Geography,Informal Information Flows and Mutual Fund Portfolios

This paper explores how informal information channels impact mutual fund performance. We measure the strengths of two location‐based information channels: 1) information transfers among fund managers (fund‐fund links) and 2) transfers between managers and the companies in which they invest (fund‐company links). We find that each channel increases investment performance in the absence of the other, but decreases it when acting in combination. Stock selection associated with the presence of one channel, but the absence of the other, earns positive future returns. Our results indicate that the economic benefits of informal information channels depend critically on the nature of their interactions.     

Time-varying persistence in US inflation

The persistence property of inflation is an important issue not only for economists, but especially for central banks, given that the degree of inflation persistence determines the extent to which central banks can control inflation. Further, not only is it the level of inflation persistence that is important in economic analyses, but also the question of whether the persistence varies over time, for instance, across business cycle phases, is equally pertinent, since assuming constant persistence across states of the economy is sure to lead to misguided policy decisions. Against this backdrop, we extend the literature on long-memory models of inflation persistence for the US economy over the monthly period of 1920:1–2014:5, by developing an autoregressive fractionally integrated moving-average-generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic model with a time-varying memory coefficient which varies across expansions and recessions. In sum, we find that inflation persistence does vary across recessions and expansions, with it being significantly higher in the former than in the latter. As an aside, we also show that persistence of inflation volatility is higher during expansions than in recessions. Understandably, our results have important policy implications.     

Role of Shopping Values and Web Atmospherics in E-Satisfaction and Repurchase Intention

Expected to touch US$55 billion in 2016, the e-commerce market in India presents an unprecedented growth opportunity for retailers. Existing studies have identified factors influencing shoppers’ online behaviour pertaining to the developed economies. Hence, it becomes pertinent to validate these antecedents for the economies like India. The article addresses this gap by examining the role of shopping values and web atmospherics, on e-satisfaction of Indian shoppers. Using multiple regression analysis, it also examines the influence of e-satisfaction on repurchase intention. The findings suggest that effectiveness of information content has the most significant impact on e-satisfaction. Web entertainment, utilitarian values and web informativeness are the other influencing factors. Contrary to the earlier studies, this study didn’t find any influence of hedonic shopping values on shoppers’ satisfaction. Also, e-satisfaction was found to have a positive influence on repurchase intention of e-shoppers. The article suggests select strategies that can be adopted by e-retailers.     

Changing threat perceptions and the efficient provisioning of international security

This paper proposes a mechanism for structuring international institutions to efficiently provision global security against the threat of a rogue nation, by an alliance of nations. This paper investigates how the evolution of public opinion, in the respective countries facing the rogue nation's threat, affects the mechanism. It also analyzes the impact of “fair‐weather friends” within the alliance, i.e., allies that increase support for security effort when the threat becomes less dangerous but withdraw support in more dangerous circumstances. Additionally, it explores how the possibility of sequential action by the allies, rather than simultaneous action, might affect joint security efforts.     

Major bleeding risk and healthcare economic outcomes of non-valvular atrial fibrillation patients newly-initiated with oral anticoagulant therapy in the real-world setting

Aims: This study compared the risk for major bleeding (MB) and healthcare economic outcomes of patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) after initiating treatment with apixaban vs rivaroxaban, dabigatran, or warfarin.

Methods: NVAF patients who initiated apixaban, rivaroxaban, dabigatran, or warfarin were identified from the IMS Pharmetrics Plus database (January 1, 2013–September 30, 2015). Propensity score matching (PSM) was used to balance differences in patient characteristics between study cohorts: patients treated with apixaban vs rivaroxaban, apixaban vs dabigatran, and apixaban vs warfarin. Risk of hospitalization and healthcare costs (all-cause and MB-related) were compared between matched cohorts during the follow-up.

Results: During the follow-up, risks for all-cause (hazard ratio [HR]?=?1.44, 95% confidence interval [CI]?=?1.2–1.7) and MB-related (HR?=?1.57, 95% CI?=?1.0–2.4) hospitalizations were significantly greater for patients treated with rivaroxaban vs apixaban. Adjusted total all-cause healthcare costs were significantly lower for patients treated with apixaban vs rivaroxaban ($3,950 vs $4,333 per patient per month [PPPM], p?=?.002) and MB-related medical costs were not statistically significantly different ($100 vs $233 PPPM, p?=?.096). Risk for all-cause hospitalization (HR?=?1.98, 95% CI?=?1.6–2.4) was significantly greater for patients treated with dabigatran vs apixaban, although total all-cause healthcare costs were not statistically different. Risks for all-cause (HR?=?2.22, 95% CI?=?1.9–2.5) and MB-related (HR?=?2.05, 95% CI?=?1.4–3.0) hospitalizations were significantly greater for patients treated with warfarin vs apixaban. Total all-cause healthcare costs ($3,919 vs $4,177 PPPM, p?=?.025) and MB-related medical costs ($96 vs $212 PPPM, p?=?.026) were significantly lower for patients treated with apixaban vs warfarin.

Limitations: This retrospective database analysis does not establish causation.

Conclusions: In the real-world setting, compared with rivaroxaban and warfarin, apixaban is associated with reduced risk of hospitalization and lower healthcare costs. Compared with dabigatran, apixaban is associated with lower risk of hospitalizations.     

Conceptualizing the Evolution and Future of Advertising

Technology has irreversibly changed the way that firms identify who is more likely to buy, what they are more likely to buy, when they are more likely to buy, why they are likely to buy, and how they are likely to buy, repurchase, and recommend. It is now easier than ever for firms to have a body of evidence in the form of actual insights, as opposed to having mere guestimates, on consumers' apparent intentions to buy. Power dynamics have changed in the marketing climate, and firms have to factor in not only aggressive competitors but also empowered customers with limited attention spans. In such a climate, what lies in the future for advertising? And how can marketing managers make the most of the changing climate and maximize their returns on advertising? How can academics advance research related to maximizing the effectiveness and efficiency of advertising? These are the questions that this article addresses via an integrated framework that expounds all the factors related to customers, firms, technological environment, and data resources, as well as the contextual factors, including product life cycle, customer life cycle, and so on, and their collective impact on advertising strategy, which includes advertising content, media selection, message, and targeting.     

Does conditionality in IMF-supported programs promote revenue reform?

This paper studies whether revenue conditionality in Fund programs had any impact on the revenue performance of 126 low- and middle-income countries during 1993–2013. The results indicate that such conditionality had a positive impact on tax revenue, with strongest improvement felt on taxes on goods and services, including the VAT. Revenue conditionality matters more for low-income countries, particularly those where revenue ratios are below the group average. Moreover, revenue conditionality appears to be more effective when targeted to a specific tax. These results hold after controlling for potential endogeneity, sample selection bias, and when revenues are adjusted for economic cycle.     

Researches in Corporate Social Responsibility: A Review of Shifting Focus,Paradigms, and Methodologies

Owing to the growing academic and practitioner’s interest in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility, there is a need to do a comprehensive assessment and synthesis of research activities. This article addresses this need and examines the academic literature on Corporate Social Responsibility and Performance using a paradigmatic and methodological lens. The objective of this article is fourfold. First, it examines the status of CSR research from its beginning especially after 1970 to year 2008 in leading academic journals and reports to assess the focus areas of research on CSR so far. Second, it analyzes the research paradigms adopted in these research articles using the Operations Research Paradigm framework. Third, it compares and contrasts various kinds of research articles, methodologies, and research designs used in various researches in literature. Finally, it uncovers the implications of this study and directions for future research.     

An intelligent and secure system for predicting and preventing Zika virus outbreak using Fog computing

Zika virus is a mosquito-borne disease that spreads very quickly in different parts of the world. In this article, we proposed a system to prevent and control the spread of Zika virus disease using integration of Fog computing, cloud computing, mobile phones and the Internet of things (IoT)-based sensor devices. Fog computing is used as an intermediary layer between the cloud and end users to reduce the latency time and extra communication cost that is usually found high in cloud-based systems. A fuzzy k-nearest neighbour is used to diagnose the possibly infected users, and Google map web service is used to provide the geographic positioning system (GPS)-based risk assessment to prevent the outbreak. It is used to represent each Zika virus (ZikaV)-infected user, mosquito-dense sites and breeding sites on the Google map that help the government healthcare authorities to control such risk-prone areas effectively and efficiently. The proposed system is deployed on Amazon EC2 cloud to evaluate its performance and accuracy using data set for 2 million users. Our system provides high accuracy of 94.5% for initial diagnosis of different users according to their symptoms and appropriate GPS-based risk assessment.     

Ownership structures of U.S. joint ventures in the 1980S

A firm's choice between sole and joint ventures in a foreign market is subject to various market-specific and firm-specific influences. This study draws upon the transaction cost and bargaining power theoretical frameworks to identify and measure some of these influences. A logistic regression model was employed to examine the relative influences of the main and interaction effects of the independent factors on ownership structures employed for new foreign subsidiaries by U.S. firms in the 1980s.