The Timing of Environmental Policy: A Note on the Role of Product Differentiation

We examine the role that product differentiation can play in the design of environmental policy under full commitment and no commitment on the part of the environmental regulator. We consider a setting with two firms selling a differentiated product which generates pollution through emissions. Firms can reduce their emissions by undertaking abatement activities while an environmental regulator taxes emissions. The main results are: (1) When products are highly differentiated, the optimal time-consistent (no commitment) tax is always lower than the optimal pre-commitment tax. As the degree of product differentiation decreases, for relatively efficient abatement technology and high damages, the time-consistent emission tax exceeds the optimal pre-commitment one. (2) Abatement when product differentiation is extensive is higher under the time-consistent regime unless the abatement technology is extremely efficient. The same ranking applies to social welfare. However, as products become more and more similar, these results are (partially) reversed and pre-commitment could lead to both higher levels of abatement and welfare.     

Explaining adoption and use of payment instruments by US consumers

Motivated by recent policy intervention into payments markets, we develop and estimate a structural model of adoption and use of payment instruments by U.S. consumers. Our structural model differentiates between the adoption and use of payment instruments. We evaluate substitution among payment instruments and welfare implications. Cash is the most significant substitute to debit cards in retail settings, whereas checks are the most significant in bill‐pay settings. Furthermore, low income consumers lose proportionally more than high income consumers when debit cards become more expensive, whereas the reverse is true when credit cards do.     

Das organisationspsychologische Fairness-Konstrukt im Marketing

Zusammenfassung  Wir geben einen überblick, wie Fairness als zentrales sozial- und organisationspsychologisches Konstrukt in der aktuellen Marketingforschung rezipiert wird. In der Konstruktgeschichte haben sich vier Dimensionen von Fairness (distributive, prozedurale, informationale, interpersonale) ausdifferenziert. In einer bibliometrischen Analyse strukturieren wir den gegenw?rtigen Fairnessdiskurs im Marketing. Anhand von 205 internationalen Zeitschriftenartikeln identifizieren wir vier relevante Themenkomplexe: Beschwerdemanagement, Preisfairness, intraorganisationale Fairness im Marketing-Kontext sowie Fairness und Vertrauen in Gesch?ftsbeziehungen. Diese Subdiskurse verdeutlichen, auf welchen Themengebieten die Marketingforschung durch Rezeption des Fairness-Konstrukts bereits bereichert wurde. Zugleich lassen sie aber weitere Differenzierungsm?glichkeiten erkennen.

娱乐场所未婚从业人员性行为研究——以江苏某市一大型娱乐场所为例

利用2007年6-7月对江苏某市一大型娱乐中心489名未婚从业人员匿名问卷调查的资料,了解他们的性行为现状,分析其"不安全性行为"相关因素.娱乐场所未婚从业人员的婚前性行为比例远高于其他人群,安全套使用比例不高,存在诸多"不安全性行为",他们的"不安全性行为"与流动状况相关,是否使用安全套和有多个性伙伴与艾滋病相关知识和态度不显著相关.     

Does East Meet West in Business Ethics: An Introduction to the Special Issue

This article introduces and summarizes selected papers from the first World Business Ethics Forum held in Hong Kong and Macau in November 2006, co-hosted by the Hong Kong Baptist University and by the University of Macau. Business Ethics in the East remain distinct from those in the West, but the distinctions are becoming less pronounced and the ethical traffic flows both ways. Gabriel D, Donleavy is Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Business Administration at the University of Macau teaching Business Ethics, Business Negotiation and Advanced Management. His work has been published in Critical Perspectives in Accounting, Corporate Governance, the Journal of Business Ethics, Advances in Applied Business Strategy, the Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, Long Range Planning and the Asian Review of Accounting which he co-founded. Kit-Chun Joanna LAM is Professor in Department of Economics of the Hong Kong Baptist University. She is also Guest Professor in the Centre for Business Ethics of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, China. She received her Ph.D. degree in economics from Harvard University. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Labor Economics, Canadian Journal of Economics, Economica, Journal of Comparative Economics, and Labour Economics. Simon S.M. Ho is Dean and Professor at the School of Business and Director for Corporate Governance and Financial Policy, Hong Kong Baptist University. He founded the Asia-Pacific Corporate Governance Conference and the world’s first master programme in corporate governance & directorship in 2004. He published over 40 academic refereed articles in leading journals such as Journal of Accounting, Accounting & Finance, Journal of Accounting & Public Policy, and Journal of Corporate Finance.     

Managerial ability,forecasting quality,and open-market repurchase program completion

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - We examine how the US and EU antidumping (AD) cases against Chinese firms affected their stock prices and long-term financial performance during...     

The Political Limits of Economic Integration

Economic integration can be beneficial for all participating countries. But after a point, further gains from integration can be achieved only by trading off costs in one policy or sector against benefits in another. In this article we explore the relationship between these trade-offs and their political sustainability. We conjecture that a viable policy is politically sustainable when its benefits to citizens are visible to them. In the longer term, the trade-offs which are required to deepen integration become invisible, at which point reversing the process of integration appears to be in the national interest. We conclude that integration needs to be supported with domestic policies that mitigate the costs of integration borne by some groups or sectors.     

Enhancing food security in South Sudan: the role of markets and regional trade

South Sudan faces serious problems of food insecurity due to low levels of domestic food production, periodic droughts, widespread poverty, and since late 2013, renewed armed conflict. This article explores market price behavior using cointegration analysis and estimates the effects of production and trade shocks through multimarket model simulations. We show that market prices in the capital city, Juba, of both maize and sorghum are cointegrated with import parity prices of these cereals sourced from Uganda, consistent with observed trade flows. Model simulations, using econometrically estimated demand parameters, suggest that private sector imports of maize and wheat would greatly mitigate the potential fall in consumption in the case of a decline in domestic cereal production. Other simulations indicate that if total imports of cereals are reduced by one‐third (still more than two times the levels of food aid in 2013) because of disruptions to private market flows, domestic prices of cereals could rise by 45% or more. The article concludes that whatever measures are taken involving national food security reserves, it is crucial that government policy serves to maintain incentives for private sector imports to avoid destabilizing market supplies, domestic prices, and ultimately, food consumption of the poor.     

Innovations in the Application of Insurance-linked Securities in Non-financial Companies

Recently, capital market innovations within transferring insurable risk have grown in diversity. It initiated the development of innovative financial instruments, with the prime role of Insurance Linked Securities （ILS）. Financial institutions （insurers in particular） remain the key players on this market. However, ILS are applicable in non-financial companies as well. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to broadly discuss the application of ILS in non-financial companies. In particular, the purpose of this paper is to provide answers to the crucial questions： （1） What are the potential areas of the use of ILS in non-financial companies？ （2） What are the consequences of the use of ILS in non-financial companies？ The paper is based on the application of document analysis and literature studies as its main research methods. The literature review was directed to enable the provision of systemized characteristics of 1LS. Additionally, case studies were implemented to indicate the areas of ILS applications in non-financial companies. Overall, ILS in the class of financial instruments （including cat bonds, insurance derivatives, and contingent capital structures） may find potential use in non-financial companies. However, significant limitations of such a use are identifiable, mainly within the expert knowledge need and accessibility.     

The Deviance Information Criterion in Comparison of Normal Mixing Models

Model selection from several non‐nested models by using the deviance information criterion within Bayesian inference Using Gibbs Sampling (BUGS) software needs to be treated with caution. This is particularly important if one can specify a model in various mixing representations, as for the normal variance‐mean mixing distribution occurring in financial contexts. We propose a procedure to compare goodness of fit of several non‐nested models, which uses BUGS software in part.