Variations in hub service in the US domestic air transportation network

This paper looks at the various types of hubs that have evolved in the air transportation network in the USA. Since deregulation of the industry at the end of the 1970s, the major air carriers have expanded their networks to become more competitive, and the number and types of hubs have grown accordingly. A connectivity analysis using a traditional matrix approach is used to derive indices which are the basis for the development of a connectivity classification scheme. In addition, the various service functions of hubs are explored.     

Cereal producers and the structural adjustment programme (SAP) in Ghana: A welfare analysis of the first decade of SAP

Small-scale food producers in Ghana produce about 90 per cent of the food in the country. Behaviourial patterns characteristic of these semi-commercial producers are complex, making it hard for policy makers to predict the consequences of policies on them. This study analyses the effects of the Structural Adjustment Programme on cereal producers in Ghana. A system of demand and supply equations was employed in a simulation analysis performed under three different scenarios to observe the aftermath of price increases; measure the impact of devaluation of the cedi; and gauge the effect of price increases and devaluation. The results show that cereal producers gain but consumers lose in terms of producer and consumer surplus. There is a net welfare loss as a result of the SAP.     

Airline mergers and their effect on network structure

The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 introduced high-level competition into the US domestic industry. The resulting network changes have created a deluge of research, largely focused on the hub-and-spoke structure. Over 15 years have passed since deregulation, and the industry still appears somewhat unsettled. Recent concerns of domestic carriers include downsizing of some hubs, and discussions of further consolidation of operations. Mergers may be the answer for airlines with shrinking markets within the US transportation system. This study examines the effect on network structure created by the merger of two carriers from the perspective of hub structures, accessibility and geographic coverage.     

State-controlled economies vs. rent-seeking states: Why small and medium enterprises might support state officials

This study examines the reasons for support that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) provide to government representatives of their choice (in the form of donations, influence through their networks, information and votes). The study tests stakeholder and social capital approaches as legitimate explanations for SMEs’ relationships with state representatives in different transition economies, specifically Belarus and Ukraine. The study shows that the stakeholder approach is sensitive to business environments and more applicable in a rent-seeking state where the parties perceive value in their exchange. Social relations motivate the SMEs’ support in both types of transition economies.     

Predicting Intended and Actual Travel Behaviors: An Examination of Chinese Outbound Tourists to Australia

This exploratory study examines the predictive power of psychographic and demographic variables on intended and actual travel behaviors. A pre-tour and after-tour survey on the intended and actual travel behaviors of 397 Chinese ¹ 1. For the specific purposes of this research, “China” refers to Mainland China, excluding Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan due to their historical background. Hence, Chinese tourists refer to tourists from Mainland China. View all notes outbound tourists to Australia was conducted. Four of the five intended travel behaviors (Sightseeing, Culture and Heritage Activity, Shopping and Dining, and Entertainment) and three of the five actual travel behaviors (Sightseeing, Culture and Heritage Activity, and Entertainment) proved to be statistically significant with a combination of psychographic and demographic contributors. The results of this study are discussed and the market implications indicated.     

CEO Power,Internal Control Quality,and Audit Committee Effectiveness in Substance Versus in Form

During the past decade, new regulations have been adopted to improve audit committee effectiveness. Prior research has generally provided evidence in support of these regulations and suggests that a more independent and expert audit committee is more effective. We posit that CEO power reduces or even eliminates the improvements in audit committee effectiveness resulting from independent and financially expert committee members. Thus, CEO power may result in an audit committee that appears effective in form but is not in substance. We construct a composite index for CEO power by combining ten CEO characteristics and employ the incidence of internal control weaknesses as a proxy for audit committee monitoring quality. Since all the firms in our sample have completely independent audit committees, we use financial expertise to examine the impact of CEO power on audit committee effectiveness. We find that, when CEO power is low, audit committee financial expertise is negatively associated with the incidence of internal control weaknesses. However, as CEO power increases, this association monotonically weakens. When CEO power reaches a sufficiently high level, this association is no longer negative. The moderating effect of CEO power on audit committee effectiveness is more prominent when the CEO extracts more rents from the firm through insider trading. Our results are not driven by the CEO's involvement in director selection. Our paper suggests that more expert audit committees in form do not automatically translate into more effective monitoring. Rather, the substantive monitoring effectiveness of audit committees is contingent on CEO power.     

Incentives for firms to provide safety: Regulatory authority and capital market reactions

We investigate the relationship between the various incentives that firms have to act safely, focusing on the relationship between the equity losses experienced by a firm following a fatal, accident and the incentive effects created by government regulation. The major findings are that first, the capital market reactions vary dramatically by which agency has regulatory jurisdiction for the accident. And second, the capital market effects tend to be weak (equity values do not decline sizably) where federal agencies rely heavily on an ex ante inspection policy. On the other hand, where ex ante inspection policy is lax or nonexistent, capital market effects tend to be strong - up to an order of magnitude higher per fatality than willingness-to-pay estimates based on labor market data.     

Socially weighted real income comparisons: An application to India

In an article in 1976, Amartya Sen develops a general theoretical framework for comparing real consumption over time and across countries that dispenses, in the words of Graaff, ‘with the time-honoured device of drawing a distinction between the size and distribution of the national income’. After developing a general theoretical framework taking distribution as an integral part of real income comparison, Sen applies it to a comparison of rural real consumption per head in Indian states in 1961–1962. In the present paper we show that the application of clustering techniques to Sen's data on Indian states provides an alternative way to partially order observations by real consumption per head within the framework of Sen's approach to distribution-inclusive measurement of real consumption. This alternative way has some desirable empirical characteristics. Second, we explore with factor analysis whether this alternative method yields sensible empirical interrelationships with other characteristics with which a priori reasoning and knowledge suggest it ought to be correlated. The results suggest that the cluster analysis applied within Sen's theoretical framework provides a valid way of comparing consumption levels.