Mobile diaries – Benchmark against metered measurements: An empirical investigation

Researchers seeking to study the relationships between consumers' communications, attitudes, and behaviors could benefit from monitoring consumers over time, across multiple locations and channels, and in a way that reflects consumers' subjective perceptions. Diaries on smartphones (mobile diaries) can be used as a research tool for such purposes. A mobile diary is a self-report instrument whereby people use their mobile handset to repeatedly report experiences of interest. Mobile diaries are increasingly used in psychology, geography, medicine, and commercial marketing. Yet they have rarely been used for quantitative marketing research, and were not benchmarked against best-practice metrics in marketing.In this study, we aim to set the ground for using mobile diaries in quantitative marketing research. We first lay out the theoretical infrastructure for the usage of mobile diaries, and describe possible respondent reporting concerns, including concerns related to non-reporting, reporting over time, and concerns stemming from individual-level heterogeneity.We demonstrate the potential of mobile diaries, as well as the importance of the various concerns, using a benchmark test case in the context of primetime TV viewing. Our benchmark uses a sample of respondents with both mobile diary viewing reports and Nielsen People Meter (NPM) records. Our analysis reveals that averaging across all conditions, 47.4%–64.7% of the NPM records are reported by the diary. The major sources for mismatch are random time periods without alarms, short viewings, and periodic reporting inactivity (pulsing). Concerns such as a decrease in reporting rates over time (e.g., fatigue), smartphone ownership, and demographic variation across individuals have relatively small effects on reporting likelihood. Analyzing the cases in which diary reports do not have a matching NPM record, we find many of them can be attributed to out-of-home viewing and viewing on non-metered devices. This finding demonstrates how mobile diaries can complement metered measurements. Overall, aggregate diary-based ratings have a 0.90 correlation with NPM ratings.We discuss implications for designing and using mobile diary studies in marketing.     

Demystifying residents' walking behaviors: Active transport in South East Queensland,Australia

This study investigates the correlates of a resident's walking behaviors and aims to shed light on mechanisms through which walking may be encouraged. The results of this investigation paint a complex and nuanced picture of the residents’ walking behaviors in South East Queensland, Australia. The results suggest that sociodemographic characteristics separately may contribute greatly to whether or not one engages in walking behaviors. Further, cumulatively these differences might be greater for some groups of residents compared to others. One of the most prominent findings of the study is that the purpose, the characteristics of the origin, and the characteristics of the destination of a trip tended to be similar in the heterogeneity they exhibit over the distribution of time spent walking. For example, pick something up, undertake work, or engage in personal business, move to or from a workplace, shop, or social place are activities that tend to be associated with walking as a main mode of transport and a higher number of walking episodes. However, these trips tended to be short.     

区域贫困程度测度研究:甘肃案例

区域贫困程度测度是精准施策,打赢脱贫攻坚战的重要依据。在对已有贫困程度测度方法回顾的基础上,文章通过分析深度贫困地区的贫困特征,提出区域贫困程度测度原则,构建区域贫困程度测度指标体系,并以甘肃为例对深度贫困县贫困程度进行测算,进一步了解深度贫困县的贫困现状、集中区域、影响因素及贫困差距等,以期为地方打赢脱贫攻坚战提供借鉴。     

What do professional forecasters actually predict?

This paper studies what professional forecasters predict. We use spectral analysis and state space modeling to decompose economic time series into trend, business cycle, and irregular components. We examine which components are captured by professional forecasters by regressing their forecasts on the estimated components extracted from both the spectral analysis and the state space model. For both decomposition methods, we find that, in the short run, the Survey of Professional Forecasters can predict almost all of the variation in the time series due to the trend and the business cycle, but that the forecasts contain little or no significant information about the variation in the irregular component.     

基于ANP-PP-SPA的区域洪灾风险评价模型研究

针对现有洪灾风险评价模型的缺陷与不足,从致灾因子、孕灾因子、承灾因子和减灾因子4个方面,通过对14项评价指标的分析与计算,构建洪灾风险评价体系。洪灾风险评价体系以网络层次分析法(ANP)求解主观权重,投影寻踪法(PP)求解客观权重,主客观综合权重与集对分析理论(SPA)耦合,构建基于ANP-PP-SPA的洪灾风险评价模型。以广东省英德市为例,验证洪灾风险评价模型的适用性。计算结果表明,英德市2016年的洪灾风险属于中等级别,符合英德市2016年的实际情况。洪灾风险评价模型不仅综合考虑了评价指标间的相互关系,还较好地体现了洪灾风险的模糊性和随机性,能够为区域洪灾风险决策和洪水管理提供科学依据。     

耕地利用多功能权衡关系测度与分区优化 ——以河南省为例

研究目的:分析河南省耕地利用多功能空间分布特征、多功能权衡关系区域差异,提出分区优化管控措施。研究方法:耦合协调度方法、权衡强度方法。研究结果:(1)河南省各县(区)耕地利用多功能呈现明显的空间异质性,中原城市群生产功能和社会保障功能优势明显,黄淮平原生产—生态功能强;(2)多功能协调度、权衡强度空间差异明显,中原城市群和豫北地区协调程度高、权衡强度低;(3)全省可耕地划分为多功能高协调区、多功能低协调区、单功能主导区、生产—生态协调区、生产—社会保障协调区、生态—社会保障协调区6大区域。研究结论:研究结果与河南省区域发展战略定位相符,揭示河南省耕地利用多功能分布和权衡关系,划分不同类型区并提出优化建议,为河南省农业空间管控提供决策支持。     

Five dimensions of the uncertainty–disagreement linkage

We analyze the relationship between forecaster disagreement and macroeconomic uncertainty in the Euro area using data from the European Central Bank’s Survey of Professional Forecasters for the period 1999Q1–2018Q4 and find that disagreement is generally a poor proxy for uncertainty. However, the strength of this link varies with the dispersion statistic employed, the choice of either the point forecasts or the histogram means for calculating disagreement, the outcome variable considered and the forecast horizon. In contrast, distributional assumptions do not appear to be very influential. The relationship is weaker in subsamples before and after the outbreak of the Great Recession. Accounting for the forecasters’ entry to and exit from the survey has little impact on the results. We also show that survey-based uncertainty is associated with overall policy uncertainty, whereas forecaster disagreement is related more closely to the expected fluctuations on financial markets.     

湖南省研发投入的空间格局与创新协调发展对策

以湖南省14个市州为研究对象,运用首位度分析、ESDA探索性空间数据分析方法,研究湖南省各市州的研发投入(R&D经费、R&D人员投入)空间差异变化趋势和空间分异特征。结果表明:①湖南省内各市州R&D经费投入差距在逐渐缩小,但R&D人员投入差距在逐渐增大;②湖南省的R&D经费及R&D人员投入在各个市州之间存在明显的空间依赖及空间集聚现象,并在西部、南部周边市州呈现出大面积的低水平连片聚集特征;③湖南省R&D投入的空间演变特征并不显著,长株潭作为省会中心城市圈缺乏辐射带动力。研究最后提出了湖南省科技创新协同发展的对策建议。     

Business values dimensions: A cross-culturally developed measure of workforce values

Using a stratified random sample drawn from 11,709 business professionals’ survey responses across 26 societies, we investigated and failed to find support for the construct validity of the Schwartz Values Survey’s (SVS) a priori 10-factor circumplex model of human values, originally developed from student and teacher responses. Subsequent exploratory factor analysis estimated an initial five-factor solution, the Business Value Dimensions (BVD) model. In turn, CFA supported the cross-cultural validity of this alternative configuration of values for business professionals. Internal consistency reliabilities for these five values factors are reported for the 26 societies plus an additional 25 societies that did not meet sample size criteria to be included in the analyses. As a result, findings are provided for a total of 51 societies (14,724 business professionals). We present the five-factor BVD model for use in future international research with business professional populations.     

How government-led land consolidation efforts achieve grain production stability? An empirical analysis in Hubei Province,China

China has been conducting massive land consolidation (LC) projects since the late 1990s to ensure national food security which has been one of the common issues in the world. How the implementation of LC projects affects grain production stability is a question should be answered. Basing on an empirical analysis at the county level in Hubei Province, China, this paper separates the trend component and the fluctuation component from a time series of grain production over 1991-2016 using the H-P filtering method. Then we estimate the impacts of LC projects and climate change on the trend and fluctuation rate of grain production for the entire Hubei Province. Moreover, the effects on the production of different major crops for the central, eastern, southwestern, northwestern and northern areas are also examined, respectively. The results show that: (1) the production trends for five subareas and the whole area all have followed a trajectory of “increase-decrease-increase” from 1991 to 2016. The magnitude of fluctuation rate was large but became smaller in recent years. (2) The contribution of LC to the long-term trends of grain production for the entire samples in Hubei Province mainly benefits from the growth in the cultivated land area through LC; more LC investment and newly-added arable land area promote the sudden increase in grain production above the long-term trends, while the impacts of LC area are negative. (3) The impacts of LC on the major crop production vary across areas. LC exerts significant impacts on the production of major crops in the central and eastern Hubei, and this effect persists to the following year. Similarly, this influence also exists in the southwestern and northern area, while becomes insignificant in the following year. No significant effect of LC variables is found in the northwestern area. These findings may provide reference for the government to address LC inefficiency and food security problems, and an effective and innovative mechanism combining the agricultural production, land consolidation and meteorological factors needs to be established to ensure food security and long-term and stable agricultural production. In addition, the regional difference in natural conditions and LC orientations should also be considered.