Food preferences as a proxy for adventurousness

Food preferences have been demonstrated to be a proxy measure for adventurousness, in general. This study demonstrates that a single variable of food preferences unveils the four dimensions of adventurousness that are applicable in a general tourism context. The findings suggest that adding this simple semantic differential question to visitor surveys can be a powerful tool to evaluate the critical factor of adventurousness in tourism.     

Does peer group size influence social preferences and risk taking?

This paper examines whether the ex post relative payoffs of peers as well as the size of the peer group impact an agent's willingness to take risks. For example, persons in a flood plain may be less likely to purchase flood insurance if their neighbors also refrain from purchasing. We generalize the Fehr‐Schmidt (1999) model to allow the intensity of the social preferences to vary with the size of the peer group. Our experiment tests whether subjects are more or less likely to choose a lottery over a fixed payment when others have been assigned either the same lottery or the fixed payment. Using both between and within subject designs, we find risk‐taking behaviour is not responsive to the risks faced by others regardless of the size of peer group.     

Can media drive the electorate? The impact of media coverage on voting intentions

A growing literature uses media data to explain perception and behaviour in the economic and political context. In this paper, we investigate how media coverage affects political preferences, namely voting intention. For our empirical analysis, we merge 14 years of human-coded data obtained from leading media in Germany with results of the comprehensive German Politbarometer survey from February 1998 through December 2012. In contrast to the existing literature, we do not utilize access to certain media outlets, but use the tonality of articles and newscasts on political parties and politicians based on human coded media data. To account for endogeneity, we employ instrumental variable probit estimations. In addition, we control for a multitude of (internal) personal characteristics, such as age, and gender, as well as for (external) macroeconomic variables, such as business climate, unemployment, and inflation. The results show that media coverage of a political party has a positive and significant effect on the voting intention for this party. When media outlets cover a political party more positively, the electorate has a greater tendency to vote for it. Hence, we conclude that the electoral success or failure of political parties is at least partially caused by the media coverage on them. This hints on the special responsibility of media in democracies.     

Individually rational rules for the division problem when the number of units to be allotted is endogenous

We study individually rational rules to be used to allot, among a group of agents, a perfectly divisible good that is freely available only in whole units. A rule is individually rational if, at each preference profile, each agent finds that her allotment is at least as good as any whole unit of the good. We study and characterize two individually rational and efficient families of rules, whenever agents' preferences are symmetric single-peaked on the set of possible allotments. Rules in the two families are in addition envy-free, but they differ on whether envy-freeness is considered on losses or on awards. Our main result states that (a) the family of constrained equal losses rules coincides with the class of all individually rational and efficient rules that satisfy justified envy-freeness on losses and (b) the family of constrained equal awards rules coincides with the class of all individually rational and efficient rules that satisfy envy-freeness on awards.     

产业集群内生性集体行动影响因素案例研究与效度检验

基于利益集团等多重主流理论视角和半开放性编码技术的部分探索性案例研究，发现产业集群内生性集体行动受到内生需求、长期导向、本地嵌入、政策激励、同行反应、协会治理、集群规模和集群类型等因素的综合影响。经因子分析和逐步回归等方法检验，上述影响因素组合具有较为理想的建构效度和效标效度。其中，内生需求、长期导向、本地嵌入、政策激励、同行反应和协会治理等属于正面激发因素，对集群企业参与内生性集体行动具有积极促进作用，而集群规模和集群类型等则属于负面阻碍因素，对集群企业参与内生性集体行动具有消极抑制作用。     

Cooperative membership and farmers’ choice of marketing channels – Evidence from apple farmers in Shaanxi and Shandong Provinces,China

Cooperatives are established to improve farmers' production conditions, to increase their bargaining power and to enable them to benefit from modern value chains. In China, farmers are members of a cooperative for multiple reasons. Little is known on whether and how cooperative membership affects farmers’ choice of marketing channels. This paper examines determinants of farmers’ choice of marketing channels, especially how cooperative membership impacts upon this choice. Our analysis is based on survey data collected in 2015 among 625 apple growing farm households in the provinces Shaanxi and Shandong. We employ endogenous switching probit models to deal with potential endogeneity of membership in estimating the determinants of marketing channel choices. We find that cooperative membership has a positive impact on selling to wholesalers and a negative impact on selling to small dealers, but no significant impact on selling to the cooperative itself. As products sold through cooperatives generally comply with relatively stringent food quality and safety standards, these results imply that policies promoting cooperative members to sell their products through cooperatives are likely to have a significant impact on food quality and food safety in China.     

Volatility dynamics under an endogenous Markov-switching framework: a cross-market approach

This study uses an endogenous Markov-switching framework to examine the interrelatedness of the volatility dynamics of the US and Korean markets. Previous literature assumes that the US market implied volatility index is exogenous to the Korean implied volatility index. Here, we allow for correlations between the US and Korean variables and suggest two types of endogeneity, namely endogeneity in the regressors and in the regime-switching probabilities. The estimation results show that both types of endogeneity are present in the US variables and that the parameter estimates are quite different when endogeneity is considered, indicating a serious endogeneity bias in the parameter estimates. The results of the endogeneity test for the regressors show that the effects of global shocks are often persistent and may last for as long as six periods. Sub-period analyses indicate that the degrees of endogeneity were especially strong during the global financial crisis.     

Determinants of consumer demand for circular economy products. A case for reuse and remanufacturing for sustainable development

We investigate determinants of consumer demand for circular (reused and remanufactured) products. Based on exploratory choice-based conjoint experiments with a sample of 800 adults in the United Kingdom, we examine two types of premium segment electronic appliances: a mobile phone and a robot vacuum cleaner. We find that consumers prefer partly circulated products over fully or not at all circulated products and that circular products can likely successfully enter the existing market at the retail price of a new product. Interestingly, circular products compete for market share primarily with new products, leaving the market share of second-hand options less affected. The results show a promising path for firms considering a transition to circular business models.     

基于广义价值论的内生增长理论初探

增长理论是经济学的重要部分，关系到每一个人的福利和一个国家的地位。文章运用广义价值论研究经济增长问题，以分工为切入点，把分工产生的新增利益和该利益的公平分配统一起来，论述了递增性假设之外另一条增长的可能路径。主要结论如下：（1）基于比较优势的分工交换可以持续地产生比较利益即超过自给自足收益的净收益，这一收益不依赖于技术的递增或递减变化，具有普遍持久稳定性；（2）由分工交换产生的净收益构成原始积累的重要来源，既促进了生产规模和分工范围的扩大，又支持了研发和技术进步；（3）劳动生产力任何提高的效应都通过分工交换产生的比较利益加以放大，在一个分工交换系统中，行为主体提高比较优势产品和比较劣势产品的生产力分别具有正的和负的外部性；（4）基于广义价值论的内生经济增长体现了效率与公平的统一，一个好的制度是能够保证在交易中各方的比较利益率相等，掠夺性制度不仅直接损害经济增长，也不具备长期可持续性。     

Modelling demand for lotto using a novel method of correcting for endogeneity

Modelling lottery sales as a function of the mean, standard deviation and skewness of the probability distribution of returns potentially gives insights into how the design of a game could be modified to maximise net revenue. But use of OLS is problematic because the level of sales itself affects values of the moments (and insufficient instruments are available for IV regression). We draw on the concept of a rational expectations equilibrium, developing a new regression model which corrects for endogeneity where the causal impact of the dependent variable on the right-hand side variables is deterministic. We apply the model to data on lotto sales from Spain. Using the Spanish data, we show that results provide more reliable guidance to lottery agencies because accounting for endogeneity leads to significantly different results from OLS and these results have superior performance in out-of-sample forecasting of sales. More generally, results prove consistent with the Friedman-Savage explanation of why people buy lottery tickets and with evidence from racetrack data that ‘bettors love skewness’.