Insurance Derivatives: A New Asset Class for the Capital Markets and a New Hedging Tool for the Insurance Industry

The number and severity of natural catastrophes has increased dramatically over the last decade. As a result, there is now a shortage of capacity in the property catastrophe insurance industry in the U.S. This article discusses how insurance derivatives, particularly the Chicago Board of Trade's catastrophe options contracts, represent a possible solution to this problem. These new financial instruments enable the capital markets to provide the insurance industry with the reinsurance capacity it needs. The capital markets are willing to perform this role because of the new asset class characteristics of securitized insurance risk: positive excess returns and diversification benefits.
The article also demonstrates how insurance companies can use insurance derivatives such as catastrophe options and catastrophe-linked bonds as effective, low-cost risk management tools. In reviewing the performance of the catastrophe contracts to date, the authors report promising signs of growth and liquidity in these markets.     

Analyses of local ingredients and dishes on menus of the Budapest-Middle-Danube touristic region

The background of the study is based on previous studies dealing with the areas of Transdanubia of Hungary. Those works have proved the hypothesis of author that local ingredients and dishes represent minimum role on menus. The question is how similar or different the choice of menus of Budapest-Middle-Danube compared with the previously examined areas of Hungary. There can be another question about the usage of local ingredients available near to the catering units. This piece of work has studied 79 menus of Budapest-Middle-Danube, Hungary. The material was collected from different types of restaurants, small restaurants （vendeglo in Hungarian） and roadside restaurants （csarda in Hungarian）. The method of the work was on the one hand, data collecting, and on the other hand, examination of the differences between the catering units in details： the number of dishes, the right order of dishes, the appearance of local ingredients and dishes, the consideration of seasonality, the usage of different cooking methods and group of dishes. The study reflects the main problems of countryside restaurants in Hungary. Only minimum number of dishes could be connected to local dishes out of more than thousands. All in all, dishes are not as precise and perfect as the ＂old ones＂, so that is why it is important for every expert keep the traditions alive in daily routines and strategic mean too.     

Engineering Hedonic Attributes to Generate Perceptions of Luxury: Consumer Perception of an Everyday Sound

For the last twenty years, the perception of hedonic attributes has been a problematic matter in consumer research. We argue that the perception of a hedonic product attribute should not be considered as an irreducible holistic experience, but rather as a complex set of sensory experiences, the components of which are identifiable and quantifiable. We provide evidence for this position by proposing a reliable method linking the features of product-related sound stimuli to consumer perception of hedonic attributes. To our knowledge, this study is the first of its kind offering a detailed investigation of consumer perception of everyday sounds (as opposed to music). We discuss managerial and consumer-level implications of the findings and provide an agenda for future research.     

Consumer Segments Based on Attitudes Toward Luxury: Empirical Evidence from Twenty Countries

This article proposes an international segmentation of consumers based on their attitudes toward luxury. We perform a two-stage empirical study with a data set that combines samples from 20 countries. We provide a substantive interpretation of the results to show that three attitude segments dominate in a Western cultural context. We discuss several directions for future research based on the findings.     

Cyber supply chain risk management: Revolutionizing the strategic control of critical IT systems

Cyber supply chain risk management (CSCRM) is a new discipline designed to help IT executives address the challenges of the rapid globalization and outsourced diffusion of hardware and software systems. CSCRM is an integrative discipline combining elements of cybersecurity, supply chain management, and enterprise risk management into a new and powerful concept to exert strategic control over the end-to-end processes of the focal organization and its extended enterprise partners. This article provides a survey of the field, as well as a detailed analysis of the results of a four-year research project on CSCRM, conducted by the Robert H. Smith School of Business Supply Chain Management Center for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, that focused on the development of organizational assessment tools and a capability/maturity model for this emerging discipline.