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.     

Measuring Inflation Anchoring and Uncertainty: A U.S. and Euro Area Comparison

We use several U.S. and euro‐area surveys of professional forecasters to estimate a dynamic factor model of inflation featuring time‐varying uncertainty. We obtain survey‐consistent distributions of future inflation at any horizon, both in the U.S. and the euro area. Equipped with this model, we propose a novel measure of the anchoring of inflation expectations that accounts for inflation uncertainty. Our results suggest that following the Great Recession, inflation anchoring improved in the United States, while mild de‐anchoring occurred in the euro area. As of our sample end, both areas appear to be almost equally anchored.     

禽流感危机下肉鸡产业市场状态分析*——基于互联网大数据和MS-VAR模型

[目的]为了有效应对禽流感冲击、维持肉鸡产业稳定健康发展。[方法]基于互联网大数据构建了禽流感舆情指数,选取2012年1月至2017年3月周度数据,通过MS-VAR模型分析了禽流感危机下肉鸡市场状态的转换特征以及不同市场状态下产业链价格传导关系。[结果]2012年以来可将肉鸡产业市场状态划分为危机状态和正常状态,肉鸡产业市场在两个市场状态下转换频繁;肉鸡产业危机市场状态和正常市场状态平均持续期分别为4.65周和9.05周;肉鸡市场在区制转移概率上存在明显的非对称特征;肉雏鸡、活鸡和白条鸡价格之间在危机状态下相关性小于正常市场状态下相关性;不同市场状态下肉鸡产业链价格传导存在差异;肉鸡产业市场在危机状态下不稳定程度明显增加。[结论]提出了加大对禽流感疫情的监测以及疫情处理能力,密切关注公众禽流感舆情动态变动情况,做好舆情引导,加强禽流感疫情科学知识的宣传,增强公众对禽流感的认知等对策建议。     

Revising price history: consumer price index for Norway 1492–2018

ABSTRACT

The paper presents a new combined annual cost of living and consumer price index for Norway covering 1492–2018, indicating that Norwegian price history has to be revised. The new historical price index is constructed on a significantly richer data material, which also makes it cover a longer period of price history than the existing one. This is made possible by the compilation of quantitative data from numerous sources, mostly originating from the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with grain prices stretching back to 1492. The new combined cost of living and consumer price index is constructed by a Laspeyres approach with shifting baskets for commodities and expenditure groups.

The index makes it possible to follow annual inflation and deflation in Norway for a period of 526 years. When comparing to existing indices, the new series reveals that revisions are needed in Norwegian price history. These make the historical price development more in line with those of the neighbouring countries and more in line with the pattern of wholesale prices.     

审计师地理距离对客户公司股价信息含量的影响

从地理经济学视角分析审计师的地理区位特征对上市公司股价信息含量的可能影响，利用2004—2013年中国A股上市公司的数据，实证检验了审计师与客户间的地理距离对客户公司股价信息含量的经验影响关系，并进一步考察了证券分析师与审计监督两种中介组织间的交互效应。研究发现：（1）审计师与客户公司间的地理距离越小，客户公司的股价信息含量越低，因为在中国当前经济社会背景下，地理邻近对审计师独立性的消极影响要强于其对审计师专业胜任能力的积极影响，这导致审计师审计质量降低，影响客户公司股价信息含量；（2）证券分析师对客户公司的关注程度越高，审计师的地理邻近性对客户公司股价信息含量的负面影响越弱，表明证券分析师与外部审计之间主要呈现一种相互替代的关系，证券分析师可以作为一种有效的补充监督机制。     

Macroeconomic consequences of state fragility in sub‐Saharan Africa

Are poor macroeconomic outcomes primarily the result of economic policies, or of deeper underlying state fragility problems in sub‐Saharan Africa? We attempt to answer this question by using carefully specified dynamic panel regression techniques to show how state fragility conditions help to explain the differences in the macroeconomic performance of sub‐Saharan African economies, and to identify the most plausible mechanisms of transmission. We find that countries with greater fragility suffer higher macroeconomic volatility and crisis; they also experience weaker growth. When we disaggregate state fragility into its various components, we find that it is the security and social components that have the strongest causal impact on macroeconomic outcomes, while the political component is, at best, weak. Therefore, we conclude that it is state fragility conditions, and not necessarily macroeconomic policies, that are of first‐order importance in explaining the differences in macroeconomic performance for African countries. The knock‐on effects are mostly mediated through the fiscal channel, the aid channel, and the finance channel. Accordingly, we recommend that interventions in fragile states should best focus on exploiting the potential for using fiscal policy, aid, and finance as instruments to improve macroeconomic outcomes in sub‐Saharan Africa.     

Semistatic hedging and pricing American floating strike lookback options

We price an American floating strike lookback option under the Black–Scholes model with a hypothetic static hedging portfolio (HSHP) composed of nontradable European options. Our approach is more efficient than the tree methods because recalculating the option prices is much quicker. Applying put–call duality to an HSHP yields a tradable semistatic hedging portfolio (SSHP). Numerical results indicate that an SSHP has better hedging performance than a delta-hedged portfolio. Finally, we investigate the model risk for SSHP under a stochastic volatility assumption and find that the model risk is related to the correlation between asset price and volatility.     

Market impact: a systematic study of the high frequency options market

This paper deals with a fundamental subject that has seldom been addressed in recent years, that of market impact in the options market. Our analysis is based on a proprietary database of metaorders—large orders that are split into smaller pieces before being sent to the market—on one of the main Asian markets. In line with our previous work on the equity market [Said, E., Bel Hadj Ayed, A., Husson, A. and Abergel, F., Market impact: A systematic study of limit orders. Mark. Microstruct. Liq., 2018, 3(3&4), 1850008.], we propose an algorithmic approach to identify metaorders, based on some implied volatility parameters, the at the money forward volatility and at the money forward skew. In both cases, we obtain results similar to the now well-understood equity market: Square-Root Law, Fair Pricing Condition and Market Impact Dynamics.     

Board directors with foreign experience and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China

This study examines the impact of board directors with foreign experience (BDFEs) on stock price crash risk. We find that BDFEs help reduce crash risk. This association is robust to a series of robustness checks, including a firm fixed effects model, controlling for possibly omitted variables, and instrumental variable estimations. Moreover, we find that the negative association between BDFEs and crash risk is more pronounced for firms with more agency problems, weaker corporate governance, and less overall transparency. Our findings suggest that the characteristics of board directors matter in determining stock price crash risk.