Market response to policy initiatives during the global financial crisis

This paper examines the impact of macroeconomic and financial sector policy announcements in the United States, the United Kingdom, the euro area, and Japan on interbank credit and liquidity risk premia during the recent crisis. Overall, policy interventions were associated with a reduction in interbank risk premia, most significantly for recapitalization programs. By contrast, decisions to bail out individual banks in an ad hoc manner or let them fail were accompanied by a significant rise in interbank risk premia. Most policy announcements had international spillovers. These results are broadly robust to using alternative measures of financial distress and varying the size of the event window.     

Shared autonomous vehicles and their potential impacts on household vehicle ownership: An exploratory empirical assessment

Emerging transportation technologies have the potential to significantly reshape the transportation systems and household vehicle ownership. Key among these transportation technologies are the autonomous vehicles, particularly when introduced in shared vehicle fleets. In this paper, we focus on the potential impact that fleets of shared autonomous vehicles might have on household vehicle ownership. To obtain initial insights into this issue, we asked a sample of university personnel and members of the American Automobile Association as to how likely they would consider relinquishing one of their household's personal vehicles if shared autonomous vehicles were available (thus reducing their household vehicle ownership level by one). For single-vehicle households, this would be relinquishing their only vehicle, and for multivehicle households (households owning two or more vehicles) this would be relinquishing just one of their vehicles. Possible responses to the question about relinquishing a household vehicle if shared autonomous vehicles are present are: extremely unlikely, unlikely, unsure, likely, and extremely likely. To determine the factors that influence this response, random parameters ordered probit models are estimated to account for the likelihood that considerable unobserved heterogeneity is likely to be present in the data. The findings show that a wide range of socioeconomic factors affects people's likelihood of vehicle relinquishment in the presence of shared autonomous vehicles. Key among these are gender effects, generational elements, commuting patterns, and respondents' vehicle crash history and experiences. While people's opinions of shared autonomous vehicles are evolving with the continual introduction of new autonomous vehicle technologies and shifting travel behavior, the results of this study provide important initial insights into the likely effects of shared autonomous vehicles on household vehicle ownership.     

Investigation of current perspectives for NHS Wales sustainable development through procurement policies

Public sector procurement has to operate under the pressure of policies and strict budgets. This paper examines the current perspectives of the NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership (NWSSP) on sustainable procurement policies. In particular, it investigates the adoption levels of the sustainable procurement policies of buyers (NHS Wales), examines the level of engagement of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with NHS Wales, and explores the support for the existing sustainable procurement function through order processing analysis of catalogue coverage.     

What are you?: pragmatic,self-confident, #hashtag or a vital senior? Using marketing to curb alcoholism and encourage healthy consumption!

From a public administration approach, alcohol consumption is responsible for 3.8% of overall mortality. From a private approach, companies in the alcohol industry are faced with increasing competition, which forces them to focus their business more while promoting responsible consumption.

In this scene, an empirical investigation was carried out to determine the individual and environmental factors with most impact on alcohol consumption in the Spanish market. 1031 valid responses were obtained. Using multivariate techniques, four different consumer groups of highly alcoholic vs. slightly alcoholic beverages were identified: Pragmatic group; Self-confident group; #hashtag group and Vital Seniors group. Based on the variables (individual and environmental) that significantly define each cluster, two groups of managerial implications were stated: (i) four to recommend private managers how to reach each cluster of alcohol consumers; (ii) three to recommend public authorities how to deal with the most problematic areas (curb alcoholism & encourage healthy consumption).     

Researching migrant entrepreneurship communities: a reflection through collaborative (auto)ethnographies

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - In this paper we offer a scholarly reflection about the value of ethnographic methods for studying migrant entrepreneurship; this reflection...     

Unconventional monetary policy and the dollar–euro exchange rate: further evidence from event studies

New evidence is presented on the impact on the US dollar–euro (USD–EUR) exchange rate of the unconventional monetary policy conducted by the US Federal Reserve (FED) and the European Central Bank (ECB). To that end, we employ an event study approach using daily the USD–EUR exchange rate for the period from 2 January 2007 to 31 January 2015. Our results indicate that the announcement and subsequent implementation of such measures by the ECB would have caused in general an appreciation of the dollar, while those by the FED would have caused a depreciation of the dollar.     

Fuzzy model estimation of the risk factors impact on the target of promotion of the software product

ABSTRACT

This article studies the application of fuzzy logic to the risk analysis of a new software product development and marketing in specific case of a small size IT company. Identification and analysis of external and internal risk factors show that this type of business activity could be evaluated as high-risk enterprise. So, the purpose of the paper is to develop robust method to evaluate probability of occurrence of major risk events and their impact on the company financial health. The fuzzy logic is used to estimate degrees of threat of each relevant risk factor due to lack of reliable statistical data. The novelty of proposed approach is the inclusion into the model the risk event time.     

Are Sustainable Consumers Health Conscious? A Segmentation Study of Wine Consumers

As a result of consumers’ increasing concerns with ethical, environmental, and health issues, sustainable consumption and production have become a popular topic of recent academic research and industry practices. The current study sought to provide in-depth insights into consumers’ views on sustainability by simultaneously examining their environmental and social awareness and behavior, health-conscious lifestyles, and diets; as well as the perceived importance of social and nutrition information on wine labels. Based on empirical data obtained through a web-based survey distributed to consumer panels in three markets – the US, the UK, and Germany – this research segmented wine consumers into four categories: Apathetic Consumers; Health-Conscious Diners; Holistic Perfectionists; and Ethical Advocates. The findings indicate that in general wine consumers are mindful about the environmental problems, social responsibility of companies, ethically produced and sustainably sourced products. The majority adhere to healthy lifestyles and watch their diets. Nevertheless, with the exception of only one cluster (Holistic Perfectionists), wine consumers do not actively seek social, environmental, or nutritional information on wine labels. This study shows that, at least currently, the preferences for the social factors are unlikely to outweigh dominating traditional wine purchase drivers, such as price, brand, country of origin, and grape variety. Industry implications for tailored marketing strategies are discussed.     

What Determines the Sacrifice Ratio? A Bayesian Model Averaging Approach

Existing empirical studies on the sacrifice ratio (measuring the output cost of disinflation) consider a large number of potential explanatory variables including the length of disinflation, various institutional settings, economic conditions, and the political climate. Some results are robust across different studies, while others are not. We address the presence of model uncertainty by using the Bayesian model averaging method to identify the important determinants of the sacrifice ratio, without relying on ad hoc model selection. Our results show that the length of disinflation is the most important variable. This supports the ‘cold turkey’ argument for faster disinflation.     

Economic transition and the rise of alternative institutions

The economic transition from socialism in Russia has not resulted in the emergence of impersonal, rule-based institutions. Instead, the natural demand for institutions that protect property rights has led to the emergence of alternative, inefficient institutions such as that of cronyism – the practice of appointing personal acquaintances of the political leader to key positions. A political leader not constrained by institutions appoints cronies, as competent subordinates are more prone to switching allegiance to a potential challenger. As competence makes a bigger difference in a rule-based environment, such a leader has no interest in any institutional development. In a simple empirical exercise, using a dataset that covers the richest Russians, we find a positive and significant effect of direct connections to the personal circle of President Putin on the wealth of businessmen. The magnitude of the effect varies at different levels of rents available for redistribution and ‘network centrality of a businessman’: it is higher during the years of high oil prices, but is attenuated by the prominence of the businessman in the network.