Conditional pricing of currency risk in Africa's equity markets

In this paper, we sought to establish whether Africa's volatile currencies drive equity risk premia. We use the SDF framework to estimate various conditional specifications of the International Capital Asset Pricing Model through generalized method of moments technique. Our results show strong evidence of conditional, time-varying currency risk premia in equity returns. Currency risk is also perceived by international investors as important in informing the equities pricing kernel. Interestingly, we find evidence that international investors are concerned about Africa's small size equity markets and build the impact of anticipated low trading into their pricing calculus.     

On the evolution of monopoly pricing in Internet-assisted search markets

This study examines the evolution of prices in markets with Internet price-comparison search engines. The empirical study analyzes laboratory data of prices available to informed consumers, for two industry sizes and two conditions on the sample (complete and incomplete). Distributions are typically bimodal. One of the two modes of distribution, corresponding to monopoly pricing, tends to attract such pricing strategies increasingly over time. The second one, corresponding to interior pricing, follows a decreasing trend. Monopoly pricing can serve as a means of insurance against more competitive (but riskier) behavior. In fact, experimental subjects who initially earn low profits due to interior pricing are more likely to switch to monopoly pricing than subjects who experience good returns from the start.     

Strategic pricing in export markets: empirical evidence from the UK

This study was initiated by the apparent conceptual and empirical neglect of the industrial export pricing area. Capitalising upon calls for a strategic pricing orientation in contemporary firms the study seeks to empirically explore the export pricing practices of industrial exporters in the UK and assess their influence upon their strategic export pricing. The aggregated experience of 178 firms suggests that proactive exporting stimuli, market orientation, formality of the pricing decision process and a balanced attention to customer needs and the profit potential of the exporting activity are practices identifiable in firms with a high strategic pricing orientation. This new empirical evidence is discussed in terms of its contribution for export managers, public policy makers and researchers wishing to advance further our knowledge of this critical area of marketing activity.     

市场条件与商品房市场的量价关系

引言 房价和交易量是房地产市场上两个非常重要的变量.然而,由于数据样本的限制,国内相关研究还不多见.     

Barriers to implementing value-based pricing in industrial markets: A micro-foundations perspective

Value-based pricing has the potential to improve differentiation, profitability, and value creation for industrial firms and their customers. However, while most of the pricing research considers the ways organizations set or get value-based prices, only few studies consider how individual managers influence the pricing process and what prevents them from setting and getting value-based prices. This is of critical concern, since it is not just organizations, but individuals within organizations who make pricing decisions—and their decision-making is influenced by institutional pressures such as socially prescribed norms, rationalized meanings, and beliefs about profitable approaches to pricing. This study addresses this gap in the current knowledge by adopting a micro-foundations perspective to pricing, and focusing on the barriers that individual managers encounter when implementing value-based pricing. Drawing on a single case study in a global industrial firm, and from interviews with 24 managers, this study identifies 11 individually, organizationally, and externally induced barriers to value-based pricing. The study also sheds light on the potential sensegiving strategies for overcoming these barriers.     

Digesting anomalies in emerging European markets: A comparison of factor pricing models

This study compares the performance of four popular factor pricing models—the capital asset-pricing model (Sharpe, 1964), the three-factor model of Fama and French (1993), the four-factor model of Carhart (1997), and the five-factor model of Fama and French (2015a)—testing their explanatory power over a broad range of cross-sectional return patterns in emerging European markets. We identify, classify, and replicate 100 anomalies documented in the financial literature. Only 20 (32) of the capitalization-weighted (equal-weighted) anomaly portfolios are significantly profitable. We show that the five-factor model best explains the returns of anomaly portfolios and verify its superiority over the other models.     

Partitioned pricing,price fairness perceptions,and the moderating effects of brand relationships in SME business markets

Partitioned pricing effects on price perceptions have been studied in the consumer (B2C) market context, but not in the business (B2B) market, and particularly not in the small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME), context. The current research investigates SME managers' affective and cognitive (e.g., price fairness perceptions) responses to partitioned pricing and extent of relationship with the selling brand. The first of three experimental studies finds that a partitioned price generates greater price fairness perceptions than an all-inclusive price. Study 2 finds that SME buyers elicit the greatest positive affect and the lowest negative affect when the buyer's firm has an established relationship with the brand and the seller partitions the price. The third study further examines the effects of relationship with the brand by separating brand mandate (i.e., when the buying firm requires employees to purchase from a specific brand) and relationship longevity.     

第三方B2B电子商务平台定价研究——基于双边市场理论

利用双边市场理论对完全垄断下的第三方B2B电子商务平台进行建模,得出了平台利润最大化条件下的定价策略。平台对买方和供给方收取的注册费是受到任意一方各种参数影响的。     

Long-term dynamics of the VIX index and its tradable counterpart VXX

We study the relationship of the VIX index and the exchange-traded note VXX on various timescales. We find that changes of VIX and VXX are correlated only contemporaneously on timescales of days, but VIX leads VXX on timescales of months. Next, we construct a simple joint model for VXX and VIX which replicates all the key characteristics of these two time series, but in which VIX and VXX are related only via a correlated error term. Therefore, VIX cannot be used as a predictor of VXX and there is no apparent trading profit opportunity.     

浅议标的资产服从混合过程的期权定价模式

本文通过对期权标的资产的价格行为过程进行分析,引入一种价格服从混合过程的新模式,推导出一种新的期权定价模型,获得了较理想的结果.     

Fairness in consumer pricing

Two case studies illustrate problems of fairness in consumer pricing. The May D&F case involves charges of deceptive advertising as a result of the retailer's high-low pricing; customers were allegedly deceived by artificially inflated regular prices and discounts promoted from these prices. The GDC case involves charges that 10,000 consumers were deceived into purchasing homes at prices higher than fair market value. Consumer policy and managerial issues are identified and analysis and recommendations provided. These cases are about fairness and trust within market exchange, and the responsibilities of sellers and consumers to provide and use information. Economic assumptions of nonfairness and caveat emptor are shown to be inadequate. The position that a fair price is the market price is questioned and an alternative suggested. Remedies which might be adopted by companies and pursued by policymakers are proposed. By creating more realistic consumer expectations, they would reduce problems of fairness in pricing.

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Fairneß bei der Festsetzung von Konsumgüterpreisen

Zusammenfassung Gegenstand des Beitrages ist die Frage, ob Fairneß bei der Preisgestaltung eine ökonomisch angemessene Forderung ist, und die Frage, worin diese Fairneß eigentlich besteht. Als empirischer Hintergrund werden zunächst zwei US-amerikanische Fallstudien präsentiert, die die Schwierigkeiten der genaueren Bestimmung von Fairneß bei der Preisbildung in konkreten Fällen illustrieren. Im ersten Fall wurde einem Einzelhandelsunternehmen vorgeworfen, irreführende Werbung insofern betrieben zu haben, als mit Preisabschlägen von künstlich aufgeblähten regulären Preisen geworben wurde. Eine Gerichtsentscheidung fand dieses Verhalten nicht nur täuschend, sondern verlangte von dem Unternehmen auch die Offenlegung seiner Preisfestsetzungs-Methoden. Der Beitrag zeigt, daß diese Forderung nach Offenlegung unter verbraucherpolitischem Blickwinkel eine suboptimale Lösung ist.Im zweiten Fall wurde einer Immobiliengesellschaft vorgeworfen, in Florida 10,000 Konsumenten zu Kaufverträgen für Wohneigentum gebracht zu haben zu Preisen, denen vorgebliche Schätzwerte zugrundelagen, die 20% über dem eigentlichen Marktwert lagen. Die Käufer kamen überwiegend aus anderen amerikanischen Staaten und waren mit dem lokalen Immobilienmarkt nicht vertraut. Der Fall (und seine rechtliche Behandlung) weist deutlich auf ethische und rechtliche Probleme hin, denen Verantwortliche ausgesetzt sind, wenn sie Preise festsetzen.Die weiteren Folgerungen gehen über den Bereich des Einzelhandels und der Immobilienbranche hinaus. Bei beiden Fällen geht es um Fairneß allgemein und um Vertrauensschutz bei Kaufverträgen, sowie um die Verantwortlichkeiten des Verkäufers bei der Versorgung des Käufers mit Information und die des Käufers zur Aufnahme und Nutzung dieser Informationen. In Übereinstimmung mit sozioökonomischen Positionen wird dargelegt, daß Fairneß bei der Preisfestsetzung von beiden Marktparteien ein offenes und ehrliches Verhalten bei der Verständigung über den Preis verlangt, zu dem der Tausch stattfinden soll. Die Analyse stellt die traditionelle ökonomische Annahme in Frage, nach der der Marktpreis, den die Nachfrager freiwillig zahlen, ein fairer Preis sei. Diese Position ist insbesondere bei Vorliegen von Täuschung unbefriedigend. Das Prinzip caveat emptor stellt sich nicht nur in den Fallstudien als unzweckmäßig heraus, sondern allgemein dort, wo es begrenzte Suchaktivitäten und begrenzte Preisvergleiche durch Konsumenten gibt. Als empirisch gestützte Erklärungen für solche Begrenzungen werden genannt: Das Entscheidungsverhalten von Konsumenten ist häufig durch Anspruchsanpassung, Vereinfachung und Bequemlichkeit gekennzeichnet, zweitens sind Preisvergleiche schwierig, wenn die Informationen unzweckmäßig, unvollständig oder irreführend sind, und drittens vertrauen Konsumenten häufig den Aussagen der Verkäufer.Überhöhte Preise sollten nicht kriminalisiert werden — das wäre ökonomisch disfunktional. Konsumenten sind die besten Kenner ihrer Präferenzen und ihrer Nutzenvorstellungen. Jedoch sollten Anbieter bereit sein, freiwillig Principien der fairen Preisgestaltung zu befolgen, und die Verbraucherpolitik sollte sie in dieser Bereitschaft bestärken. Wenn es gelänge, die Verbrauchererwartungen an Produkte realistischer zu gestalten, würde sich das Problem mangelnder Fairneß bei der Preisgestaltung ohnehin reduzieren.

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Patrick J. Kaufmann is an Associate Professor at the College of Business Administration at Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA. Gwen Ortmeyer is an Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA. N. Craig Smith, to whom correspondence should be addressed, is a Visiting Associate Professor at the School of Business Administration at Georgetown University, Washington DC 20057, USA.     

The regulation of science-based claims in advertising

This paper analyzes the effects of scientific information dissemination on consumer and producer behavior. The first section draws heavily from evidence on the ready-to-eat cereal market during a period in which information developed about the health benefits of fiber cereal consumption. Although producers were initially prohibited from advertising these benefits, the regulatory ban against advertising was lifted during the period we study. Our results indicate that advertising was an important source of information leading to increased fiber cereal consumption and product innovation. The second part of our paper discusses the potential for deception if science-based claims are allowed. In the final section we consider a number of regulatory proposals that have been raised in the context of health claims for food products. We evaluate these proposals against the three goals of encouraging the dissemination of truthful information and discouraging the dissemination of deceptive or misleading information and their ability to keep pace with the changing science.     

Causality in futures markets

This study tests causal hypotheses emanating from theories of futures markets by utilizing methods appropriate for disproving causal relationships with observational data. The hedging pressure theory of futures markets risk premiums, the generalized version of the normal backwardation theory of Keynes, is rejected. Theories predicting that the activity levels of speculators or uninformed traders affect levels of price volatility, either positively or negatively, are also rejected. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 26:1039–1057, 2006