Mars or Mercury redux: The geopolitics of bilateral trade agreements

We analyse the role of economic and security considerations in bilateral trade agreements. We use the pre‐World War I period to test whether trade agreements are governed by standard gravity variables, or by instead—or in addition—geopolitical factors. While we like others find support for standard gravity variables, we also find that defence pacts boost the probability of trade agreements by as much as 20 percentage points. Our estimates imply that were the U.S. to alienate its geopolitical allies, the likelihood and benefits of successful bilateral agreements would fall significantly. Trade creation from an agreement between the U.S. and E.U. countries would decline by about 0.6 per cent of total U.S. exports.     

Reasoning under uncertainty and multi-criteria decision making in data privacy

By means of an integration of decision theory and probabilistic models, we explore and develop methods for improving data privacy. Our work encompasses disclosure control tools in statistical databases and privacy requirements prioritization; in particular we propose a Bayesian approach for the on-line auditing in Statistical Databases and Pairwise Comparison Matrices for privacy requirements prioritization. The first approach is illustrated by means of examples in the context of statistical analysis on the census and medical data, where no salary (resp. no medical information), that could be related to a specific employee (resp. patient), must be released; the second approach is illustrated by means of examples, such as an e-voting system and an e-banking service that have to satisfy privacy requirements in addition to functional and security ones. Several fields in the social sciences, economics and engineering will benefit from the advances in this research area: e-voting, e-government, e-commerce, e-banking, e-health, cloud computing and risk management are a few examples of applications for the findings of this research.     

Modeling a Dynamic Portfolio for Pension Plans in Emerging Markets With Myopic and Nonmyopic Behavior

ABSTRACT

We introduce a dynamic formulation for the problem of portfolio selection of pension funds in the absence of a risk-free asset. In emerging markets, a risk-free asset might be unavailable, and the approaches commonly used may no longer be suitable. We use a parametric approach to combine dynamic programming and Monte Carlo simulation to gain additional flexibility. This approach is general in the sense that optimal asset allocation is tractable for all HARA utility functions in the absence of a risk-free asset. The traditional case composed of several risky assets and one risk-free asset is compared to a case in which the risk-free asset is unavailable.     

An Exploration of Frequent Service Failures in the Brazilian Airline Industry

This study explores how customer evaluations of service failures and failure recurrence impact negative emotions and intent to complain. A survey of 589 Brazilian airline passengers demonstrates the meditational effect of negative emotions such that customers who perceive failures as severe and/or preventable by the airline develop more negative emotions, which subsequently increases intent to complain. We also demonstrate the moderating role of failure recurrence such that failure recurrence reduces the effect of failure severity on negative emotions. Our findings have important implications for managers and airlines in order to mitigate negative outcomes following a service failure.     

Regional consumption of antibiotics: A demand system approach

Through this paper, we have attempted to model the demand for different classes of antibiotics used for respiratory infections in outpatient care in Switzerland using a spatial version of the linear approximate Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) model. This model takes spatial dependency into account by means of spatial lags of antibiotic budget shares. We control for the health status of patients and the potential harmful effects of antibiotic use in terms of bacterial resistance. Elasticities to socioeconomic determinants of consumption and own- and cross-price elasticities between different groups of antibiotic have also been computed in this paper. Significant cross-price elasticities are found between newer or more expensive generations and older or less expensive generations of antibiotics.     

Digital governance and the reconstruction of the Indian anti-poverty system

On a global scale, programmes of social protection for the poor are becoming increasingly computerised, and architectures of biometric recognition are being widely used in this respect. I research how these architectures, adopted in anti-poverty systems, structure ways to ‘see the state’ for citizens living in poverty. To do so I study India’s Public Distribution System (PDS) in Kerala, which is augmenting its main food security scheme with the computerised recognition of its users. In the government’s narrative, biometric technology is depicted as an optimal solution to the illicit diversion of PDS goods on the market. Nevertheless, according to the multiple narratives collected across the state, beneficiaries dispute this view in different ways because of the mixed effects of the new technology on their entitlements under the PDS. The government’s capability to reconstruct its image through digital innovation is thus found to be constrained by citizens’ perceptions derived from their encounters with the new technology of governance.     

The psychological process of travel destination choice

ABSTRACT

This paper reviews literature on travel destination choice and organizes these studies systematically. A “cell–system” structure is proposed to describe the psychological process of travel destination choice. When forming decisions on vacations, tourists gather information on potential destinations and evaluate visit intentions among potential destinations (“cell”). The visit intentions are successively compared while information is updated in the process (“system”). The “cell–system” structure provides a clear view of the psychological process of travel destination choice. Empirical studies based on the structure can provide further insights into why and how tourists choose travel destinations.     

Gambling destinations and the effect of gambling results on tourist satisfaction and loyalty

ABSTRACT

Tourists visiting gambling destinations are likely to participate, to some or to a great extent, in gambling activities. Therefore, their gambling experience contributes to the evaluation of their experience at the destination. This study investigates the effect of gambling results on the overall satisfaction and loyalty of 7431 tourists visiting Macao by estimating a set of ordered probit models. The results indicate an asymmetric effect on the overall satisfaction: the negative effect of a losing outcome outweighs the positive effect of a winning outcome. Both winning and losing gambling outcomes have a positive and similar effect on the likelihood to recommend the destination, and the likelihood to revisit is affected in a positive way only by a winning outcome. The main determinants of tourist satisfaction and loyalty are further verified and the influence of tourist profile variables is also explored. Theoretical and managerial implications are outlined based on the results.     

China’s quest for energy through FDI: new empirical evidence

China’s current economic development depends heavily on its access to energy resources, and it is increasingly shaping Chinese Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) in a quest for resources located abroad. The aim of this paper is to answer the two following questions: How much did the Chinese global quest for energy drive its OFDI between 2005 and 2012? And has the quest for energy been sensitive to the geographical location of the resources? We used data on Chinese OFDI from the China Global Investment Tracker, as well as diverse host countries determinants of previously tested OFDI. We measured the impact of host country energy production in the allocation of investments. Using several multivariate regression models, we demonstrate that energy resources were the main driver of Chinese OFDI in 92 host countries during the studied period, and that there was no sensitivity to the geographical location of the resources.     

Cultural Distance and Future Entry Mode Choice of Brazilian MNEs

We analyze the relationship between current cultural distance (CD) and future entry mode choice of Brazilian multinational enterprises (MNEs). We use the GLOBE Project in order to extend the distance literature into the entry mode context. Results demonstrate that high levels of CD have a negative impact on future expansions via acquisition and a positive impact on exporting. These relationships are moderated by size, such that large firms are affected less by CD than small firms. Finally, CD values have a greater impact on future entry mode preference than CD practices.