Prediction of the Indian summer monsoon using a stacked autoencoder and ensemble regression model

The study of climatic variables that govern the Indian summer monsoon has been widely explored. In this work, we use a non-linear deep learning-based feature reduction scheme for the discovery of skilful predictors for monsoon rainfall with climatic variables from various regions of the globe. We use a stacked autoencoder network along with two advanced machine learning techniques to forecast the Indian summer monsoon. We show that the predictors such as the sea surface temperature and zonal wind can predict the Indian summer monsoon one month ahead, whereas the sea level pressure can predict ten months before the season. Further, we also show that the predictors derived from a combination of climatic variables can outperform the predictors derived from an individual variable. The stacked autoencoder model with combined predictors of sea surface temperature and sea level pressure can predict the monsoon (June-September) two months ahead with a 2.8% error. The accuracy of the identified predictors is found to be superior to the state-of-the-art predictions of the Indian monsoon.     

Effects of Ownership Structure on Capital Structure of Indian Listed Firms: Role of Business Groups vis-à-vis Stand-Alone Firms

The objective of this study was to explore the relationship between promoter ownership and capital structure of firms’ using a sample of Indian publicly listed firms for the period from 2006 to 2013. We find that the relationship between promoter ownership and leverage is inversely U-shaped in group-affiliated firms, whereas in stand-alone firms there is a U-shaped relationship. We argue that a substantial presence of family owners and the selection of managers from within the family play some role for such relationship in group-affiliated firms. On the other hand, the argument for observed relationship in stand-alone firms follows from alignment hypothesis, entrenchment hypothesis, managerial risk aversion hypothesis, and active monitoring hypothesis.     

Measuring the Impact of Socio-Economic Factors on School Efficiency in Australia

This paper examines the productive efficiency of government schools in New South Wales (NSW) in Australia. The study uses a technical inefficiency effects model applied to a unique three-year panel dataset containing 1235 primary and 371 secondary schools in NSW. A stochastic frontier production function and an inefficiency effects function that control for school socioeconomic and environmental factors are estimated. The dataset contains information on various school inputs, school expenditures by major functional area, parental socioeconomic characteristics, student characteristics, and standardized test scores. We examine the degree to which school and non-school educational inputs influence student achievement scores and find that, overall, primary schools are 88.6% and secondary schools 96.4% efficient. The index describing community socio-educational advantage has the most significant influence on students’ achievement scores.     

Place Matters: (Dis)embeddedness and Child Labourers’ Experiences of Depersonalized Bullying in Indian Bt Cottonseed Global Production Networks

Journal of Business Ethics - Engaging Polanyi’s embeddedness–disembeddedness framework, this study explored the work experiences of Bhil children employed in Indian Bt cottonseed GPNs....     

Agency Costs in Dynamic Economic Models

We consider an overlapping generations economy where capital is produced from bank loans under stochastic constant returns to scale, and subject to idiosyncratic shocks whose realisations are costly to verify. Our formulation differs from earlier work in permitting investment projects to be infinitely divisible and private agency costs to be convex. If there are external economies to financial intermediation, then deviations from steady-state output are negatively correlated with the spread between loan and deposit rates. Moreover, the capital stock correspondence is set-valued, a result consistent with poverty traps, growth cycles, and hump-shaped impulse response functions.     

Corners in Auctions

Different pricing rules in multiunit auctions provide different incentives for a bidder to corner the auction and thus require different levels of effort from the seller to deter cornering. We consider three different types of auctions: the pay-your-bid or "discriminatory" auction commonly used by the US Treasury, the lowest-winning-bid uniform-price auction used in the current Treasury experiment, and the highest-losing-bid uniform-price auction considered by Vickrey almost four decades ago. We show that the pay-your-bid auction provides the greatest incentive to corner the market, that the experimental Treasury auction provides less incentive, and that the highest-losing-bid uniform-price auction provides the least. Arguably, the less the incentive to corner the market, the easier it will be for sellers to deter cornering, and the greater their expected revenue (net of the cost to deter cornering) will be in otherwise expected-revenue-equivalent auctions.     

Impact of Online Reviews on Consumer’s Hotel Booking Intentions: Does Brand Image Mediate?

Abstract

The recent trend suggests that people are more inclined to online hotel reviews to take online hotel booking decisions. The present study argues that when consumers are exposed to online hotel reviews, it draws an impression of the hotel brand in the mind of consumers, resulting in influence their hotel booking intentions. The current study determines the mediation effects of brand image between credible online hotel reviews and consumers’ hotel booking intentions. To ascertain the uni-dimensionality of the scales, the present study executes exploratory factor analysis. The ensure the internal consistency of the variable scales, the study determines Cronbach’s alpha. To measure the mediation effects, the present study performs structural equation modeling bootstrapping method. Data analysis reveals that marketers should look at hedonic brand image, which ultimately influences consumers’ hotel booking intentions. This is a unique study that ascertains the type of brand image that actually mediates between the impact of online hotel reviews and consumers’ hotel booking intentions. In addition, the paper furnishes theoretical background on how people interpret online hotel reviews and its effects.     

Enhancing youth's attitudes towards microcredit in the bottom of the pyramid markets

The bottom of the pyramid (BOP) market comprises a huge customer size of approximately 4 billion globally; hence, segmentation is necessary within this market. The BOP market refers to an aggregate of customers who survive on relatively low‐income levels. In this respect, youth in war‐affected regions can be considered to be a segment of the BOP market. However, there is scant research on customers' attitudes and purchase behaviours in the BOP markets or segments therein. Hence, the purpose of this research is to investigate war‐affected youth's attitudes towards microcredit and the related drivers of these attitudes. The literature revealed four types of attitudes towards microcredit: positive affect, perceived benefits, perceived deterrents and default risk perceptions. Also, knowledge of microcredit and entrepreneurial desire were considered to be the drivers of these attitudes. A total of 795 valid completed surveys were collected from youth aged 18 and above who live in the Northern Province of Sri Lanka. The findings revealed that positive affect enhanced intentions to obtain microcredit, whereas perceived deterrents reduced them. Knowledge of microcredit enhanced attitudes towards microcredit. Also, entrepreneurial desire enhanced the association between positive affect and intentions to obtain microcredit and it decreased the negative association between perceived deterrents and intentions to obtain microcredit. The implications to theory and practice have been discussed which will go a long way in enhancing the attitudes towards microcredit among war‐affected youth and possibly those in the other segments of the BOP market.     

Coupon characteristics and brand choice

The effects of coupons on brand choice and repurchase behavior were examined in a laboratory panel experiment. Each of the 122 consumers purchased a candy bar on 10 different occasions; on the seventh purchase occasion, each consumer received an announcement of a new candy bar and one of four versions of a coupon. Results showed that whether or not a consumer will use a coupon depends on the size of the coupon offer, how easily the consumer can redeem the offer, how brand loyal the consumer is, and whether or not the consumer is deal prone. We also found, after statistically adjusting for our censored sample, that loyalty and coupon Characteristics influence whether or not a consumer will continue to purchase a formerly discounted brand. Information aggregation theory (Tybout & Scott, 1983) explains better than attribution theory how the coupon affects repurchase decisions.