The marketing firm: Retailer and consumer contingencies

Efficiency has emerged as an important consumer value and thus has increased the importance of the in-store search as one facet of consumer transaction costs. This paper contributes to the development of a marketing theory of the firm by analyzing the consumers' in-store efficiency ratios and the retailers' natural sources of resistance to offer efficiency to all of their customers. We propose new behavioral metrics for consumer transaction costs. Our data from the behavioral tracking of 497 complete shopping trips reveal more transaction costs for quick shopping trips than for regular shopping trips, which demonstrates friction between retail and consumer transaction costs for quick trips.     

关于数字化超市购物服务设计研究

该设计将传统的超市购物与互联网购物相结合,线上线下交易并举,并配以多种支付和提货方式,在保留消费者社交体验的同时让顾客的购物更为便捷,旨在带给用户全新的购物体验。在顾客购物之后,还通过超市的顾客活动增加顾客的社交机会,增加超市的用户粘度,同时给超市一个自我展示的网络平台。     

Trust and corruption: The influence of positive and negative social capital on the economic development in the European Union

Why are the Scandinavian countries in the European Union significantly richer than Southern/Eastern European countries? We try to answer this question from an empirical social capital perspective. In particular, we are interested in the interplay of social trust as a positive and corruption as a negative manifestation of social capital. The opportunities to provide answers by multivariate modelling are, however, limited by several problems related to small sample size and low degrees of freedom. Regarding these problems, we test the interrelating influences between positive and negative social capital by applying a path model that accounts for Granger-like causal effects. Our empirical results, referring to a sample of up to 25 EU countries, show that corruption might harm poor European countries but is not able to affect social trust. However, corruption in itself means that resources end up in the wrong places and not in socioeconomically optimal investments. There is, therefore, a direct damaging effect of corruption on wealth. This implies that economic actors have to invest higher transaction and control costs which will bind resources to non-productive purposes and thus destroy economic wealth. Most remarkable is that the augmentation of positive social capital could work as an effective counterforce to corruption, even if it does not compensate for the economic loss caused by corruption. Thus, adding the social capital perspective may contribute to understanding present day variation in the wealth of European nations by the damaging effect of corrupt activities and/or the positive force of social trust.     

Inequality and catching-up under decreasing marginal impatience

This paper examines how endogenous time preference interacts with inequalities in economic development. We consider two distinct groups of households with intrinsic inequality (e.g., capitalists and workers), and show that (i) under decreasing marginal impatience (DMI), an unequal society may be preferable for poor households than an egalitarian one in which every household owns an equal share of asset; (ii) poor households tend to benefit more under DMI than CMI (constant marginal impatience) from positive shocks; (iii) inequality exhibits a sharp inverted-U shape as more people become rich, which should be good news for developing countries in catching up; and (iv) a tax on capital income reduces poor households’ income when the fraction of the rich is sufficiently small. We also examine immigration and discuss capital mobility.     

行政审批改革与制度性交易成本——基于效率评价的视角

制度性交易成本是经济主体为遵守制度规定而产生的非生产性成本,行政审批改革通过提高经营效率、节约时间成本、降低资金成本和促进行业竞争四种途径降低制度性交易成本。本文通过对我国地市级面板数据的实证分析后发现,行政审批改革可以有效降低地区制度性交易成本;当行政审批改革发生在营商环境相对较差的中西部城市、距离省会城市较近的城市以及当城市获得法律支撑时,能够更显著地降低当地制度性交易成本。本文据此提出如下政策建议:深化行政审批改革,减少不必要的审批事项;健全改革激励机制,确保政策的贯彻与落实;通过机构设置、法律规定、权责划分等进行配套措施改革。     

中亚区域经济合作5号公路物流走廊性能检测

中亚区域经济合作有4条国际运输通道穿越新疆和中亚,这些通道的运输性能决定丝绸之路是否畅通。建立时间-距离-成本(TCD)的调查表和EXCEL的TCD模型,收集汽车跨国运输每段的运行费用、时间;活动费用、时间;输入模型计算走廊5的各项性能指标:通道的无延误速度SWOD、有延误速度SWD、每500公里的运行成本和活动成本。重点对走廊5的过境点活动成本(换装成本、报关报检费用、过境费用和运输检查费用)和延误时间进行识别,从而识别跨国运输的瓶颈所在。依此作为中国通往中亚国家、乃至上合组织成员国之间实现国际道路运输便利化提供依据。     

A transaction cost analysis of staffing decisions in international operations

This paper analyzes staffing decisions in foreign subsidiaries from the perspective of transaction cost theory. We focus on the ex post transaction costs of the employment relation. Specifically, we look at the monitoring, bonding, maladaptation, and bargaining costs of conducting activities in specific subsidiaries in a foreign country. We hypothesize that the transaction costs of using expatriates are lower than those generated by local employees, especially in the higher managerial echelons of foreign subsidiaries, but also that costs can be reduced as individuals become more experienced. We also conjecture that ex post transaction costs are influenced by cultural differences between the host and the home countries, and by characteristics of the companies and their subsidiaries. The framework is empirically corroborated by survey data on a sample of 145 Norwegian MNCs.     

Foreign direct investment and global sourcing choices of firms in the US

This paper investigates factors affecting the global sourcing choices of firms in the US: (1) US investment abroad; (2) foreign direct investment in the US; (3) wage–productivity ratio; and (4) transaction cost. I found that there is a statistically significant association between the country of sourcing choices and foreign direct investment. Both the wage–productivity ratios and transaction costs are not statistically significant at the conventional significance level, but their regression coefficients show proper signs. The paper also examines the patterns of foreign direct investment among countries and compares transaction costs by income group. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Who's in charge of the central city? The conflict between efficiency and equity in the design of a metropolitan area

A circular metropolitan area consists of a central city surrounded by a suburb. Households sort over the two jurisdictions based on public service levels and their costs of commuting to the metropolitan center. Using numerical simulations, we show that (1) there typically exist two equilibria: one in which the poor form the voting majority in the central city and the other in which the rich form the majority in the central city; (2) there is an efficiency vs. equity trade-off as to which equilibrium is preferred; and (3) if the central city contains only poor households, equity favors expanding the central city to include rich households. The third result arises not because of a fiscal subsidy from rich to poor households induced by a property tax but rather because of a change in house price capitalization.     

Consolidation in the European banking industry: how effective is it?

The European banking industry is becoming increasingly consolidated as banks engage in domestic and cross-border merger and acquisition (M&A) activities. Due to cultural differences in cross-border consolidations, the benefits of domestic and cross-border consolidations are likely to differ. This paper examines the effectiveness of merger processes, with a detailed analysis of both domestic and cross-border consolidations in Europe from 1998 to 2004. Effectiveness is measured via several criteria: improvement in costs, return on assets (ROA), and return on equity (ROE). To analyze potential cost efficiency improvement, we use a stochastic cost frontier approach. The same methodology is used for ROA and ROE to estimate efficiency in profitability. Finally, considering cross-border mergers as a form of entry, we carry out an analysis of the entry effect in response to the performance and profitability of the incumbent market participants. Results show that mergers in the European banking industry have been effective. Although domestic M&As are more common than cross-border M&As, banks involved in cross-border M&As are more efficient. Moreover, cross-border merged banks seem to outperform incumbent banks.     

青藏铁路运输成本对物流交易效率的影响分析

运用新兴古典经济学交易效率分析框架,构建了基于运输成本的物流交易效率模型,以青藏铁路为例,对运输成本对物流交易效率的有效促进作用进行了实证分析,认为运输成本是制约青藏地区物流交易效率提高的重要内生变量。青藏铁路是一条公益性突出的线路,它显著提升了青藏两省区的物流水平。因此,有必要制订青藏铁路运营支持政策,建立运输成本补偿机制,促进青藏两省区物流交易效率的不断提高。     

Profit opportunities with the American put-call parity when dividends are not expected

The objective of this research is to study borrowing and lending profit opportunities with the put-call parity of American options when dividends on the stock are not expected. Studying profit opportunities embedded in the put-call parity is intriguing because of their relative simplicity. The only assumptions necessary for the parity to hold are that option markets are frictionless and generate efficient prices of puts and calls around the underlying stock price. For this reason alone (parsimony of postulates) the put-call parity is a tempting vehicle for studying option market efficiency. In this work it is shown that both synthetic lending and borrowing parities (before and after transaction costs), on average and ex post, have negative expected profits (i.e. put-call parity implied rates are inferior to the observed riskless rate). When certain trading rules are established, however, empirical evidence of substantial profit opportunities with both lending and borrowing with the American parity (even after considering transaction costs) is observed. It is also shown that these opportunities are greater for some stocks than for others. The existence of these disparities might be an indication that the pricing mechanism of the respective options is not always in sync. The duration of disequilibrium between the options market and the stock market suggests that such occurrences are not just random bursts.     

网络营销在国际贸易中的应用

近年来,电子商务迅猛发展,交易额已达数万亿元,电子商务已成为跨国贸易的重要平台,网络营销作为21世纪的营销新方式势不可挡,将成为全球企业竞争的锐利武器。文章从电子商务的发展,阐述了网络营销在国际贸易中的优势、它的营销方式以及存在的问题,提出了解决方法,对指导企业应用网络进行营销,发挥跨国贸易作用有一定的指导意义。     

The challenge of using standard contracts in public–private partnerships

A call for an increased use of standard contracts in public–private partnerships (PPPs) for infrastructure development is noticeable in practice. These contracts are expected to simplify and improve procurement by creating opportunities for learning, lower transaction costs, and better competition. This paper delineates standard contracts in PPP as a new venue for research and unfolds their potential impact. Here lies an important challenge since the benefits of standardization are not as straightforward as they look at first sight, particularly when taking into account the tension between the powerful, control-oriented role of contracting authorities and the need for contingent, informal contracting.     

The currency denomination of external European Union imports after European Union expansion

Using a multiple market model I examine the impact of euro expansion on the optimal currency denomination of external EU imports. Results suggest euro invoicing will increase more in the EU-expansion country than in the original EU. Exporting firms from dollar bloc countries (the U.S. or countries with fixed exchange rates with the dollar) are more likely to invoice in the euro if price discrimination is already optimal. Firms from outside the dollar bloc are more likely to use the euro when the original EU market is relatively large or transaction costs of exchanging the euro are relatively small.     

The location of cross-border and national mergers and acquisitions within the United States

Research on the location choice of foreign direct investment (FDI) focuses on the choice between countries. The within-country location choice is either not analyzed at all or restricted to greenfield investments only. The majority of FDI, however, takes the form of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As). We develop and test a pair of hypotheses regarding location-target selection for both cross-border and national M&As across the United States, expecting differences in line with the liability of foreignness argument. Using a detailed firm-level data set for M&As in the period 1985–2012, we compare location choices of cross-border versus national M&As. We find that cross-border M&As are more spatially concentrated, and tend to sort into larger agglomerations than national M&As. This finding holds both for urban agglomerations in isolation, as well as for agglomerations that take the economic geography of the United States into account.     

Political connections and the super-rich in Poland

We study the impact of political connections of the richest Poles on their wealth level, mobility among the rich, and the risk of dropping off the rich list. We use newly collected original panel data (2002–2018) and we find that none of the variables capturing political connections of Polish multimillionaires is consistently related neither to the size of the largest fortunes in Poland nor to the chances of upward mobility on the rich list. While we find that political connections are related to a lower probability of moving down on the rich list, we also obtain that they increase the risk of falling off the list. Our results show that, contrary to some other post-socialist countries such as Russia or Ukraine, there is little evidence that the Polish economy suffers from crony capitalism.     

Transaction Costs,Option Prices,and Model Risk in Fair Value Accounting

This paper examines the reliability of option fair value estimates in the presence of transaction costs. The Black Scholes Merton (BSM) framework assumes zero transaction costs and thus might not provide a reasonable approximation in this context. We investigate the model adjustments companies make to their BSM models to deal with these transaction costs. We specifically examine Employee Stock Option (ESO) plans listed on the French stock exchange, as detailed disclosure on modeling is available for these ESOs. Our analysis questions the reliability of these model adjustments, especially their bias and the extent to which they provide a faithful representation of option fair values. Holding parameter values constant, we find that the model adjustments lead to a median understatement of 52% compared to the BSM model price, higher than the discount we observe for the opportunistic determination of model parameters (below 20%). The paper contributes to the fair value literature by highlighting model risk in the fair valuation of options. This model risk stems from assumptions made about the size of transaction costs and complements the notion of parameter risk analyzed in previous literature. As a result, the model itself might be a possible channel for fair value management.     

The demand for teleshopping: An application of discrete choice models

New telecommunications technologies have often been suggested to act as substitutes for travel. Teleshopping may be a substitute for traditional store shopping. This paper studies the determination of the demand for teleshopping. In general, the demand for telecommunications is derived from the demand for information. So we look at teleshopping as a form of information gathering. Agents can engage in various shopping activities, including teleshopping, which entail different time and monetary costs. Through a discrete choice model, we analyze the effect of costs on the choice of shopping activities. The model is estimated based on a pilot experiment in which individuals had to choose among information bundles when shopping for differentiated products. Implicit in the choice set were information items which can only be transmitted by specific media. Limitations of this preliminary work and suggestions for future research are discussed.