Consumer preferences for rockmelons in Australia

On the demand side, consumer's decision choice for rockmelon is often compounded by a number of factors including quality, which is often not related to the visual characteristics observed in fruits such as bananas or mangoes. On the supply side, there is a general lack of understanding of consumer response towards rockmelon attributes in Australia and consequently, great fluctuations of demand and hence supply of the fruit. Thus, objectives of this study were to evaluate and compare analytical measures by instruments and sensory assessments by consumers based on sweetness levels (8–13 ^oBrix) of rockmelons. Results indicated that there was a large variation in texture, juiciness and flavour for each ^oBrix level. A significant correlation coefficient (r = 0.829) was obtained between analytical and sensory measures for sweetness. High organoleptic scores for flavour were noted among the higher sweetness levels. It is recommended that due to the change in consumer acceptability, marketing of rockmelons should not be solely based on ^oBrix levels; other attributes such as flavour, texture and juiciness should be utilized.     

Effects of German development aid on the internal economy

The importance of economic cooperation with the Third World for the internal economy is attracting increasing attention in the discussion of development aid topics in the Federal Republic of Germany¹. In this context it is of interest how the German development aid bears on the internal economy of the Federal Republic through feedbacks (in the form of contracts for German firms) from its bilateral and multilateral development aid payments. The following article presents the results of a relevant inquiry for the year 1976².     

Financial markets at the crossroads: Fears of a great crash

Not so long ago the international financial markets were being acclaimed as the cure-all for debt crises and interest rate and exchange rate risks, but new developments are giving increasing cause for concern, as the Deutsche Bundesbank¹ noted recently. Pessimists are spreading a mood of disaster and are already predicting the collapse of the world financial system.² What is the basis for such fears? How serious is the danger of a crash?     

Utilizing and teaching data tools in Excel for exploratory analysis

In this article we offer Excel as an introductory tool to high end business intelligence (BI) and decision support system (DSS) applications. Because it is ubiquitous, Excel can be used by all managers and business students for exploratory data analysis. We provide three key points in this utilization of Microsoft^® Excel 2003: (1) manipulating records using Excel as a database, (2) creating PivotTables^® and PivotCharts^® using Excel for analysis, and (3) importing data using Excel as an automation container. The basic skill set defined by the above three items allows users to begin to use Excel to its full potential in finding information in business data, and it offers a key tool for future research in improving the utilization of information across organizations.     

Outlook for industrial east-west cooperation

The proportion of the foreign trade exchanges between the industrialized countries of the West and the CMEA states which is attributable to industrial cooperation does not so far exceed an estimated 5–10 p.c.¹ Nevertheless it would be wrong to make light of this cooperation, for it is a manifestation of a new strategy in the competition between the systems and designed to bring about substantial structural changes in their foreign trade². Both these aspects are important for an assessment of future prospects and to be discussed here in some detail.     

Assessment of Satisfaction of Local Government as a Client of the Federal Government: Case Study of the Priority Zone Development Program

This paper reports the design of a model that broadens focus of the national government index of customer satisfaction from external clients to internal clients between local and federal governmental institutions. The model for a case study of a national Mexican welfare program includes (i) generic variables, as adapted from the American Customer Satisfaction Index model for government and the variable of institutional image by findings in Mexico; (ii) specific variables, as identified through a qualitative study. The estimation technique is partial least squares. The result is a valid and reliable model that moderately explains satisfaction (R² = 0.67), perceived quality (R² = 0.60), and trust (R² = 0.41). The moderating role of institutional image is not rejected. Future research must test the resulting model in other cases to obtain an appropriate model for the Mexican User Satisfaction Index (MUSI). The Council for Science and Technology of Mexico funds this project.     

Gloomy prospects for social retirement insurance

Recently, important experts have presented two studies concerning the current situation and future prospects of social retirement insurance in the Federal Republic of Germany.¹ Now there is also an Internationally comparative study on the same subject available.² The German co-authors summarize the results of that study and add some proposals for further discussion.     

THE CANONICAL MODEL SPACE FOR LAW‐INVARIANT CONVEX RISK MEASURES IS L1

In this paper, we establish a one‐to‐one correspondence between law‐invariant convex risk measures on L^∞ and L¹. This proves that the canonical model space for the predominant class of law‐invariant convex risk measures is L¹.     

TIME-INPUT AND HOUSEHOLD WORK-OUTPUT STUDIES IN JAPAN – PRESENT STATE AND FUTURE PROSPECTS

Studies of time-use in Japan were reviewed by Tanaka at the Uppsala Conference¹. This paper intends to focus on time-input for household work as it relates to families, with data based on individual, group, and national studies, and with the following objectives to fulfil: first, to comprehend the nature of household work as a non-market production and the need to discover if the scientific measurement of time is useful in assessment of non-market labour; second, to present data on the utilization of time by members of families with focus on the problems of research methods and their comparability as presented by Stajkov² and Aas³.     

Corporate Responsibilities for Access to Medicines

Today there is a growing wave of demands being placed upon the pharmaceutical industry to contribute to improved access to medicines for poor patients in the developing countries.¹ This article aims to contribute to the development of a systematic approach and broad consensus about shared benchmarks for good corporate practices in this area. A consensus corridor on what constitutes an appropriate portfolio of␣corporate responsibilities for access to medicines – especially under conditions of ‘failing states’ and ‘market failure’² – is not only in the interest of the world’s poor, but also of corporations that want to contribute to the solution of one of the most significant social problems of our time.     

Some Lessons From ‘Developing’ Countries' Trade Policy Reviews in the GATT Framework: An Enforcement Perspective

It is one thing to draw up regulations for international trade, and yet another to apply them; but it is also a completely different thing to explain them fairly in a report for the contracting parties….¹     

A Fundamental Theorem of Asset Pricing for Large Financial Markets

We formulate the notion of “asymptotic free lunch” which is closely related to the condition “free lunch” of Kreps (1981) and allows us to state and prove a fairly general version of the fundamental theorem of asset pricing in the context of a large financial market as introduced by Kabanov and Kramkov (1994). In a large financial market one considers a sequence (Sⁿ)_n=1^∞ of stochastic stock price processes based on a sequence (Ωⁿ, Fⁿ, (F_tⁿ)_t∈In, Pⁿ)_n=1^∞ of filtered probability spaces. Under the assumption that for all n∈ N there exists an equivalent sigma‐martingale measure for Sⁿ, we prove that there exists a bicontiguous sequence of equivalent sigma‐martingale measures if and only if there is no asymptotic free lunch (Theorem 1.1). Moreover we present an example showing that it is not possible to improve Theorem 1.1 by replacing “no asymptotic free lunch” by some weaker condition such as “no asymptotic free lunch with bounded” or “vanishing risk.”     

From Discrete- to Continuous-Time Finance: Weak Convergence of the Financial Gain Process1

Conditions suitable for applications in finance are given for the weak convergence (or convergence in probability) of stochastic integrals. For example, consider a sequence Sⁿ of security price processes converging in distribution to S and a sequence θⁿ of trading strategies converging in distribution to θ. We survey conditions under which the financial gain process θⁿ dSⁿ converges in distribution to θ dS. Examples include convergence from discrete- to continuous-time settings and, in particular, generalizations of the convergence of binomial option replication models to the Black-Scholes model. Counterexamples are also provided.     

On the Existence of Minimax Martingale Measures

Embedding asset pricing in a utility maximization framework leads naturally to the concept of minimax martingale measures. We consider a market model where the price process is assumed to be an ^d‐semimartingale X and the set of trading strategies consists of all predictable, X‐integrable, ^d‐valued processes H for which the stochastic integral (H.X) is uniformly bounded from below. When the market is free of arbitrage, we show that a sufficient condition for the existence of the minimax measure is that the utility function u : → is concave and nondecreasing. We also show the equivalence between the no free lunch with vanishing risk condition, the existence of a separating measure, and a properly defined notion of viability.     

Pricing Via Utility Maximization and Entropy

In a financial market model with constraints on the portfolios, define the price for a claim C as the smallest real number p such that sup_π E[U(X_T^{x+p, π}?C)]≥ sup_π E[U(X_T^{x, π})], where U is the negative exponential utility function and X^{x, π} is the wealth associated with portfolio π and initial value x. We give the relations of this price with minimal entropy or fair price in the flavor of Karatzas and Kou (1996) and superreplication. Using dynamical methods, we characterize the price equation, which is a quadratic Backward SDE, and describe the optimal wealth and portfolio. Further use of Backward SDE techniques allows for easy determination of the pricing function properties.     

Fear Linkages Between the US and BRICS Stock Markets: A Frequency-Domain Causality

Abstract

We employ a spectral causality approach to uncover short-, medium-, and long-run causal relations between the US implied volatility index and the five individual implied volatility indexes of BRICS markets from 16^th March 2011 to 31^st January 2018. We show that the volatility causal relations differ between the short and long run in many cases. Although the results indicate the dominant role played by US uncertainty in shaping uncertainty in all BRICS markets, there is also evidence of a feedback effect from Brazil, Russia, and China to the US that differs across the spectrum. The implications for hedging and risk management practices are explored.     

The effectiveness of selected barrier fabrics in minimizing the light-induced colour change of textile objects in storage

A relatively inexpensive method for the temporary or permanent storage of textile objects is to place them inside fabric covers (e.g. rolled storage and garment-bag storage), under fabric covers (e.g. flat storage), or behind fabric curtains (e.g. hanger storage behind a curtain). These barrier fabrics can minimize the harmful effects of light on textile objects in storage. This exploratory study examined the effectiveness of muslin, duck, and Gore-Tex^TM barrier fabrics in minimizing the light-induced colour change of textile objects in storage. The results indicated that muslin, duck, and Gore-Tex^TM barrier fabrics significantly differ in their effectiveness in minimizing the light-induced colour change of textile objects in storage. Several recommendations are provided for future investigations on this topic.     

A Quasi‐Analytical Pricing Model for Arithmetic Asian Options

We develop a quasi‐analytical pricing method for discretely sampled arithmetic Asian options. We derive an asymptotic approximation of the arithmetic average with the geometric average of lognormal variables. Numerical experiments show that the asymptotic approximation is accurate and the absolute error converges very quickly as the number of observations increases. The absolute error is of the order of 10^?5 to 10^?6 for daily average. We then derive quasi‐analytical formulas for arithmetic Asian options under the Black–Scholes framework, in which the probability density of the geometric average is used. Extensive experiments are conducted to compare the proposed method with the various existing semianalytical methods. The overall accuracy of the proposed method is better than any other methods tested. The proposed method performs much better than the second best one for at‐the‐money Asian options under high volatility. The mean pricing error of the proposed method for a daily average Asian option is 37.5% less than the second best one. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 33:1143–1166, 2013     

Capital Allocation Under a Financial Constraint: The Classical Investment Function

In the modern literature on investment, a distinction is normally made between neo-Classical and Keynesian theories of investment. An earlier original approach can, however, be located in the works of Smith, Ricardo, and Marx. In this Classical tradition, investment is subject to a capital constraint, and capitalists allocate their capital according to the relative profitability of the various industries. We show that this behaviour is rational in a model in which capitalists optimize over an infinite horizon and form rational expectations: inter-industry mobility can be expressed as an adjustment behaviour such that investments, ΔKⁱ are proportional to profitability differentials: ΔKⁱ = Aⁱ (r¯ⁱ−r¯)     

Routine contraction in good times: An example of a typical prototype development routine

The general wisdom in the routine literature is that routine contraction happens as a response to adverse situation. This study examines routine contraction even during non-adverse situations. Here, routine contraction is operationalized as the shrinkage of resources. The data is hand collected from the public website of the National SCRABBLE^® Championship, 2010. Here, each SCRABBLE^® routine is an analogy of a prototype development routine. The higher order relationships between SCRABBLE^® routines and prototype development routines in a second generation Stage Gate^® product development process are mapped following structure mapping theory. The results of panel regressions indicate that the performance of a routine at a particular time (t₀) positively affects contraction of the same routine at an immediately later time (t₁). Efficiency moderates this relationship. Routine contraction may happen even in good times. The paper closes with theoretical contribution and managerial implications of these results.