Contracting Institutions,Agro‐food Trade and Product Quality

The agro‐food sector has experienced a profound transformation of contractual arrangements along the value chain, coinciding with important technological innovations and product quality upgrading. Our understanding of the impact that this transformation has had on trade flows in the agricultural sector is very limited. In particular, we have limited knowledge about the extent to which the patterns in agro‐food trade have been driven by the quality of contractual institutions. Using existing measures which capture the sensitivity of agro‐food products to contractual imperfections, we show that countries with better contract enforcement specialise in the production of food which requires higher level of relationship‐specific investments. We also find that countries with better contracting institutions and producing contract‐intensive goods specialise in exporting high quality foods. In addition, we show that the quality of contracting institutions might importantly affect the process of product quality upgrading.     

Understanding hospital quality: the case of cumulative and balanced quality

A more precise way to conceptualize and operationalize hospital quality is needed to increase hospitals’ productivity. This paper investigates how hospitals’ conformance quality (CQ) and experiential quality (EQ), in terms of their combined magnitude (i.e. their interaction) and relative balance (i.e. the absolute difference between them) impact hospital productivity. First, we explore the impact of both the ‘combined dimension of quality’ and ‘balance dimension of quality’ on hospital productivity. Second, we investigate quality dominance to analyze its impact on productivity when CQ is greater than EQ, and vice versa. Secondary data (January 2015 to December 2015) were collected from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and American Hospital Directory (AHD) for US acute care hospitals. The results provide strong empirical support for the benefit of minimizing the gap between the two types of quality. In addition, the results suggest that considering quality dominance (experiential vs. conformance) might be useful in shedding light on the inherent tension that exists when firms are forced to allocate resources to provide different types of quality simultaneously.     

The impact on stock prices of deferral and elimination of internal control audit requirement for small firms

This paper examines the cumulative market reaction to the events related to deferral of internal control audit requirement under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and its elimination under the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 for nonaccelerated filers (small firms). We document that small firms experienced negative cumulative abnormal returns around these events; and the differences between the cumulative abnormal returns for small firms and the two control groups (accelerated and large accelerated filers) were negative and significant at the 1% level. These results support the notion that market participants value the reliability of financial information irrespective of the firm size. Within the small firms, we find no firm characteristic significantly explains the market reaction to the events considered. That is, all small firms lost market value in reaction to the events that delayed and eliminated their internal control audit requirement.     

甘孜州农牧区县域发展水平综合评价与特征分析

[目的]对甘孜州各县市的发展状况进行研究探讨,为区域可持续发展策略的制定实施提供科学依据,对提升县域发展水平和发展质量具有重要意义。[方法]建立涵盖经济、社会、资源环境三大模块共计24项指标的评价体系,选取发展较快的2007—2014年为研究时段,运用极差法、改进熵值法、耦合协调度模型与GIS工具,对甘孜州各县市的发展水平进行综合评价与分析。[结果](1)全州综合发展水平指数平均值为0. 500 8,发展水平整体较低,其中康定市得分最高,石渠县最低,县市之间呈现两级分化。(2) 2007—2014年全州综合发展指数平均增幅0. 262 6,年均增速13. 77%,所有县市均处于上升过程,但县市之间增速不一,发展差距逐步扩大。(3)全州发展协调度平均值为0. 390 5,协调度较低,各县市均处于轻度失调或濒临失调水平。(4)发展水平、活力、协调度较高县市均集聚于州东部和南部,尤以东路片区最为典型。[结论]下一阶段需依据各县市实际,立足优势,制定实施合理的发展规划,缩小区域差异,提升综合发展水平。     

江西省休闲农业示范点空间分布特征研究

[目的]深入分析江西省休闲农业示范点空间分布特征,进而可以提出促进区域休闲农业提升发展的对策建议。[方法]选取2010—2016年江西省国家级和省级休闲农业示范点作为数据,基于最邻近点指数、核密度估计法、不均衡指数和数量类型评价的方法,研究江西省休闲农业示范点的空间分布、类型构成与发展水平。[结果]江西休闲农业示范点空间上呈现聚集型分布特点,主要分布于中心城市、大型景区周边和交通干线沿线,以休闲农园、观光农园和生态农园等类型为主,存在空间分布不均衡、类型结构不合理等问题。[结论]以区域中心城市为中心,建设五大主题功能片区,优化多层级交通游线组织,加强城市、景区与农业资源丰富、生态环境优越区域的交通联系,并充分发挥休闲农业示范点的辐射带动作用,大力扶持培育休闲农业新业态,可以促进区域休闲农业的全面均衡发展。     

粮食与经济重心迁移路径及空间耦合关系分析*——以湖北省粮食主产县为例

[目的]我国的粮食安全问题一直备受关注,作为粮食安全重要保障的粮食主产区近年来却面临着粮食生产与经济发展协调性、可持续性下降的困扰。文章以湖北省46个粮食主产县为研究区,对其粮食生产与经济发展的耦合协调状况进行研究,以期为地方政府粮食安全政策制定提供参考。[方法]以研究区粮食产量、地区生产总值、行政区划图层为数据源,构建重心模型和空间耦合模型,对粮食主产县2006—2015年间粮食重心和经济重心迁移路径、粮食生产与经济发展耦合协调状况进行分析。[结果](1)研究期间粮食主产县的粮食重心和经济重心整体上皆向西北方向转移,经济重心始终位于粮食重心东南部,经济重心的移动幅度大于粮食重心,但经济重心的移动方向更稳定。研究区北部的粮食生产地位高于南部,南部的经济地位则高于北部,粮食生产的稳定性相对低于经济发展。(2)两重心整体上虽均向西北方向转移,但具体移动方向存在较大差异,两者空间重叠性整体下降,变动一致性减弱,空间耦合性变差。(3)粮食生产与经济发展空间一致性地域分异特征明显,相较于2006年,2015年粮食经济整体协调性进一步减弱,粮食生产与经济发展日趋分散。[结论]建立重心模型和空间耦合模型对粮食生产与经济发展耦合协调状况进行研究是有效可行的,为推动粮食生产与经济发展协调稳步发展决策提供一定的参考。     

Mobile Commerce Website Success: Antecedents of Consumer Satisfaction and Purchase Intention

With the rapid development of apparel mobile commerce in the United States, more companies view mobile commerce as a new source of competitive advantage. Despite the importance of apparel mobile website quality and its effect on consumer satisfaction and future purchase stimulus, extant research has paid little attention to these topics. This study proposes a website quality–consumer satisfaction–purchase intention research model based on the self-regulatory process theory. Six dimensions of apparel mobile website quality—website visual appeal, apparel visual appeal, brand trust, website information quality, website response time, and website security—were investigated. In all, 293 eligible responses were collected via an online survey. Multiple regression analysis was utilized to test the proposed relationships. Results reveal that website information quality, website visual appeal, apparel visual appeal, and website security positively affect consumer satisfaction toward apparel mobile commerce websites, while website response time and brand trust show insignificant impacts on consumer satisfaction. With higher satisfaction on an apparel mobile commerce website, consumers are more likely to purchase apparel through the website.     

Are they telling the truth? Revealing hidden traits of satisfaction with a public bike-sharing service

Public bike-sharing systems (BSSs) are an emerging mode of transportation introduced by municipalities to solve congestion problems in metropolitan areas, especially when integrated with other types of transportation. In the last years, the number of public bike-sharing services has been constantly on the rise all over the world, and generally the overall satisfaction with them is high. However, satisfaction with public services is driven by mechanisms that can differ from those in the private sector. It is important to establish to what extent a high satisfaction is genuine or simply ephemeral. Even “old” public services (like public transportation) become “gold” when accompanied by the introduction of new technologies. In this paper we analyze this phenomenon using data from a satisfaction web-survey conducted among customers of the public BSS “BikeMi” in Milan, Italy, in a period when mobile technologies have been introduced to speed up the service. On analyzing the responses to satisfaction questions using simple summary statistics, the level of satisfaction resulted very high. However, our aim was to look for potential “darker” sides of the service by detecting possible hidden satisfaction components. For this purpose, we used the Nonlinear Principal Components Analysis, which is particularly powerful in this context. A simple textual analysis was also performed as a validating test. Results from our analysis indicated that satisfaction is flawed by a set of factors like the mechanics of the bikes, the picking and dropping system, and the apps used to organize the service. Less concern was detected for more general aspects of the service.     

How Fast are Semiconductor Prices Falling?

The Producer Price Index (PPI) for the U.S. suggests that semiconductor prices have barely been falling in recent years, a dramatic contrast to the rapid declines reported from the mid‐1980s to the early 2000s. This slowdown in the rate of decline is puzzling in light of evidence that the performance of microprocessor units (MPUs) has continued to improve at a rapid pace. Over the course of the 2000s, the MPU prices posted by Intel, the dominant producer of MPUs, became much stickier over the chips' life cycle. As a result of this change, we argue that the matched‐model methodology used in the PPI for MPUs likely started to be biased after the early 2000s and that hedonic indexes can provide a more accurate measure of price change since then. MPU prices fell rapidly through 2004 on every price measure we present, with the PPI declining at an even quicker pace than the hedonic indexes. However, from 2004 to 2009, our preferred hedonic index fell faster than the PPI, and from 2009 to 2013 the gap widened further, with our preferred index falling at an average annual rate of 42 percent, while the PPI declined at only a 6 percent rate. Given that MPUs currently represent about half of U.S. shipments of semiconductors, this difference has important implications for gauging the rate of innovation in the semiconductor sector.     

普惠金融与县域资金外流：减贫还是致贫*——基于中国592个国家级贫困县的研究

本文利用全国592个国家级贫困县的数据，采用空间计量模型实证分析了普惠金融对县域资金外流的影响，并验证了贫困县资金外流是否会产生致贫效应。本文研究发现：如果普惠金融只注重解决贫困地区对金融机构的接触性排斥，会进一步加剧资金外流，对减贫产生负向影响，即存在显著的致贫效应。这种致贫效应具有明显的空间外溢性，邻近县域的贫困状况在很大程度上会彼此“传染”，并具有空间衰减特征的地理边界。因而需要客观认识普惠金融的本质，有针对性地选择恰当有效的实施载体，解决好对信贷产品等关键金融服务的使用性排斥问题。