Cost efficiency and endogenous regulatory choices: evidence from the transport industry in France

Journal of Regulatory Economics - We study the impact of different regulatory designs on the cost efficiency of operators providing a public service, exploiting data from the French transport...     

Double continuation regions for American and Swing options with negative discount rate in Lévy models

In this paper, we study perpetual American call and put options in an exponential Lévy model. We consider a negative effective discount rate that arises in a number of financial applications including stock loans and real options, where the strike price can potentially grow at a higher rate than the original discount factor. We show that in this case a double continuation region arises and we identify the two critical prices. We also generalize this result to multiple stopping problems of Swing type, that is, when successive exercise opportunities are separated by i.i.d. random refraction times. We conduct an extensive numerical analysis for the Black–Scholes model and the jump‐diffusion model with exponentially distributed jumps.     

State lottery in the lab: an experiment in external validity

Experimental Economics - In this study, we conduct a laboratory experiment in which the subjects make choices between real-world lottery tickets typically purchased by lottery customers. In this...     

The Role of Media Coverage in Explaining Stock Market Fluctuations: Insights for Strategic Financial Communication

This study investigates the reciprocal relationships between the fluctuation of the closing prices of three companies listed on the Amsterdam exchange index, namely ING, Philips and Shell and online media coverage related to these firms for a period of two years (2014–2015). Automated content analysis methods were employed to analyze sentiment and emotionality and to identify corporate topics related to the companies. A positive relation of the amount of coverage and emotionality with the fluctuation of stock prices was detected for Shell and Philips. In addition, corporate topics were found to positively Granger cause stock price fluctuation, particularly for Philips. The study advances past research in showing that the prediction of stock price fluctuation based on media coverage can be improved by including sentiment, emotionality, and corporate topics. The findings inform strategic communication, and particularly investor relations, in suggesting that media attention, sentiment, and certain corporate topics are crucial when managing media relations and with regard to securing a fair evaluation of listed companies. Furthermore, the innovative research methods are useful for researchers and practitioners alike in showcasing how media coverage related to firms and their stock fluctuations can be identified and analyzed in a reproducible, hands-on and efficient manner.     

THE IMPACT OF DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN COMPETITION ON SECTORAL GROWTH: A CROSS‐COUNTRY ANALYSIS

This paper examines the impact of competition on the total factor productivity (TFP) of 21 manufacturing sectors in eighteen OECD countries over the period of time 1990–2006. We assume that the source of TFP growth can be either domestic or foreign innovation or technology transfer from the technological frontier. Trade openness, R&D, and human capital can have two effects: a direct effect on TFP (e.g., through innovation) and an indirect effect depending on the productivity gap between a given country and the technological frontier. We find that tougher domestic competition is always associated with higher sectoral productivity. Both import and export penetrations are positively associated with an increase of TFP. However, the channels through which higher TFP is materialized are different: export penetration works through level effect, while import penetration acts mainly when conditional on the level of technological development. The economical magnitude of the effect is not trivial.     

Consumer relationship fading

This paper explores the phenomenon of consumer relationship fading with a series of three adjacent studies. Analyzing two longitudinal behavioral datasets, Study 1 shows that about one-third of the relationships could be described as fading. Drawing on prior work in the marriage disaffection literature, Study 2 defines relationship fading for the consumer marketing context as a process of gradual decline in consumers' intention to continue their relationship with a brand, generally manifested in negative feelings toward the brand, diminishing frequency and/or volume of transactions with it, and initiation of switching intentions. It further identifies disillusion, disaffection, and crossroads as three distinct fading stages, and outlines boundary conditions. Study 3 observes relationship fading through a diary study approach and finds attitude movement in both positive and negative directions between the stages. Further, while positive attitudes generally decline over the course of the fading trajectory, negative emotions peak at the penultimate fading stage and then level off at the final, crossroads stage. By defining and analyzing consumer relationship fading, we improve understanding of an under-researched, large segment of consumers.     

British union renewal: does salvation really lie beyond the workplace?

The paper examines a union initiative to recruit among migrant workers through the provision of individual services outside of the workplace. While the initiative is shown to have initially generated new members, questions are raised about the viability of such an approach in the absence of mutually supportive access to workplace representation.     

Organic Food at the Point of Purchase: Understanding Inconsistency in Consumer Choice Patterns

The organic food category, while still small in terms of world food production, has continued to grow in many markets in the developed world. This article focuses on understanding the barriers and facilitators to purchasing organic food at the final hurdle: the point of purchase (POP). A qualitative study has identified seven factors that influence buyer behavior at the POP, and these are consumer intention to purchase organic food when entering the retail outlet; habit; availability; false assumptions; visibility and access of organic food; visual and olfactory cues; and price. These can often be the final hurdle to consumers choosing (or not) organic food at the POP.     

The 2007-2009 Financial Crisis on Emerging Markets： Quantitative Identification of Crisis in Continent-based Regions

This paper focuses on a direct quantitative identification of crisis periods in selected emerging stock markets from four continent-based regions of Europe, Latin America, East Asia, and Middle East and North Africa （MENA）, in the context of an influence of the 2007 U.S. subprime financial crisis. The 17 emerging stock markets and, for comparison, the U.S. stock market are investigated. A statistical method of dividing market states into bullish and bearish markets, based on monthly logarithmic returns of major stock market indexes, is employed. The analyzed sample period begins in January 2003 and ends in December 2013. As there is no unanimity in the literature about the crisis periods in the continent-based regions, a formal statistical identification of crises is worthwhile to conduct. Furthermore, the effect of increasing cross-market correlations in the crisis compared to the pre-crisis period in the context of contagion is examining. To address this issue, both standard contemporaneous cross-correlations and volatility-adjusted cross-correlations are applied. The results are consistent with the literature and confn＇m that tests for contagion based on cross-market correlations are problematic due to the bias introduced by changing volatility in market returns. As contagion can be confused with globalization, the globalization tests in the group of international investigated markets are employed. The results generally do not confirm a global world market integration effect, i.e. there is no reason to reject the research hypothesis of no globalization during the 2007-2009 financial crisis.