Online marketing: When to offer a refund for advanced sales

Advance selling is a marketing strategy commonly used by online retailers to increase sales by exploiting consumer valuation uncertainty. Recently, some online retailers have started to allow refunds on products sold in advance. On the one hand this reduces the net advance sales, but on the other hand it allows a higher advance sales price. This research is the first to explore the overall effect of allowing a refund on profits from advance sales, identifying conditions where advance selling with or without refunds (or no advance selling at all) is best. We analytically compare the profits of three advance selling strategies: none, without refund, and with refund. We show that selling in advance and allowing a refund is optimal for products with a relatively small profit margin and small strategic market size, and that the added profit can be considerable. Our results guide managers in selecting the right advance selling strategy. To facilitate this, we graphically display, based on the two dimensions of regular profit margin and strategic market size, under what conditions the different strategies are optimal.     

Economic policy uncertainty and stock price crash risk

This paper studies the impact of economic policy uncertainty on stock price crash risk using data from China. We develop a new index to measure Chinese economic policy uncertainty and find that economic policy uncertainty has a remarkable positive effect on stock price crash risk. However, the effect reverses later. The results also indicate that the positive effect of economic policy uncertainty on stock price crash risk is more prominent for state‐owned enterprises. Moreover, this effect is more prominent for firms with higher information asymmetry and firms with greater disagreement among investors, indicating that economic policy uncertainty affects crash risk through two mechanisms: managers’ concealment of bad news and investors’ heterogeneous beliefs.     

Life insurance decisions under recursive utility

In this paper, we generalize recursive utility to include lifetime uncertainty and utility from bequest. The generalization applies to discrete-time as well as continuous-time recursive utility, and it is an important step forward in the development of recursive utility. We formalize the problem of optimal consumption, investment, and life insurance choice under recursive utility, and we state a verification theorem with a generalized Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation. Our generalization of recursive utility allows us to study optimal consumption, investment, and life insurance choice under separation of (market) risk aversion, elasticity of inter-temporal substitution, and elasticity of substitution between bequest and future utility. The separation gives rise to hump-shaped consumption patterns as observed in realized consumption.     

Motives behind retailers’ post-entry expansion - Evidence from the Chinese luxury fashion market

This study aims to examine the motives behind retailers’ post-entry expansion in foreign markets. Through case studies of eleven participating luxury fashion retailers in China, qualitative data was collected from twenty-two executive interviews. Although their initial market entry was driven by both reactive (push) and proactive (pull) factors, the motives behind their post-entry expansion have become predominantly proactive, especially long-term growth strategies, the ambition to extend their brands and retail formats to more cities, and the experiences gained in entry markets. The desire to optimize the retail store portfolio through multiple channel strategies have slowed down the expansions of physical stores.     

The Politics of Inequality as Organised Spectacle: Why the Swiss Do Not Want to Tax the Rich

In 2015, Swiss voters had the opportunity to impose a tax on the super rich in a popular vote and thereby fund a redistributive policy. However, a large majority voted against its seemingly obvious self-interest and rejected the tax. We propose an explanation for this puzzling outcome, bridging the usually separate behavioralist and institutionalist perspectives on the politics of inequality. We start from the observation that political economy tends to neglect processes of preference formation. Theorising preferences as socially constructed, we show that interest groups played a major role in shaping the outcome of the vote. Business frames were multiplied through allied parties and the media and had a major impact on individual voting behaviour. In addition, we demonstrate that interest groups representing business interests derive the content of their communication from business’s structurally privileged position in the capitalist economy. Specifically, creating uncertainty about possible perverse effects of government policies on jobs and growth is a powerful tool to undermine popular support. Frames based on this structural power ultimately explain why the Swiss refrained from ‘soaking the rich.’     

Superreplication with proportional transaction cost under model uncertainty

We consider a discrete‐time financial market with proportional transaction cost under model uncertainty, and study a superreplication problem. We recover the duality results that are well known in the classical dominated context. Our key argument consists in using a randomization technique together with the minimax theorem to convert the initial problem to a frictionless problem on an enlarged space. This allows us to appeal to the techniques and results of Bouchard and Nutz to obtain the duality result.     

Ad hoc网络中基于多波束天线的集中式低时延调度算法

UxDMA算法是一种高效的集中式算法，是用于时分多址、频分多址和码分多址信道分配的统一算法。在UxDMA的基础上，利用多波束天线的多波束形成能力，针对低时延定向ad hoc网络提出了一种集中式调度算法——CLSM(Centralized Low-delay Scheduling Algorithm Based on Multi-beam Antennas)。CLSM通过不同时延等级限制的报文来比较着色后发送链路的优先级，优先选择高优先级链路传输。通过仿真验证了CLSM的性能：与UxDMA相比，该算法在多时延限制的发送端调度中表现出了更好的吞吐量和时延性能。     

The dark side of innovation: How new SKUs affect brand choice in the presence of consumer uncertainty and learning

New product activity is critical for sustained success of consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands. However, the impact of new SKUs on the perceived quality, quality uncertainty and subsequent choice of the brand as a whole is, as of yet, not well understood. The authors study how new additions to the brand line shape consumers’ quality perceptions, and how this – next to the mere line length effect – influences their choice of brands over time. They do so in the setting of an emerging market (China), where new product activity is particularly pervasive. Using a unique scanner panel dataset of Chinese households over the period 2011–2014, they estimate a Bayesian learning model that accommodates varying quality, on two CPG categories, and for two types of new-product additions (new sensory SKUs vs. new non-sensory SKUs). They show that while adding new SKUs may lift the brand’s perceived quality level, it also makes consumers more uncertain about the quality of the brand – dampening their brand choice. This holds especially for light customers – an important part of the brand clientele. Managerial implications are discussed.     

城市轨道交通直流牵引供电系统接触网残压

对于城市轨道交通来讲,在运行的过程中,直流牵引供电系统是使用最为主要的部件之一。在该系统应用的过程中,接触网残压问题是较为严重的问题,也是当前所出现问题当中比较普遍的一种。对于直流牵引供电系统来讲,当出现接触网残压问题时,可能会对人的生命安全造成严重威胁,同时也会使检修施工和接触网送电保护闭锁等相关工作受到影响,严重拖慢工作进度。因此,论文通过测试、仿真分析和模拟验证等方法,对城市轨道交通直流牵引供电系统接触网残压问题进行了研究与论述。