Attitudes,norms and difficulties underlying road sharing intentions as drivers and cyclists: Evidence from the Czech Republic

Cycling-inclusive urban planning is attracting attention worldwide because of the environmental, health, economic, and transport benefits inherent to cycling from the individual and the societal perspectives. The Czech Republic is one of the emerging cycling countries that are trying to promote and support cycling, but cycling mode shares are low because of the poor quality of the scarce infrastructure and the psychological barrier of the perceived lack of safety when cycling in mixed traffic. This study takes a multimodal approach based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour and focuses on the factors underlying the willingness to share the road from the perspective of cyclists and drivers: positive attitudes toward cycling, positive attitudes toward cyclists’ behavior, social norms toward cycling and anxiety to share the road. A web-based questionnaire was tailor-designed and administered in the Czech Republic via social networks, web forums, and the Civinet network, and a hybrid bivariate-ordered model tested the behavioral framework. Results show that the willingness to share the road as a cyclist or as a driver relates positively to positive attitudes towards cycling and cyclists’ behavior, and negatively to the anxiety of sharing the road. Moreover, mediator effects are observed and a clear relation emerges between the experience on the road as both a cyclist and a driver on the willingness to share the road as a cyclist. Lastly, results show that the factors underlying road sharing intentions are related significantly to gender, travel habits, and perceived personal and infrastructure-related barriers to cycling.     

The rise of Mexican entrepreneurial migration to the United States: A mixed‐embeddedness approach

Although many studies have analyzed the behavior of high‐skilled migration to the United States, few have focused on the escalating migration of Mexican entrepreneurs, and particularly on the determinants of this kind of high‐skilled migration. This article addresses this gap through a qualitative approach conforming to quantitative procedures, based on 20 in‐depth interviews applied to Mexican entrepreneurs working and/or living in the United States. Theoretically, a mixed‐embeddedness approach guides this research because it allows examining both the individual characteristics of Mexican entrepreneurs, and the influence of the home and host countries' institutional contexts on their business endeavors. Findings revealed Mexico's institutional weaknesses, such as insecurity, corruption, and bureaucracy, are important drivers of migration but so are the perception of a friendly U.S. fiscal system, the search for a better quality of life, and the appeal of a more transparent business environment.     

Bertrand versus Cournot competition in a downstream mixed oligopoly with foreign ownership

Focusing on foreign ownership in the private firm, we examine the Cournot-Bertrand comparison in a mixed oligopolistic market with vertical market structure. We have found that if public and private firms were charged with uniform price for their inputs, then Cournot-Bertrand ranking in market outcomes confirms those obtained by Ghosh and Mitra (2010). This implies that under uniform pricing in the upstream sector, the vertical market structure does not have substantial influences on Cournot-Bertrand ranking. However, if discriminatory pricing is adopted, firm's profits, output, and social welfare are often reversed to those obtained from uniform pricing in the upstream sector. Given the closeness of products, if the share of foreign ownership is sufficiently low, social welfare in Cournot competition can exceed that of Bertrand competition, contrasting with the standard welfare ranking that Bertrand welfare is strictly higher than Cournot. This implies that Cournot competition can be more socially desirable than Bertrand in mixed oligopoly with vertical market structure if discriminatory pricing scheme is adopted by foreign upstream monopolists.     

PERFORMANCE‐BASED FEE CONTRACT AND RISK‐TAKING STRATEGY IN ASSET MANAGEMENT TOURNAMENT

This paper investigates how performance‐based fee (PBF) contracts affect strategic risk‐taking behaviours of fund managers in an asset management tournament. In the perfect equilibrium, managers with better mid‐year performance will hold the risky asset with a higher probability in the remaining of the year, compared to managers with poorer mid‐year performance. If the volume of the cash flow into the winner fund is contingent on its level of success, the winning fund will take a more aggressive approach. When the PBF contract pays more heed to relative performance against the benchmark, managers are more likely to adopt aggressive strategies.     

Emotions,deliberations, and end‐of‐life products

Death is inevitable; yet, not all consumers prepare for death by purchasing end‐of‐life (EOL) products. Using the theory of reasoned action (TRA) and the dual‐process model framework, this study aims to examine the role of emotions and cognitions in influencing consumers' decisions to engage in planning for death. A mixed methodology design was used. Study 1, a qualitative study, uncovered positive and negative emotions and deliberative reasoning that comprise consumers' EOL purchase decision process. Study 2, a quantitative study, confirmed that emotions and deliberations independently and jointly influenced consumers' EOL attitude and behavior and that emotions affected deliberations for both prepaid funerals and wills. Subjective norms outperformed attitude in predicting both products' purchase behavior. These finding supported the dual‐process model of behavior and the TRA in the EOL research context and contributed to the EOL literature by investigating the effects of emotions and deliberations concurrently; thus validating the important role of emotions in influencing EOL planning and purchase. In light of our findings, marketers could, after due cognizance of the morbidity and sensitivity of the topic, develop actionable promotional and segmentation strategies for EOL products and other emotion‐laden, unsought products and service.     

Optimal privatization policy with asymmetry among private firms

We revisit the relationship between the optimal privatization policy and market competition indexes such as the Hirschman–Herfindahl index. It is affected by the number of the firms and asymmetry among the sizes of the firms; the smaller the number of firms and the more asymmetry among firms, the higher the market concentration index. The literature on mixed oligopolies suggested that the optimal degree of privatization increases with the number of private firms, and thus, decreases with the market competition index, assuming that all private firms are homogeneous. We investigate how asymmetry among private firms affects the optimal degree of privatization. We propose the simplest and natural model formulation to discuss asymmetry among private firms. We find that the optimal degree of privatization is either nonmonotone or monotonically increasing, and thus never monotonically decreasing, in asymmetry among private firms.     

基于ADS-B报文的“北斗”便携式终端实现

针对单个广播式自动相关监视（Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast，ADS-B）发射机传输距离受限、多地面站组网复杂以及成本较高等问题，在分析ADS-B报文编码与解码算法的基础上，探讨了基于无线网络传输的ADS-B报文信息技术，并设计了基于“北斗”卫星导航（BeiDou Satellite Navigation System，BDS）/嵌入式控制器以及无线网络的便携式监视终端系统。利用实测ADS-B数据联合搭建的监视中心对算法和系统进行测试，结果表明数据传输稳定，实现了低空空域通用航空飞机ADS-B态势信息的网络传输功能，丰富了监视信息的链路传输方式，为低空通航飞行器安全飞行和全面监视提供了新的方法。     

混合股权制衡度与真实盈余管理行为

混合所有制改革形成了非国有股与国有股相互制衡的股权结构。通过研究国有企业中非国有股权和国有股权相互制衡的程度与真实盈余管理行为的关系发现：混合股权制衡度显著抑制了国有企业的真实盈余管理行为，但当国有性质股权占比小于非国有性质股权占比时上述抑制作用减弱。另外,参与混合所有制改革的金融类、外资类股权相比民营类股权制衡度，对真实盈余管理行为发挥了更显著的治理作用。机制检验发现，混合股权制衡一方面通过提升业绩，提高对真实盈余管理动机的抑制作用，从而缓解了真实盈余管理行为；另一方面通过提升内部控制对真实盈余管理的抑制作用，降低了真实盈余管理行为。以上结论有助于深化国有企业混合所有制改革，为提升混改中的审计监管质量提供参考。     

我国互联网金融消费者权益保护体系建设与优化路径

互联网金融作为互联网技术与传统金融融合后的新兴业态模式,具有降低交易双方成本,提升金融服务效率和便捷性的作用,在满足了个性化金融服务需求的同时,还促进了我国普惠金融发展。但随着互联网金融模式的不断丰富,互联网金融混业经营及脱媒现象加剧,在缺乏监管和法律定位不明的情况下,互联网金融给消费者带来诸多潜在风险。对此,需要按照时间发展顺序,在短期内强化互联网金融消费者权益保护相关政策措施,保证互联网金融市场平稳发展;中长期则注重互联网金融发展质量,通过不断完善互联网金融消费者权益保护机制,进而构建具有综合性特征的互联网金融消费者权益保护体系。     

董事会内在特征与上市企业绩效 ——基于董事会资本与董事会独立性状态视角

以上市企业为样本，分析异质性股权混合对董事会资本的影响，以及董事会资本与企业社会经济效益、企业经营效益和企业经营效率的关系，将资源依赖理论与代理理论相结合，检验董事会独立性与董事会资本对企业绩效的交互效应。研究结果显示，异质性股权混合有助于提高董事会资本水平，董事会资本有助于企业经营效益和社会经济效益的提升，董事会独立性和董事会资本二者同时作为治理机制治理效果会互补加强，二者单独对企业经营效率无影响，而是通过交互效应间接改善企业经营效率。