Access prices,unbundling and product variety in European Internet markets

A fundamental policy in European broadband regulation is unbundled access to the local loop of the incumbent telephone company. We present comparative static results that show as the access price decreases, the retail price decreases, the variety of plans offered by Internet service providers increases and the quantity of each variety increases when a threshold condition is met. Using data from 18 European countries from 2006 to 2012, we find empirical support for these results when Internet product variety is measured by variation in download speeds.     

旅游目的地地格的理论源流、本质与测度指标

全球化背景下,在旅游目的地开发与营销过程中忽视了地方的本质特征,旅游目的地竞争走向“无地方性”与“无个性”的地方趋同陷阱。地格理论融合地理学的地方性理论、营销学的品牌个性理论、旅游学的推拉理论以及管理学的资源基础论,提出旅游目的地开发与营销成功的关键是以地格为依托,即关注目的地长期积累形成的生活方式的本质特征,避免地方趋同。本文指出具有代表力、吸引力与竞争力的旅游地格是旅游目的地的品牌基因,还从旅游目的地政府、游客和居民视角出发,运用定性与定量相结合的方法,创建了由自然环境、人文环境与群体性格组成的地格因子体系。     

确权、交易、资产化：对大数据转为生产要素基础理论问题的再思考

大数据是数字经济的基础性、战略性资源，是后疫情时代经济发展的重要生产要素，但社会各界对大数据的理论认知仍落后于其应用实践，而且大数据确权、交易定价、资产化问题也存在诸多争议，这对大数据产业和数字经济的持续健康发展形成潜在隐患，也成为制约大数据向生产要素正常转化并参与社会大生产的关键。文章在对大数据概念、属性重新认识的基础上，综合财经、法律等理论观点和实操技巧，阐述了大数据如何从商品流通要素演变为社会生产要素的市场逻辑以及使用价值如何注入大数据的资产化过程，并从实践视角提出大数据确权的法理基础和大数据交易所生态下交易定价模型。同时提出以数据税来弥补大数据采集环节个人和企业放弃的小微权利，将私权转化为社会公共产品，为大数据产业和要素市场发展提供新的借鉴。     

Factors influencing consumers' purchase decision-making in O2O business model: Evidence from consumers' overall evaluation

Online-to-offline (O2O) has become a rapidly growing e-commerce model worldwide, but the factors influencing consumers' purchase decision-making have not been examined well. After exploring the working mechanism of the O2O model, we extract eleven indexes of consumers' overall evaluation in the O2O model with Crawlzilla and R techniques. Social network analysis (SNA) is adopted to build social networks reflecting consumers' overall evaluation in the O2O model. Based on the modified social network and the extracted subgraph, this study (N = 768) reveals consumers' overall evaluation behavior patterns in the O2O model by calculating network density, central potential, edge betweenness. The results show that shoppers overall evaluate the eleven indexes, especially perceived product quality, online product price, promotion intensity, business reputation, and product brand, which reflects the significant associations between the indexes. Among all the eleven evaluation indexes, perceived product quality, online product price, and business reputation dominate consumers’ decision-making behavior. When making purchase decisions, consumers not only overall consider online product price, perceived product quality, and business reputation but also balance perceived product quality, business reputation, and promotion intensity. Finally, we make some suggestions on marketing strategy for e-commerce companies.     

南京江北新区新型城镇化发展质量评价与提升路径

文章构建了由31项指标组成的新型城镇化综合发展质量评价指标体系,运用AHP层次分析法和熵值法,选择19个国家级新区中2018年经济总量排名前十的新区进行定量对比分析,并结合民生幸福建设群众满意度问卷调查分析,对南京江北新区新型城镇化发展质量进行综合评价。研究表明:(1)南京江北新区新型城镇化整体发展处于中上游水平,与发达新区相比存在一定差距,产业结构亟需优化;(2)发展增长方式、资源利用率、环境保护类指标明显落后;(3)科教文卫、居民生活等指标具有比较优势。文章最后提出新型城镇化提升路径为加快生态环境和公共服务建设,积极提升科教和生态示范效应,做大做强主导产业,促进城乡特色均衡发展和推进以人为核心的新型城镇化。     

Analysis of Bitcoin prices using market and sentiment variables

This paper proposes an empirical model for analysing the dynamics of Bitcoin prices. To do this, we consider a vector error correction model over two overlapping periods: 2010–17 and 2010–19. Price discovery is achieved through the Gonzalo–Granger permanent‐transitory decomposition. The pricing factors are endogenous linear combinations of the S&P 500 index, gold price, a Google search variable associated to Bitcoin and a fear index proxied by the FED Financial Stress Index. Our empirical analysis shows that during the first period, a linear combination of four pricing factors describes the efficient Bitcoin price. The S&P 500 index and Google searches have a positive effect whereas gold prices and the fear index have a negative effect. In contrast, during the second period, the efficient price behaves idiosyncratically and can be only rationalised by individuals' search for information on the cryptocurrency. These findings provide empirical evidence on the presence of a correction in Bitcoin prices during the period 2018–19 uncorrelated to market fundamentals. We also show that standard empirical asset pricing models perform poorly for explaining Bitcoin prices.     

Many a little makes a mickle: Why do consumers negatively react to sequential price disclosure?

Drip pricing (DP) is distinct from partitioned pricing as it sequentially discloses surcharges to consumers. Critics see DP as a deceptive pricing tactic because it obscures the final price of an offer. We examine the effects of the timing of the final price disclosure and the number of sequentially presented surcharges on consumers' attention to the final price and, ultimately, perceived price fairness. In an eye‐tracking study with 225 participants, we find that the sequential (vs. up‐front) disclosure of the final price lowers perceived price fairness by increasing consumers' attention to the final price, in particular, when the number of surcharges is high. In addition, the sequential disclosure of the final price lowers perceived price fairness because of higher perceived price complexity and lower pricing transparency perceptions. The findings suggest that firms need to be aware of both attentional and cognitive effects of the final price disclosure when designing DP.     

What determines the long-term correlation between oil prices and exchange rates?

In this study, we obtain the long-term correlation between oil prices and exchange rates by employing the dynamic conditional correlation-mixed data sampling (DCC-MIDAS) model. We then identify the factors that influence the long-term correlation using panel data analysis. We find that the long-run correlations between oil prices and exchange rates are negative for all oil-exchange rate markets except Japan. We also find that both inflation and term spread have negative effects, while the risk-free interest rate has a positive effect on the long-term correlation between oil prices and exchange rates. Importantly, the empirical results show that an increase in inflation will significantly damage the real value of the currency itself.     

中国国有企业改革：经验、困境与出路*

作为国有企业产权改革主要模式，“混合所有制”改革是否有助于确保国有资产保值增值，是否有助于推动中国经济可持续发展等问题仍存在探讨空间。本文基于对于改革开放以来中国国有企业改革的成就和教训的考察，指出“混合所有制”可以作为竞争性部门国有企业改革的一个过渡形式；对于垄断央企的改革应该充分借鉴国际上自然垄断行业的改革经验，打破行政垄断，推动竞争性框架建立，并切实实现从“管企业”逐步调整为“管资本”，通过改革实现国有资产的保值增值，并为经济创造新的增长点。     

Cost Analysis of Calcium in Store Brand versus National Brand Grocery Products

Objective: This study was to determine if calcium fortification yields a higher price per serving in grocery store products. Researchers compared store brand to national brand grocery products in relation to cost in order to examine if calcium values were similar between store brand and national brand products. Methods: A total of 112 store brand and 211 national brand grocery products were collected from three low (national chain store), middle and high priced (Virginia and North Carolina regional store) grocery venues. Products were compared using price and calcium percentage per serving. ANOVA was used to determine between store brand and national brand for price per serving and calcium content, and between grocery venues. Results: National brand fortified products had a significantly lower mean price per serving when compared to national brand non-fortified products (p = 0.0002). There was no statistical difference between store brand fortified and non-fortified products (p = 0.9256). Low priced store brand products had the lowest mean price per serving ($0.34 ±0.24). Conclusions: This study found store brand products have similar calcium content as national brand products. Product cost was lower at low priced store compared to middle and high priced stores.