The relationship between awareness of road safety measure and accident involvement in pre-drivers: the basis of a road safety programme

Objectives: This research aims to carry out a first validation of the QAR-Precon screening questionnaire applied in Catalonia during the drivers’ initial training, analyse the differences in risky road user behaviour according to two main variables: whether they had any experience of an accident and sex and examine the different risky road user patterns of pre-drivers. Methods: In order to group the questionnaire variables together, an exploratory factorial analysis (principal component analysis (PCA)) was used. Subsequently, the reliability coefficients of the questionnaire and the subscales were calculated. Lastly, ANOVA models were used to compare differences in the whole sample and a cluster analysis was performed to identify different risky pre-driver groups. Results: The factorial analysis (PCA) reveals the existence of five risk factors (speed and risk, external circumstances, distraction, alcohol and driving and other elements of driving) that explain 44.6% of the variance. More males than females reported that they had a higher tendency to take risks in all the risky factors exposed and injured pre-drivers reported less awareness of road safety than pre-drivers who had not been injured. A two-cluster solution indicated that it was possible to distinguish a group of pre-drivers who engaged in high risky behaviour (high group) from the group who engaged in moderate and low levels of risky road user behaviour (low group). Conclusions: The implications of these findings for programme designs and training initiatives to improve efficiency in reducing the accident rate are discussed.     

Probability of an incoming order signal

Taking into account that transaction prices are realized at the bid or the ask price, we propose a probabilistic neural network model and a Bayesian rule to predict the incoming order signal of a stock and its probability using the buy–sell trade indicator or trade direction sign. We consider that if there is any private information to be inferred from trade, agents can use a trade equation to form an expectation about the future trade based on the trade and quote revision history. In addition, we use it to analyse the classification and forecasting capacity of various discrete regression and probabilistic neural network models to estimate the probability of an incoming order signal by means of statistical and economic criteria. Our results indicate that the probabilistic neural network classifies and predicts slightly better than linear, Probit and MLP models for short forecast horizons, among other statistical criteria, and reversed trades with respect to the economic assessment of the negotiation for both short and long forecast horizons.     

Solving the Winner Determination Problem in a Divisible-Object Auction

In an auction of a divisible object, bidders' demand functions are often assumed to be nonincreasing, meaning that bidders are willing to pay less or the same price for every additional unit. Under this assumption, the optimal allocation that maximizes the auctioneer's revenue can be found using a greedy-based procedure. This article argues that situations may arise where a bidder may need to express her preferences through a nondecreasing demand function; when such a bidder is present in the auction, the greedy-based procedure does not guarantee the optimal allocation. Thus, this article proposes a mixed integer program that finds the optimal allocation in a divisible-object auction at which bidders submit their bids as arbitrary stepwise demand functions. The practical aspect of the mathematical program is presented by means of a simple yet illustrative example in a treasury bond auction setting. The results of the auctioneer's revenue are reported as a function of the number of bidders with nonincreasing and nondecreasing demand functions.     

The competitive implications of the deployment of unique resources

The ‘resource‐based’ view focuses on unique resources as the fundamental sources of competitive advantage and superior profits. We use a game‐theoretic model to analyze the impact of the deployment of unique resources on product market competition, and the impact of unique resources and sustainable competitive advantages on profits when the competitive implications of resource deployment are taken into account. We find that some of the core propositions of the resource‐based view do not necessarily hold when the impact of resource deployment on product market competition is explicitly considered. Specifically, the accumulation and deployment of unique resources does not necessarily increase the firm's profit and the difference between its profit and competitors' profits. Furthermore, achieving a sustainable competitive advantage does not necessarily lead to higher profits. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Institutional determinants of the unemployment-earnings inequality trade-off

Most of the research efforts in recent years to explain international differences in unemployment and earnings inequality have placed the emphasis on the institutional components of the labour markets. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate which are the real effects of these characteristics on both phenomena using an ample set of data for different OECD countries. A Cluster analysis permits consideration about relatively heterogeneous models. The results of the econometric exercise show also that institutional factors have a greater impact on earnings inequality than on unemployment.     

Modelling money,price and output in India: a vector autoregressive and moving average (VARMA) approach

This article studies director additions and removals for S&;P 500 firms during the period 2000 to 2003. It finds that firms with smaller board size than estimated efficient levels add more and remove fewer directors than firms with larger board size. It also finds that firms with lower board independence than estimated efficient levels add more and remove fewer independent directors, and add fewer and remove more nonindependent directors than firms with higher board independence. These findings suggest that firms add and remove directors to adjust board structure in a manner consistent with economic efficiency.     

Return to tourist destination. Is it reputation,after all?

In this paper the hypothesis that repeated purchases in the tourism markets could be considered as a consequence of asymmetrical information problems is studied. This hypothesis is analysed with the case study of the island of Tenerife using the estimation of a count data model. It was found that the length of the stay and the information obtained from previous visits and/or relatives and friends might increase the return to a destination suggesting the presence of a reputation mechanism as proposed by Shapiro (1983 Shapiro, C. 1983. Premiums for high quality products as returns to reputations. Quaterly Journal of Economics, 98: 659–79. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The determinants of the willingness to return were also estimated, confirming the main results.     

Quality-adjusted price indexes for portable computers

The aim of this article is to identify the variables affecting the decision to make contributions to personal pension plans and the amount of such contributions. For this purpose, we specify and estimate a Tobit model for a sample based on the 1995 Personal Income Taxpayers Panel prepared by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (Spanish Ministry of Economy and Finance) formed by 3041 taxpayers, of whom 358 made contributions to pension plans. Our results suggest that individuals decide to invest in pension plans on complex grounds combining the wish to benefit from tax savings and to ensure they will receive supplementary income upon retirement.     

Capital structure and institutional setting: a decompositional and international analysis

The legal and institutional setting is more and more influential in firms’ financial decisions. Our article analyses firms’ capital structure in an international framework in order to assess the different level of debt use across countries and to identify both common and differential explanatory factors. Although the level of financial leverage is quite different, the factors that have traditionally driven capital structure decisions have much in common in all the legal and institutional settings. The performance and size of the firm, the assets tangibility and the growth opportunities have a relevant but differential effect across the different institutional systems. Consequently, our results suggest that the legal and institutional system of each country does not only affect firms’ capital structure but also creates the conditions to explain a differential effect of the common determinants of firms’ financial choices.