Beyond concern: socio-demographic and attitudinal influences on privacy and disclosure choices

ABSTRACT

The co-option of consumers as unwilling agents in their own surveillance has enabled significant abuses of consumer privacy. Previous studies have largely used privacy concern as a proxy for overall privacy attitudes. In this study, we implement a choice experiment in combination with measures adapted from Communication Privacy Management theory to enable a broader exploration of the influences of privacy attitudes by contextualising privacy as a negotiation about accessibility over contextual boundaries. Key findings suggest individuals’ social media disclosure decisions are influenced at least in part by their privacy attitudes, particularly with respect to information categories which may cue other personal information. Findings are also presented on consumers’ willingness to pay for privacy, with implications for alternative revenue streams not built on consumer surveillance.     

Requests for zoo visitors to undertake pro-wildlife behaviour: How many is too many?

Recognising the potential conservation impact, zoos regularly ask their visitors to undertake pro-wildlife behaviour. This paper presents the results of two studies undertaken to address the question: how often during a visit should visitors be asked? Study 1 sought to a) determine individuals' personal thresholds and b) the point where the number of different behaviours requested began affect visitors' experiences. Study 2 sought the same, but focused on requests for the same behaviour. Results suggest that few respondents' personal thresholds were crossed (2.5% in Study 1 and 9% in Study 2). In neither study did many respondents (2.5% in Study 1 and 2.8% in Study 2) feel that the number of requests negatively affect their overall zoo experience. While there are caveats, we conclude that there appears little cause for concern about asking zoo visitors on multiple occasions to act in support of wildlife. Indeed, such requests may improve experiences.     

The extent to which unbalanced schedules cause distortions in sports league tables

The Australian Football League (AFL) has operated its fixture on the basis of an unbalanced schedule since the league expanded from 12 to 14 teams in 1987. This system contains a number of factors (some random) determining the set of bilateral combinations of teams that play each other on an extra occasion during the course of the season, not least of all maximising attendances. While the status quo may be unavoidable to some extent (it is also a bone of contention to many fans), its implications for within-season measures of competitive balance are nonetheless obvious. This is because of the potential for biases being created in the end-of-season league table as a result of the unbalanced schedule. This paper uses a modified model to correct for this inherent bias over the seasons 1997–2008, and the results are discussed in detail. The model is also generalisable to many unbalanced schedule designs observed in professional sports leagues worldwide.     

应客观看待中国因素对油价的影响

【美国《华尔街日报》6月9日】美国前总统布什（Gegrge W．Bush）的一位助手几年前曾说，“我们创造自己的现实”。拿这句话来形容华盛顿和北京目前对大宗商品市场的影响是再恰当不过了。     

A cross-national comparison and taxonomy of DEA-based hospital efficiency studies

This paper provides the first taxonomy of hospital efficiency studies that uses data envelopment analysis (DEA) and related techniques. We provide a systematic review of 79 such studies published from 1984–2004 that represent 12 countries. Only studies written in English are considered. A cross-national comparison reveals significant differences with respect to important study characteristics such as type of DEA model selected and choice of input and output categories. Compared with US studies, European efforts are more likely to measure allocative rather than technical efficiency, use longitudinal data, and use fewer observations. We take a longitudinal perspective that illustrates the life cycle of this research, as well as its diffusion across disciplines. Our taxonomy can be used by policy makers and researchers to review past, and assemble new, DEA models.     

Permanent and Temporary Components of Stock Prices: Evidence from Assessing Macroeconomic Shocks

This paper outlines a simple macro model with overlapping wage contracts to investigate how the temporary and permanent components of stock price movements may be related to aggregate macro-economic supply and demand disturbances. In the content of the model, we show that aggregate demand shocks have only temporary effects on real stock prices, while supply shocks may affect the level of real stock prices permanently. Moreover, the temporary component in U.S. stock prices, identified by placing appropriate structural restrictions on a vector autoregressive system estimated for the postwar period, is statistically significant. This evidence supports the mean-reversion hypothesis that stock prices are not pure random walks. The finding is robust to the choice of variables used in the vector autoregressive system and periodicity.     

The Irish grain trade from the Famine to the First World War

This article presents the first consistent and continuous data series for the Irish grain trade, 1840-1914, showing that imports of wheat and maize rose massively. The resulting three-fold increase in Irish per caput wheat consumption occurred mostly before 1875 and brought it close to British levels by 1914. A consumer price index is constructed for the period, and it reveals that prices declined until 1900 and rose thereafter. Using the two new series (per caput wheat consumption and the price index), the authors estimate a demand function for wheat and show that the per caput increase was due to the rise in the real wage.     

A Theory of Trade Union Membership Retention

The retention rate of unemployed members can vary substantially between trade unions and may not particularly reflect the structure of the labour market within which a union operates. This raises the issue of whether retention of these members is due to supply-side factors characterised by individuals or to the policy of trade unions towards their unemployed members.     

Time,congestion, and public goods

This paper considers intermediate and final public goods as stocks from which consumers obtain a flow of services by expending scarce time. The services so obtained depend on the time other individuals spend utilizing these same goods. Optimality conditions are derived for both stock levels and flow usage where tolls are required to cover costs. The elasticities in the resulting formulae are endogenous in the sense that only certain values are permissible. In the intermediate good case, at the optimum, the public good will always be locally optimally supplied and locally underutilized to a degree which depends on the congestion parameter.