in Taiwan, 1950s–1970s

Business groups are a special type of enterprise system existing in almost every market economy. Member firms do not operate as isolated units in the markets but have institutionalized relationships with each other and work coherently as an entity. Groups play a central role in economies in which they operate. For Taiwan, the largest 100 groups produced one third of the GNP in the past 20 years. Why does this organizational form exist in the first place? This paper reviews three relevant theories, market‐centred theories, culturalist perspective, and the institutional approach, and employs the data of 150 Taiwanese groups for the answer. The market‐centred theories and the institutional arguments are examined statistically and the latter is supported by the data. Following this evidence, the Boolean comparison of group firms with non‐group firms confirms that lacking a coherent core in ownership and management makes firms unable to respond to institutional incentives promptly. Finally, the structure of family ownership network in business groups refutes the cultural perspective which argues that the equal inheritance pattern of family property drives entrepreneurs to establish separate firms rather than single hierarchies. While both markets and culture play a distinct part in the story, it is regulatory institutions that lead to group formation.     

Culture and consumption expenditure patterns: comparison between Korean and United States households

Abstract The purpose of this study was to identify household consumption expenditure patterns in the US and to determine if these patterns are different from those of Korean households. Data were cluster analysed, and the results revealed four different consumption expenditure patterns for US and Korean households. Logit analysis showed that consumption expenditure patterns of households in both countries are likely to vary depending on socioeconomic factors. Similarities and differences in consumption expenditure patterns between cultures are discussed, and implications are provided.     

Bivariate mixed normal GARCH models and out-of-sample hedge performances

This study compares bivariate mixed normal GARCH models with standard bivariate GARCH models in terms of the percentage variance reduction of the out-of-sample hedged portfolio and also statistical significance tests of performance improvements using Superior Predictive Ability statistics. All competing models are applied to corn and wheat futures and empirical results demonstrate that the standard BEKK-GARCH model significantly outperforms the other competing GARCH models at shorter horizons. However, as the hedge horizon is extended to longer than 10 days, it is evident that the mixed normal BEKK-GARCH model is the best at the usual significance level of 5%.     

A Conjoint/Logit Analysis of Consumers’ Responses to Genetically Modified Tofu in Taiwan

We use data collected from a consumer survey of face‐to‐face interviews to determine consumer demand for genetically modified (GM) tofu attributes in Taiwan. Conjoint analysis using logit models reveals that, on average, brand is the most important attribute in terms of influence on consumers’ preferences, followed by price, with GM content having the least influence. However, the analysis also reveals three distinct market segments for tofu. Apart from the largest segment (which reflects the average lack of concern about GM food), the remaining two segments are split according to their preference or antipathy towards GM tofu. This result suggests that GM labelling is helpful to Taiwanese tofu consumers.