A comparative study of eight COVID-19 protective measures and their impact on Swiss tourists’ travel intentions

A comparative vignette-based experimental survey design incorporating various socio-psychological factors, linked to the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), the Health Belief Model (HBM) and the Domain-Specific Risk-Taking scale (DOSPERT) was carried out to test variations in eight travel-related COVID-19 protective measures on Swiss tourists’ travel intentions. Among the tested measures, vaccination passports, surgical masks and quarantining are those that stand out the most, with surgical masks having the greatest acceptance and willingness to adopt while traveling. Quarantining, on the other hand, appears to have a deterrent influence on travel intentions, and vaccination passports have the lowest perceived barriers during travel, but the highest perceived benefits in mitigating the spread of the infection. The discussion of individual differences has specific implications for tourism management against the background of our empirical findings.     

Mitigating panic buying behavior in the epidemic: An evolutionary game perspective

The panic buying behavior under public health emergencies will lead to many adverse consequences, such as material waste, price fluctuation and uneven distribution of epidemic prevention materials, which will pose a threat to the social stability and economic development. In this paper, we construct a tripartite game model to explore the strategic choices of the public, merchants and the government in order to effectively respond to the panic buying behavior in the epidemic. The results demonstrate that: (1) Eight evolutionary stable strategies emerge in the panic buying events. The worst scenario can be improved by adjusting some relevant parameters. (2) The probability of the public choosing the strategy of “not involving in panic buying” depends on the potential benefits and losses of snapping up, rather than the extent of price rising. (3) The probability of merchants choosing the strategy of “not bid up price” depends on the intangible benefits. (4) The probability of the government choosing the strategy of “active supervision” depends on the supervision costs and government credibility, rather than the amount of fines. In addition, strategic suggestions to mitigate panic buying behavior are put forward from the perspective of each stakeholder.     

数量驱动或创新驱动：异质型人力资本对经济增长的机制演进

基于1987-2017年中国省际面板数据，运用SYS-GMM模型研究异质型人力资本对经济增长的影响。在区分高级与基本人力资本基础上，基于招生率和收入维度，从全局和阶段差异视角剖析异质型人力资本对经济提速的机制演进。研究发现：全局而言，两种测度下基础和高级人力资本各自以数量及创新方式驱动经济增长，并呈现以数量驱动为主，数量、创新双驱动的增长模式；从演进视角看，两种测度均表明，高级人力资本创新驱动是新常态阶段经济增长的核心动力，但相比旧常态阶段，基础人力资本数量驱动日趋弱化并呈异质性；进一步研究表明，产业结构、城镇化及开放程度均对创新驱动有不同程度激励效应，而城镇化是挤出数量驱动的主要推手。     

西北生态山岳旅游健康发展评估

生态山岳的旅游健康发展程度对山地旅游资源的可持续利用具有重要的影响。采用层次分析法和熵权法对2018年西北地区的华山、麦积山和天山天池的旅游生态健康进行了分析。结果表明:三大山岳景区旅游健康发展均处于健康状态;在资源健康方面,天山天池表现为非常健康,华山和麦积山处于健康等级;在环境健康方面,麦积山处于非常健康,华山和天山天池处于健康等级;在经济健康和旅游社会方面,三大景区均表现为健康。     

Does justice affect brand advocacy? Online brand advocacy behaviors as a response to hotel customers’ justice perceptions

This study focuses on customers' information-sharing behavior in the context of online brand advocacy behavior regarding hotel brands. We aim to explain hotel customers' online brand advocacy behavior through three-sided justice evaluations (i.e., justice for employees, justice for the self, and global belief in a just world), and their hotel satisfaction. Hypotheses are tested by using survey data acquired from 688 individuals on Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) through partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings show that customers' perceptions of justice for the self positively affect their hotel satisfaction, perceptions of justice for employees and the global belief in a just world positively affect online brand advocacy behavior, and hotel satisfaction also positively affects online brand advocacy behavior. We expand current research efforts on online brand advocacy research and provide theoretical and managerial implications for the development of marketing and management research and practice.     

Affiliated block shareholders and analyst optimism

We investigate several previously under-documented conflicts of interest that may result in analyst optimism by utilizing two unique features of brokerage firms in China, namely, the dominant ownership of large shareholders within the brokerage firms and the mandatory disclosure of brokerage firms’ commission income derived from each mutual fund client. We show that controlling shareholders of an analyst’s brokerage-firm put pressure on the analyst to report more optimistically biased earnings forecasts and recommendations to the stocks they hold larger positions in. We also find that the magnitude of analyst optimism increases with the shareholdings of the mutual funds that contribute commission fees to the analyst’s brokerage firm. These findings remain robust after incorporating a regulation change that reduces conflicts of interest in the brokerage industry and higher dimensional fixed effects, and thus are unlikely to be driven by reverse causality or omitted variable bias.     

Why do auditors fail? What might work? What won’t?†

Auditing failures and scandals have become commonplace. In response, reformers (including the Kingman Review in the U.K. and a recent report of the U.K.’s Competition and Market Authority) have proposed a variety of remedies, including prophylactic bans on auditors providing consulting services to their clients in the belief that this will minimize the conflicts of interest that produce auditing failures. Although useful, such reforms are already in place to a considerable degree and may have reached the point of diminishing returns. Moreover, this strategy does not address the deeper problem that clients (or their managements) may not want aggressive auditing, but rather prefer a deferential and perfunctory audit. If so, auditors will realize that they are marketing a ‘commodity’ service and cannot successfully compete based on their quality of services. Rationally, they would respond to such a market by seeking to adopt a cost-minimization strategy, competing by reducing the cost of their services and not investing in new technology or higher-priced personnel.

What could change this pattern? Gatekeepers, including auditors, serve investors, but are hired by corporate management. To induce gatekeepers to better serve investors, one needs to reduce the ‘agency costs’ surrounding this relationship by making gatekeepers more accountable to investors. This might be accomplished through litigation (as happens to some degree in the U.S.), but the U.K. and Europe have rules that discourage collective litigation. Thus, a more feasible approach would be to give investors greater ability to select and remove the auditor. This paper proposes a two part strategy to this end: (1) public ‘grading’ of the auditor by the audit regulator in an easily comparable fashion (and with a mandatory grading curve), and (2) enabling a minority of the shareholders (hypothetically, 10%) to propose a replacement auditor for a shareholder vote. It further argues that both activist shareholders and diversified shareholders might support such a strategy and undertake it under different circumstances. Absent such a focus on agency costs, however, reformers are likely only re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.     

基于主成分分析的关中—天水经济区水资源承载力评价

[目的]通过探讨关中—天水经济区水资源状况,可为经济区水资源的合理配置与经济社会的协调、可持续发展提供决策参考。[方法]根据关中—天水经济区2007~2016年相关统计资料,采用主成分分析法和构建指标体系对经济区水资源承载力从时间和空间两个角度进行综合评价。[结果](1)经济区水资源承载力得分由2007年的-0.067增加至2016年的1.877,水资源承载力与开发利用潜力呈现由大到小的变化,而水资源开发利用强度则呈逐渐增大趋势。(2)经济区各地市间水资源承载力存在显著差异,西安、咸阳两地的水资源承载力得分最高,均超过1.300,但水资源承载力和开发利用潜力最小;而杨凌、铜川两地的水资源承载力得分最低,均小于-2.250,但水资源承载力和开发利用潜力则最大。(3)经济发展水平、人口数量、水资源供需量、工农业生产用水是影响经济区水资源承载力大小的主要因素;其中,经济发展水平的贡献最大。[结论]经济区水资源承载力与开发利用潜力变小,开发利用强度增大;各地市间水资源承载力差异显著,将在一定程度上对经济区人口、经济、环境可持续发展起着明显的制约作用。为了促进经济区经济社会的健康可持续发展,应加强对水资源的管理与废水处理,合理控制经济区人口容量,提高社会节水意识,转变经济发展模式,大力推行节水型与节约型经济发展道路。     

Future perspectives on the role of extended producer responsibility within a circular economy: A Delphi study using the case of the Netherlands

Extended producer responsibility (EPR) is a proposed policy approach to promoting the circular economy (CE) within the European Union. This research used a policy Delphi to explore perspectives on improving EPR policies to further contribute to the CE goals of the Netherlands. Both the potential improvement and critical reflections discussed by CE and EPR experts and practitioners from this study contribute to a more detailed understanding of the future governance of CE practices. We present various activities to improve EPR and insights from Delphi participants that emerged from the study. This paper shows that whilst actors agree, in essence, that there is a need for modifying EPR, what the specific changes to the form are and to whom the new responsibilities apply is contested.     

改革开放以来金融风险的本质特征及防控启示——兼论中国共产党领导下的防控金融风险探索与实践

改革开放以来，立足于"新兴+转轨"的基本经济特征，中国的金融风险既表现出转轨经济条件下特有的风险特征，又表现出新兴市场经济的典型风险特征。中国防范化解金融风险始终与自身经济增长、金融发展之间进行统筹兼顾，先后经历了社会主义市场经济培育探索、快速成长、加速开放以及高质量发展四个阶段。历史地看，各个阶段的防控实践留下重要启示：（1）坚守底线、理性务实的风险思维是防控金融风险的重要法宝；（2）维护中央金融集权主导与地方适当分权的辩证统一；（3）尊重实体经济以及金融业的客观发展规律，严防脱实向虚；（4）金融监管体系须在平衡金融创新与金融风险之间与时俱进；（5）坚持中国共产党的全面领导，不断推进马克思主义的中国化时代化，是实现上述四点的根本政治保障。