Purchasing Power Parity under Regime Shifts: An Application to Asian Countries*

This paper re‐examines the long‐run purchasing power parity (PPP) relationship for nine Asian countries relative to the USA and Japan during a period containing significant structural breaks. The relevance of considering structural breaks in PPP tests is demonstrated by utilizing the Johansen et al. (2000) procedure that allows for up to two pre‐determined structural breaks. Using conventional tests without considering breaks, one is able to reject the null of no cointegration for only four countries. The Johansen et al. procedure clearly demonstrates the importance of allowing for structural breaks and provides strong support for long‐run PPP for all the countries, regardless of the base country, except in the case of the Philippines vis‐à‐vis Japan. The Hansen–Johansen parameter constancy test indicates stability for all the countries except the Philippines relative to the USA and Malaysia relative to Japan.     

A Formal Study of Distributed Meeting Scheduling

Automating routine organizational tasks, such as meeting scheduling, requires a careful balance between the individual (respecting his or her privacy and personal preferences) and the organization (making efficient use of time and other resources). We argue that meeting scheduling is an inherently distributed process, and that negotiating over meetings can be viewed as a distributed search process. Keeping the process tractable requires introducing heuristics to guide distributed schedulers' decisions about what information to exchange and whether or not to propose the same tentative time for several meetings. While we have intuitions about how such heuristics could affect scheduling performance and efficiency, verifying these intuitions requires a more formal model of the meeting schedule problem and process. We present our preliminary work toward this goal, as well as experimental results that validate some of the predictions of our formal model. We also investigate scheduling in overconstrained situations, namely, scheduling of high priority meetings at short notice, which requires cancellation and rescheduling of previously scheduled meetings. Our model provides a springboard into deeper investigations of important issues in distributed artificial intelligence as well, and we outline our ongoing work in this direction.     

Limit theorems for multivariate discrete distributions

According to the usual law of small numbers a multivariate Poisson distribution is derived by defining an appropriate model for multivariate Binomial distributions and examining their behaviour for large numbers of trials and small probabilities of marginal and simultaneous successes. The weak limit law is a generalization of Poisson's distribution to larger finite dimensions with arbitrary dependence structure. Compounding this multivariate Poisson distribution by a Gamma distribution results in a multivariate Pascal distribution which is again asymptotically multivariate Poisson. These Pascal distributions contain a class of multivariate geometric distributions. Finally the bivariate Binomial distribution is shown to be the limit law of appropriate bivariate hypergeometric distributions. Proving the limit theorems mentioned here as well as understanding the corresponding limit distributions becomes feasible by using probability generating functions.     

Corporate Raiders,Performance and Governance in Europe

I analyse 136 block purchases made by corporate raiders in Europe between 1990 and 2001. Contrary to the hypothesis that these investors expropriate the target companies, there is a positive market reaction to the first public announcement of these purchases. In the long‐run, raiders earn an abnormal profit when they sell their stakes. When they still held their positions at the end of the sample period, abnormal returns were insignificant. Raiders' activities do not improve operating performance. The findings are consistent with superior stock picking ability among these investors, but do not support the hypothesis that raiders are governance champions.     

Diagnostics cannot have much power against general alternatives

Model diagnostics are shown to have little power unless alternative hypotheses can be narrowly defined. For example, the independence of observations cannot be tested against general forms of dependence. Thus, the basic assumptions in regression models cannot be inferred from the data. Equally, the proportionality assumption in proportional-hazards models is not testable. Specification error is a primary source of uncertainty in forecasting, and this uncertainty will be difficult to resolve without external calibration. Model-based causal inference is even more problematic.     

股权激励的市场反应及其内幕交易的实证研究

文章以2008年1月份前推出股权激励计划的67家公司为样本,采用事件研究法,对股价在股权激励计划方案公布前后21个交易日是否存在超常收益率进行了实证研究。实证结果表明:样本公司的股票在事件窗口内存在显著为正的超常收益率,市场对这一事件作出了正向的回应,而且超常收益率主要是由消息公布产生的,不存在消息的提前泄露和内幕交易。     

External and Internal Factors Motivating Outsourcing of Business Services by Meeting-Industry Companies: A Case Study in Krakow,Poland

The aim of this article is to evaluate the external and internal factors motivating the selection of business services to be outsourced by key meeting-industry (business tourism) players, with a particular focus on knowledge-intensive business services. The case-study method was adopted in the article to analyze the motivation behind outsourcing of knowledge-intensive business services by meeting venues and event companies in Krakow (Poland). The results confirm that event companies tend to subcontract out core services connected with the organization, promotion and/or management of events, event services, and technical support for events.     

Analyzing the Memory Impact of Advertising Fragments

Marketers are making increasing use of very brief messages that mention just a brand name or a brand name with a short headline, as in event sponsorship and program endorsements. There has been debate over the effectiveness of these advertising fragments. This paper introduces an approach for controlled testing of the effects of advertising fragments. Using a reaction-time based procedure, we show that a key effect of advertising fragments is to revive established brand associations, even though these associations are not explicitly communicated. This reactivation occurs not only when these names receive focal attention, but also when they receive nonfocal attention.     

TRAMO/SEATS在危机事件中对旅游影响研究的应用

国内外对旅游危机事件的研究集中于管理方面,近年相关热点转向对旅游影响的研究.以往定性研究多,从经济数量模型进行定量分析研究的较少.本文使用在经济金融领域使用广泛的ARIMA改进版--TRAMO/SEATS方法评估危机事件,如疾病、地震等突发事件对中国旅游业的影响.作为欧盟各国统计局主要统计方法,TRAMO/SEATS方法能够最大程度地反映旅游业季节性波动的特点.通过该方法对2003年在中国内地和香港地区爆发的SARS进行实证研究,分析评估该危机事件的长期影响.在此基础上提出,国家短期内应当通过提高产品质量和拓展高质量的细分市场实现旅游效益型增长;恢复后期才可以推出更为直接的促销手法实现旅游数量型增长,采取刺激旅游人数快速增长的政策和措施.     

Tourist Perceptions of Event–Sponsor Brand Fit and Sponsor Brand Attitude

Sponsorships play an increasingly important role in the viability of events, including those targeted at tourists, and sponsors typically seek to build a rapport between their brands and the event attendees. The extent to which the event-related imagery benefits the sponsor brand will depend on the alignment between the sponsor brand and the event. In addressing this issue this study examines the mediating role of event–sponsor fit between visitor event-liking, self-sponsor congruity, and sponsor brand favorability. Interviews were conducted with 1215 attendees at the 2010 Taipei International Flora Exhibition and formed a basis for hypothesis testing. An examination of three sponsor brands over nine surveys concluded that event–sponsor fit consistently mediates the effect of event-liking and self-sponsor congruity on brand favorability. Results confirmed that event organizers and sponsors can benefit from the use of perceived fit as a means of shaping brand attitudes when they sponsor art- and/or social-related events.