U.K. Conference Venues

ABSTRACT

The following paper investigates the supply and demand for conference venues in the United Kingdom (U.K.) over the past 40 years. The main data relates to trends in the type of venue facilities provided in the U.K. and how the varying market sectors use these. It is suggested that the patterns of venue development have often been in response to perceived opportunity for business rather than actual demand. The concern is raised that current business levels cannot support the growing supply of venues and that continued new developments may not be the most appropriate method of approaching the situation.     

Analyzing Daqing＇s Urban Spatial Form Evolution： Basing on the Technology of RS and GIS

以我国目前最大石油城市——大庆市为研究对象,选取1984、1995、2007年3个城市建设关键时间节点,以Landsat MSS、TM卫星影像为主要数据源,利用GIS技术提取城市建设用地规模、形态、增长幅度、区位坐标等信息,计算城市空间扩张速度、强度、城市空间形态紧凑度、分维指数、城市增长理性程度等空间特征量,分析大庆市1984年以来城市空间扩张现象和特征,并结合经济社会统计相关数据及区域分析方法,探究其因果关系。研究认为,大庆市城市空间扩张与形态演化具有石油城市发展的典型性和一般规律,表现出建设用地总量大、扩张速度快、强度高、增量分布不均衡、空间形态不规则、紧凑度低、城市中心地迁移方向与用地扩张基本一致等特征。这些现象和特征的主要形成原因包括石油开发战略指向、自然环境约束、交通设施引导、城市规划调控、中心地功能变迁等五个方面。     

Capital flows to emerging market economies: A brave new world?

We examine the determinants of net private capital inflows to emerging market economies (EMEs) since 2002. Our main findings are: First, growth and interest rate differentials between EMEs and advanced economies and global risk appetite are statistically and economically important determinants of net private capital inflows. Second, there have been significant changes in the behavior of net inflows from the period before the recent global financial crisis to the post-crisis period, especially for portfolio inflows, partly explained by the greater sensitivity of such flows to interest rate differentials since the crisis. Third, capital controls introduced in recent years do appear to have discouraged both total and portfolio net inflows. Finally, we find positive effects of unconventional U.S. monetary policy on EME inflows, especially portfolio inflows. Even so, U.S. unconventional policy is one among several important factors influencing flows.     

Advertising, Its Determinants, and Market Structure

This study derives a formal model of firm advertising behavior and applies it to the industry level to figure out the relationship between advertising and market structure. The firm advertising model shows that both consumer preference andfirm-specific advertising competence jointly determineprofit-maximizing advertising intensity. At the industry level, advertising intensity is represented multiplicatively by consumer preference and a measure of market structure, which reflects the joint distribution of the levels of advertising competence and market shares among firms. The new market structure measure suggests that those single-dimensional measures of market structure such as seller concentration and the Herfindahl index are inadequate in explaining interindustry differences in advertising intensity, and that the long-debated advertising-concentration relationship differs depending primarily on the appropriability of advertising. An empirical analysis of 426 five-digit Korean manufacturing industries shows that an inverted U-shaped relationship between the Herfindahl index and industry advertising intensity is observed for consumer goods industries but a lazy J-shaped relationship for producer goods industries.     

The U.S. Motion Pictures Industry: An Empirical Approach

We hypothesize that the U.S. motion pictures industry is structured so that star presence increases box office receipts and (less so) admissions, but places Ricardian limits on the output of blockbusters. The few dominant studios (majors) rely on a modified star system to generate supra-normal box office by stimulating admissions at exhibitors. Rising costs (from stars and their promotion) are required for rising revenues; that is, the majors gain revenue only at higher costs. Although the industry has unique features, the empirical results are surprisingly relevant to other industries.     

Attribute differences between U.S. GAAP and IFRS earnings: An exploratory study

In this study we explore attribute differences between U.S. GAAP and IFRS earnings. Our study is motivated by the ongoing harmonization process in accounting standard setting as well as by recent convergence projects by the FASB and the IASB. We test two market-based earnings attributes, i.e., value relevance and timeliness, as well as two accounting-based earnings attributes, i.e., predictability and accrual quality. These attributes are tested for German New Market firms as they are allowed to choose between IFRS and U.S. GAAP for financial reporting purposes. Overall, we find that U.S. GAAP and IFRS only differ with regard to predictive ability. The fact that U.S. GAAP accounting information outperforms IFRS also holds after controlling for differences in firm characteristics, such as size, leverage and the audit firm. However, our results also seem to suggest that these differences are not fully valued by investors, as we do not observe significant and consistent differences for the value-relevance attribute.     

Measuring the Extent of Structural Remedy in Section 7 Settlements: Was the US DOJ Successful in the 1990s?

This paper suggests an innovative measure of structural relief obtained in a typical Section 7 settlement. The fraction of competitive overlap subject to divestiture as a condition of the settlement is modeled as a function of merger-specific efficiencies, the proportion of the deal held “hostage” to antitrust review, the merger’s anticompetitive potential, and other factors. The model is applied to data on 86 recent Justice Department cases covering the period 1990–2003 and to the subsample of 1990s cases. All data are collected from publicly available documents only. The government is found to secure larger divestitures when the cost to the acquirer of delaying the settlement is high. The resulting estimates are used to predict several out-of-sample observations. I would like to thank the General Editor and two anonymous referees for many helpful suggestions on earlier drafts of this paper. The remaining errors are mine.     

Effects of Production Location on Perceived Automobile Values

Abstract

The factors contributing to a positive brand image and the impact of a lower cost production location have typically been treated as independent. In the international arena, two streams of literature have developed around these two issues. The so-called Country-of-Origin (COO) literature has dealt primarily with consumer perceptions and evaluations of foreign-made products, while the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) literature has focused on the determinants of investments by firms operating in foreign countries. We believe that a major reason for the lack of influence of COO studies on FDI is the typical format of the results of COO research, which tend to involve average values on various psychometric-type measurement scales. This paper demonstrates a method for generating monetary values in COO research via conjoint analysis. One such result, reported herein, is that a change in the production location of a $17,000 automobile from the USA to Mexico results in a change in value of $1,952 among a particular group of consumers. Hopefully, this type of result will be more meaningful to FDI researchers and practitioners than scaled items, and lead to their consideration of the relatively consistent findings of the COO literature in the future.     

美国纳米计划管理预算及发展战略

布什政府把国家纳米计划（NNI）指定为多联邦机构参与研发的计划，旨在通过各机构间的经费、研发以及基础设施等方面的协调，使联邦政府对纳米的研发投入回报最大化。自布什2001年进驻白宫以来，美国联邦政府给国家纳米计划的投入从2001财年的4．534G美元增至2008财年11．674G美元（以2001年美元值计算），增长了158％。     

轴心压力对Y型偏心支撑钢框架抗震性能的影响

偏心支撑钢框架是在支撑钢框架的基础上改进的一种新型抗侧力体系,该体系结合了中心支撑钢框架强度、刚度高和抗弯框架延性、耗能性能好的优点,是适用于高烈度地震区的一种有效的抗侧力结构体系。同时,由于多高层钢框架的广泛应用,其层数不同将会导致柱轴心压力的不同。本文通过应用ANASYS有限元程序对其在不同轴心压力下的受力性能进行分析。