Delegation and the regulation of U.S. financial markets

We analyze the institutional determinants of U.S. financial market regulation with a general model of the policy-making process in which legislators delegate authority to regulate financial risk at both the firm and systemic levels. The model explains changes in U.S. financial regulation leading up to the financial crisis. We test the predictions of the general model with a novel, comprehensive data set of financial regulatory laws enacted specifically between 1950 and 2009. The theoretical and empirical analysis finds that economic and political factors impact Congress’ decision to delegate regulatory authority to executive agencies, which in turn impacts the stringency of financial market regulation, and our estimation results indicate that political factors may have been stronger and resulted in inefficiencies.     

Political booms and currency crises

This paper shows evidence that political booms, defined as the rise in governments’ popularity, are associated with a higher likelihood of currency crises. The reasoning behind this finding is that prudent economic policies to address underlying weaknesses in the economy may be political costly for incumbent governments in the short-term. Hence, popularity-concerned governments may not have enough incentives to take such corrective actions in a timely manner. This approach, in turn, can deteriorate economic fundamentals and increase related risks in the economy which can eventually lead to crises. This paper sheds light on this phenomenon in the case of currency crises, suggesting that currency crises can be viewed as “political booms gone bust” events. Moreover, it finds that higher international reserves, higher exports, and a higher degree of financial openness alleviate the effect of political booms on currency crises.     

Financing energy efficiency retrofits in Chilean households: The role of financial instruments,savings and uncertainty in energy transition

High firewood consumption for heating produces high levels of pollution in cities in central and southern Chile, with serious consequences for health and quality of life. Energy efficiency measures (EEMs) have been identified as the best strategy to reduce air pollution and maximize social benefits. However, their adoption has been slow. The objective of this article is to investigate household preferences for financial incentives needed to promote private investments in EEMs in Central-Southern Chilean households and study the role of energy savings and the uncertainty about potential savings in the investment decision, with the aim of finding solutions to increase the adoption of these technologies. We use a choice experiment to explore the trade-off between the investment costs, financial instruments, energy savings, and the uncertainty about achieving the theoretical savings provided by engineering and architectural models. The results show that financial instruments play the most important role in this decision, followed by the savings achieved by the retrofit. Householders prefer to finance their investments with a mix of their personal resources and medium-term credits, trying to avoid long-term commitments. Although uncertainty was found to be a significant variable, it seems to play a small role in the investment decision.     

Collective-based ad transparency in targeted hotel advertising: Consumers’ regulatory focus underlying the crowd safety effect

Facing transparency requirement of ad generation process, digital marketers need to design proper transparency messages to preempt consumer backlash. Based on crowd psychology literature and the regulatory focus theory, we proposed and tested the crowd safety effect of the collective-based (vs. individual-based) ad transparency strategy with two experimental studies in the context of online hotel booking. Results of two studies consistently demonstrate the crowd safety effect of the collective-based transparency on enhancing hotel booking intention and ad click-through willingness. Furthermore, we found that consumers’ trust toward the ad, rather than privacy concern, mediates this positive effect. These findings help us better understand how social dimensions in ad transparency messages shape consumer responses, as well as the role of consumer trust in promoting targeted ad effectiveness through promotion focused behaviors.     

2019—2020年长沙市生产安全事故统计分析

为探究生产安全事故的演化规律，基于长沙市2019—2020年生产安全事故的数据，从事故发生时间、发生区域、行业和领域分布、事故等级等方面进行分析。研究表明：2019—2020年事故数量和死亡人数呈下降趋势，1月、8月、10月事故数量和死亡人数较多，2月事故数量和死亡人数少；非主城区的事故数量和死亡人数高于主城区，事故数量和死亡人数在空间上的分布比较均衡；道路运输和工矿商贸行业在全市生产安全事故中占绝大多数；工矿商贸行业中，建筑施工行业的事故数量和死亡人数最多；一般事故所产生的事故数量和死亡人数最多，重大事故的事故死亡率最高。     

Consumers buying behaviour towards agri-food products: A mixed-method approach

This study aims to identify the factors that can influence consumer purchasing behaviour in the context of agri-food. Based on the Stimulus-Organism-Behaviour-Consequence theory, this study proposed a model to explain purchasing behaviour that included environmental factors as well as a set of cognitive processes. This study adopted a mixed method approach and in the first stage, a qualitative analysis was conducted to extract the constructs for the study. In the second stage, the quantitative analysis was performed by means of CB-SEM using 891 responses collected through a survey. This resulted in identifying the factors that influence agri-food purchasing behaviour. According to the findings, health consciousness and food safety concerns in the form of a stimulus have a positive relationship with agri-food image, agri-food label, and agri-food benefits acting as the organism. Similarly, the three organisms have a positive relationship with trust. Ethnocentrism is also found to have positive and significant association with trust. The combination of trust and ethnocentrism has consequences, in the form of agri-food purchase behaviour. The study's findings have significant implications for marketers and marketing strategists.     

Depletion of psychological,financial, and social resources in the hospitality sector during the pandemic

This study details how psychological, financial, and social factors shape employee deviant interpersonal behaviors during a pandemic. Data were collected with a survey of 372 front-line employees of hotels and analyzed with PLS-SEM. The findings showed social disconnectedness and perceived risk of unemployment leads to perceived isolation, which further creates depression in employees. The findings also showed that depression is positively related to employee deviance. Financial strain is a major cause of perceived isolation, depression, and deviant behaviors among front-line employees. Results also proved that social support reduces fear of isolation, depression, and employee deviance. This study provides guidelines that hotels need to understand the psychological stance of employees and design policies to overcome employee perceived fears and psychological disorders.     

违约与杠杆周期——一个带有救助的金融加速器模型

我国为应对2008年国际金融危机的冲击采取了一系列经济刺激政策,在发挥“稳增长”作用的同时,也在一定程度上导致我国企业部门杠杆水平快速上升,但与此同时,不良贷款率并没有随企业部门杠杆的上升而显著增加。为了解释企业部门违约与杠杆的周期特征,本文在金融加速器模型(Bernanke et al.,1999)基础上,引入政府对企业部门的违约救助机制,建立DSGE模型进行讨论。进一步地,本文还通过一个不合意的去杠杆政策试验表明,忽略资产价格稳定(或者说金融稳定)前提下的去杠杆政策,反而会使企业部门的杠杆和违约率同时上升到一个较高水平。最后,引入一个盯住预期资产价格的动态救助规则能够发挥稳定经济的作用,并提高社会福利水平。     

西餐牛肉类初加工与食品安全控制分析

牛肉是西餐主要的食材之一。本文通过对牛肉的初加工技术进行分析,探究对西餐牛肉类进行食品安全控制的措施,以提高牛肉类产品的整体质量,使西餐牛肉类产品能够达到我国食品安全的标准。     

Are REITs more resilient than non-REITs? Evidence from natural experiments

REITs draw attention from investors around the world, yet our understanding of the various risks associated with such securities is limited. Using the introduction of Arrowhead, a low-latency high-frequency trading platform, to the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the financial crisis of 2008 as natural experiments, we compare the resilience of REITs and equities in terms of liquidity and volatility. The results indicate that the introduction of Arrowhead improved the quality of the Japanese REIT market but also increased the probability of flash crashes. We also find that although the financial crisis significantly deteriorated overall equity market quality, the Japanese REIT market was resilient. Finally, using a difference-in-differences regression model, we show that the higher transparency and better price discovery of REITs, compared to non-REITS, protected them from the negative effects of the financial crisis and the introduction of Arrowhead. Overall, our analysis shows that REITs are more resilient than non-REITs.