Slack-based directional distance function in the presence of bad outputs: theory and application to Vietnamese banking

In this paper we extend the slack-based directional distance function introduced by Färe and Grosskopf (Eur J Oper Res 200(1):320–322, 2010) to measure efficiency in the presence of bad outputs and illustrate it through an application on data of Vietnamese commercial banks. We also compare results from the slack-based directional distance function relative to the directional distance function, the enhanced hyperbolic efficiency measure (Färe et al. in Rev Econ Stat 71(1):90–98, 1989) and the Farrell-type technical efficiency and confirm that it has greater discriminative power.     

“一带一路”归国学术人才学科分布分析

运用简历分析研究方法,对中国109所"211工程大学"教师的简历进行大数据分析,研究了来自"一带一路"沿线国家和地区的归国学术人才的学科分布情况。研究结果显示:来自"一带一路"沿线国家和地区的归国学术人才主要来自新加坡、俄罗斯和以色列,主要流入北京、上海和江苏;来自"一带一路"沿线国家和地区的归国学术人才的学科背景主要是工学和理学,具体的专业方向是材料学、工程技术类、电子信息类、土木类、化学、生物学和物理学。     

Conflict technology in cooperation: The group size paradox revisited

This paper studies the implications of punishment‐induced conflict in a public goods game. It shows, under plausible assumptions, how larger group size sometimes enhances punishing behavior in social dilemmas and hence supports higher levels of cooperation. Unlike existing approaches that focus on uncoordinated punishment, I consider punishment as a coordinated activity that may be resisted by those being punished and study the implications of punishment‐induced conflict situations. Developing a conflict model of punishment and combining it with a standard public good game, I show that coordinated punishment can yield the concentration effect of punishment, leading to a larger group advantage; that is, the larger the group, the easier it becomes to organize cooperation. The key idea is that when punishers coordinate their punishment, punishers as a coalition successfully divide defectors and punish each defector one by one. Surprisingly, even when coordination among punishers decays as group size increases, as long as the rate of decaying remains relatively slow the larger group advantage still obtains.     

Financial structure in the age of globalization

Using a large panel data set covering 160 countries over the period 1990 to 2010, this article aims to address the question of how financial structure (bank-based versus market-based system) changes when economies are liberalized and opened to international capital markets. Specifically, in this study, globalization is characterized not only by trade and financial integration but also by other important aspects, such as social globalization, political globalization and cultural globalization. The empirical results support the impacts of globalization on financial structure, which are, however, diverse and strongly depend on the way to measure globalization and financial structure. Our finding also reveals a significant change in financial structure after the globalization process, except the case of low-income countries, in which financial structure seems to be not correlated with either globalization process or other macroeconomic variables.     

The effects of multilateral trading systems on risk and return in equity markets

The event study methodology of Brown and Warner (1985) is adopted and augmented to evaluate the effect of the launch of multilateral trading systems on risk and return in equity markets. The methodology is supplemented with various techniques, such as the nonparametric ranking test and kernel regression, to find out if announcements about the introduction of Chi-X Australia generated abnormal returns (ARs). Asset pricing models are fitted with interaction variables, while GARCH, threshold ARCH (TARCH), exponential GARCH (EGARCH) and power-ARCH (PARCH) are used to determine changes in systematic risk. We find evidence in favour of Fisher’s separation theorem and detect a new market anomaly, which we call the ‘Fisher market anomaly’. Our results show that Chi-X system testings affect ARs. Consistent with the adaptive expectations theory, we confirm that the first announcement about the launch of Chi-X affected systematic risk the most. In addition, we identify industry and firm effects in risk analysis.     

Cattle as a consistently resilient agricultural commodity

This study compares a range of agricultural commodities over periods of varying economic circumstances. These commodities are examined over three categories, including returns, risk, and contribution to portfolio optimisation. Consistency in these categories is determined over four equal three-year stages which comprise pre-GFC (Global Financial Crisis), GFC, post-GFC and post-post GFC. To demonstrate resilience in the most extreme circumstances, the study uses Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR), which measures extreme risk in the tail of a distribution, as the risk measure and risk-return optimiser. The study thus provides a unique and comprehensive extreme-risk based focus which identifies and ranks the consistency of performance of agricultural commodities over a range of criteria and conditions. Cattle commodities consistently demonstrate the strongest overall performance in the categories examined.     

Do Alternative Real Estate Investment Vehicles Add Value to REITs? Evidence from German Open-ended Property Funds

Besides the more commonly used REITs, German investors can also invest in a lesser-known real estate vehicle, Open-ended Property Funds. OPFs are considered a compromise between listed and direct real estate investments. OPF fund managers generally provide daily (perfect) liquidity. However, if liquidity falls below 5%, share redemptions in these funds can be temporarily suspended for a period of up to two years. During this time, investors will only be able to sell shares on the secondary market (exchange), and are thus subject to significant liquidity risk. The objective of this paper is to analyze whether OPFs add value to investor portfolios above that provided by REITs. We show that OPFs have a diversification advantage over REITs in low-risk portfolios, despite their larger potential liquidity risk. REIT liquidity is comparable to that of ordinary common stock, but OPFs exhibit an average initial discount to funds’ NAV of about 6% when share redemptions are temporarily suspended. However, in the long-run, this potential redemption suspension does not negatively influence OPF performance (in case OPFs reopen again). This makes OPFs an attractive investment alternative to REITs for investors who have a high level of risk aversion and a long-term investment horizon, such as endowments, insurance companies, and pension funds.     

A longitudinal study of online non-relationship intentions

In their eagerness to develop relationships with customers, some marketers often overlook the fact that not all consumers may be interested in maintaining a relationship with the firm. In this research, the authors develop a theoretical model as to why many customers do not wish to maintain a relationship with e-businesses and test the model over time. The results show that consumer-relationship value perceptions affect non-relationship intentions. Moreover, even though non-relationship intentions in a certain time period do not directly affect non-relationship intentions in the immediate future time period, promotion events may play a mediating role in this relationship.     

Designing loyalty programs that matter to customers

This study explores a model proposing a customer loyalty program as an identity marketing tool that evokes customer's identity salience (one's perception that a loyalty program membership is important to his/her identity). The results of a Web-based experiment indicate that identity salience is heightened by (1) the uniqueness and exclusiveness of a loyalty program (distinctiveness), and (2) by the fit between the function of the program's rewards and the customer's identity goal (identity congruence). The heightened identity salience, in turn, positively influences the customer's attitude toward the retailer, satisfaction with the loyalty program and the perceived quality of his/her relationship with the retailer.     

Characterisation and Diagnosis of Rural—Urban Interface Farming in the Tu Liem and Thanh Tri Districts of Hanoi City,Vietnam

A research project was carried out in two areas in the outskirts of Hanoi city using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. The objective was to study interactions among the vegetable farming systems and the peri-urban context within which they are situated. The farms studied were characterised as small-scale farms that use high inputs of soil amendments and pesticides for diversified crop rotation systems. The main source of irrigation water and nutrients for vegetable farming in southern Hanoi is wastewater from the To Lich River. In northern Hanoi, irrigation water is obtained directly from the Red River and nutrients are supplied through high fertiliser inputs. The concentrations of COD (144–287 mg l^?1), N-NH₄ ⁺ (1–25 mg l^?1), PO₄ ^3? (0.5–4 mg l^?1) and coliform (525 × 10³?28 × 10⁶ MPN 100 ml^?1) along the To Lich River was much higher than the limits specified in the Vietnamese standard for water used in agriculture. A higher Cu content in soil in Phuc Ly seems to be linked to the high input of chicken manure at the site. However, the contents of heavy metals in irrigation water, in vegetables and in the soil surface layer at the two sites were lower than the Vietnamese maximum permissible levels.