Factors Influencing Organic and Fair Trade Coffee Growers Level of Engagement with Cooperatives: The Case of Coffee Farmers in Mexico

We study the factors influencing the percentage of organic and fair trade certified coffee sold through a cooperative by growers of five cooperatives in Mexico. The percentage of coffee sold through the cooperative was used as a proxy of growers’ engagement with a cooperative. Using factor analysis and a fractional probit regression, we evaluated the proposition that the level of engagement can be explained by transaction cost economics, social norms and connections, and farmer and farm business characteristics. We found that farm size, uncertainty regarding cooperative time of payment to the members and cooperative commitment on price to be paid negatively influence the level of engagement. In contrast, asset specificity, relational commitment, and price have a positive impact on engagement. Our results may help cooperatives and policy makers to build strategies aiming to increase this level of engagement. This is relevant because lower grower engagement has been found to be positively correlated with weak performing cooperatives.     

Exploring pilgrim satisfaction on facilities for religious events: a case of Ratha Yatra at Puri

This article relates to the annual Ratha Yatra festival at Puri, India, and aims at quantifying the pilgrim perception of the event on three major aspects of every facility – adequacy, quality, and signage – to measure their satisfaction. A questionnaire survey (N?=?680) was conducted, from which a five-factor structure was extracted using exploratory principal component analysis, further examined through partial least squares-path modeling. The final model was found to have significant positive effects on three factors that comprised adequacy and quality of physiological needs, quality of ancillary facilities, and signage. The outcome may be utilized in planning other pilgrim events for achieving a higher pilgrim satisfaction score.     

Evaluating the efficiency of Korean festival tourism and its determinants on efficiency change: Parametric and non-parametric approaches

Local festivals may leverage local specialties and various historical, cultural, and artistic resources throughout their respective regions to attract tourists, inducing positive economic impacts. In this study, this paper is a first attempt to analyze the relative efficiency of local festival tourism by using parametric and non-parametric approaches with the data from local festivals held in Korea from 2015 to 2018. We also deal with the efficiency determinants of each typology of festivals by employing a truncated regression with double bootstrapping. Results showed that the leading sources of inefficiency were primarily embedded in pure technology inefficiency, while the principal operational drivers posed different effects depending on the typology of festivals. These insights have important practical implications for the local festival organizing committees and operators in Korea and are helpful in developing tailored operational strategies to maximize the efficiency among different typologies of festivals.     

Does the Reserve Bank of Australia follow a forward-looking nonlinear monetary policy rule?

ABSTRACT

The conventional monetary policy rule describes a simple linear relationship between the domestic interest rate, inflation rate and output gap. An important extension to this rule is to incorporate the forward-looking behaviour of central banks, where it is assumed that they target an expected level of inflation instead of its current realised value. Using quarterly observations for the period 1993:1-2018:2, this paper investigates whether the conduct of monetary policy in Australia can be described by a forward-looking linear monetary policy rule, or by a nonlinear forward-looking monetary policy rule. In particular, the nonlinear forward-looking monetary policy rule is analysed in a regime-switching framework using a smooth logistic transition regression model. While the results show that the conventional forward-looking linear monetary policy rule describes the application of monetary policy in Australia reasonably well, the interest rate setting behaviour of the RBA is best described by a nonlinear forward-looking monetary policy rule.     

Public and private healthcare services: What drives the choice?

This paper has explored patients' propensity to consume private healthcare services. We based our analysis on the typical tangible and intangible (for instance, responsiveness, reliability, assurance and staff empathy) domains of the SERVQUAL and SERVPERF methods. These variables may influence patients' decision-making when they choose between the public and private sectors. We combined factor analysis (to obtain a set of latent factors related to perceived quality) and a partial proportional ordered logit model to estimate the probability that a patient would access private healthcare services. To test the main hypotheses, we used data from a stratified sample in Sardinia, a peripheral region of Italy. Findings revealed that private and public healthcare are substitutes, especially for primary/specialised services. Patients who used public healthcare frequently and had a low income were unlikely to change to private healthcare or to recommend private services. ‘Responsiveness’ and perceptions on ‘tangibles’ were key in determining the probability that a patient would choose and recommend private services. This paper offers a multifaceted framework that can be used in future research to generalise these findings, especially in insular regions that are constrained by mobility.     

数字普惠金融对地方税收影响的实证研究

采用北京大学测度的2011—2018年数字普惠金融指数与地方税收面板数据，研究了数字普惠金融发展与地方税收之间的关系。研究发现，数字普惠金融能够显著地促进地方税收增长，在考虑了内生性等因素后，这一结论仍然稳健地成立。分位数回归表明，数字普惠金融在低分位数上对地方税收影响小且统计显著性弱，在高分位数上数字普惠金融对地方税收的影响大且统计显著性强。数字普惠金融对地方税收的影响存在门槛效应，在不同发展阶段，其对地方税收影响有显著差异。数字普惠金融促进税收增长主要是通过数字普惠金融覆盖广度提高和移动化、便利化等程度加深实现的。     

丝绸之路河西走廊物流业效率演化分析

构建了分析河西走廊物流业效率演化的指标体系,基于2009-2017年河西走廊物流业统计数据,运用DEA-Malmquist指数法测算了各市物流业效率和技术进步率,采用Tobit回归模型分析了该地区物流业效率的影响因素,并从省内、省域间、各经济区域间三个方面进行了对比分析。实证分析表明,相较于全国各省市地区,河西走廊物流业整体水平较低,物流业效率和技术进步率的强正相关性普遍存在,其物流业发展对政策偏向具有较强的依赖性;同时,技术进步率低下和基础设施匮乏也是制约物流业发展的重要因素。基于此,从政策照顾与资金投入、科技进步与管理水平和市场运营与体系建设三个方面,为河西走廊物流业发展提出了建议与改善措施。     

Happiness sentiments and the prediction of cross-border country exchange-traded fund returns

This research examines whether social media (Twitter) happiness sentiment and country-level happiness sentiment indices predict cross-border ETF returns. To account for complicated associations between happiness sentiment and ETF returns, we use a quantile regression approach and find that Twitter and trading market (U.S.) happiness sentiments are strong predictors of future ETF returns, for which both have far greater predictive power than those of their home countries. Home country happiness indices exhibit asymmetric impacts across quantiles, suggesting the importance of trading country (U.S.) and Twitter happiness sentiments. Higher U.S. and home countries’ freedom to make life choices, absence of corruption perception, and confidence in national government precede higher ETF returns, while U.S. GDP, social support, health life expectancy, positive affect, and negative affect precede lower (abnormal) returns. We find that higher return quantile country ETFs provide a safe haven for U.S. investors during a U.S. bear market.     

Dependent relationships between Chinese commodity markets and the international financial market: Evidence from quantile time-frequency analysis

In this article, the quantile time–frequency method is utilized to study the dependence of Chinese commodities on the international financial market. The impacts of risk management and diversification benefits of different portfolios are examined by calculating the reduction in downside risk. Moreover, we estimate and compare Sharpe Ratios (SRs) and Generalized Sharpe Ratios (GSRs) based on the frequencies of the investigated portfolios. Our empirical results reveal a strong asymmetric response from Chinese commodity markets. Specifically, we find that gold is a safe-haven asset, and due to negative correlations found at lower quantiles in medium and long term, an increase in the USD index damages bull commodity markets but boosts bear conditions under long-term investments, and negative (positive) tail correlations with interest rates (IRs) in bull (bear) markets are observed. It is proven that WTI can decrease short-run risks while USD and GOLD are more efficient in the diversification of downside risk. Adding international commodities may not improve the returns of Chinese commodities at given risk levels in the short and medium term through SRs and GSRs. In brief, investors should consider these dependence structures and modes of risk management in terms of time and frequency.     

The momentum and reversal effects of investor sentiment on stock prices

In this paper, we illustrate the real function relationship between the stock returns and change of investor sentiment based on the nonparametric regression model. The empirical results show that when the change of investor sentiment is moderate, the stock return is positively correlated with the change of investor sentiment, presenting an obvious momentum effect. However, the stock return is negatively correlated with the change of investor sentiment if the change of investor sentiment is dramatic, presenting significant reversal effects. Moreover, the degree of reversal effect caused by extremely optimistic sentiment is greater than that driven by extremely pessimistic sentiment, which shows a significant asymmetry. Our findings offer a partial explanation for financial anomalies such as the mean reversion of stock returns, the characteristic of slow rise and steep fall in China's stock market and so on.