Further evidence on the predictive accuracy of the verbal probability scale: The case of household bill payments in Australia

This study examined how well the verbal probability scale predicted shortterm penetration levels for methods of paying household bills. The overall error of prediction was 17 per cent (not 17 percentage points but 17 per cent of the estimated value). This is a good result in comparison to previous research that has used attitudinal, intentions or probabilistic measures. The verbal probability scale was markedly inaccurate for one particular bill payment method, but this is attributed to respondents' misinterpretation of the de.nition of this payment method when providing responses. The major source of error was respondents who gave a zero probability for using a particular method, but then did use that payment method in a subsequent fourweek period. This source of error is consistent with previous research on the prediction of future behaviour. The study also found that this particular source of error was not independent among respondents. Respondents who made this particular error of prediction for one bill payment method (ie gave a zero probability but then used that payment method) were more likely to do the same for another bill payment method. Overall, the results support the aggregate-level predictive ability of the verbal probability scale to estimate penetration levels. The study, however, highlights that all methods, whether attitudinal, intentions or probabilistic estimates of future demand, suffer from a degree of measurement error. If probabilistic estimates are to be used as an intermediate variable against which the impact of a marketing intervention is judged, the planned impact of that intervention would need to be large enough not to be confounded with measurement error.     

Optimal Aggregation of Money Supply Forecasts: Accuracy,Profitability and Market Efficiency

We present a general procedure for aggregating expert forecasts which exploits regularities in the structure of information within the forecaster population. Specific information structures lead to aggregation methods which adjust for additive bias, differences in individual accuracy, and correlation among forecasts. As an application, we construct composite predictions of the weekly change in the money supply from forecasts made by twenty major securities dealers, for which high positive correlation is found to be a significant characteristic. Due to instability in the information structure, our methods cannot improve on the accuracy of a simple average in this case. However, they do capture information about the correlation among money supply forecasts which is not fully impounded in short-term interest rates. Forecasts from our models accurately predict the direction of price changes for Treasury bills and Treasury bill futures after a money supply announcement.     

当前票据市场业务快速发展的特点、成因及规范建议

2012年年初以来,大连市票据市场交易活跃,银行承兑汇票签发量增加较多,贴现、转贴现业务同比增长较快,票据融资占各项贷款的比重同比明显提升。票据业务近期发展较快,既有该项业务本身具有比较优势的原因,也是当前流动性充裕和银企双方经营调整与博弈的结果。在市场快速发展的同时,如何从统计角度体现票据融资对实体经济支持的有效性、不放松票据真实性审核力度,以及完善银行票据业务内控机制等问题仍不容忽视,为此,文章就进一步规范和推动票据市场健康发展提出相关政策建议。     

Public awareness and perception of environmental,health and safety risks to electricity generation: an explorative interview study in Switzerland

Well-informed public preferences are key to enabling successful and sustainable energy transitions worldwide. However, limited explorative evidence exists on what the public already knows and wants to know about the electricity generation technologies and their Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) risks. Understanding these issues is important for preparing informational materials and facilitating formation of informed preferences. We present results of an explorative interview study with 12 Swiss people. Despite the public debate on energy in Switzerland, we still identify significant awareness and knowledge gaps as well as misconceptions related to both technologies and their EHS risks. For accidental risks, the people tend to think beyond probabilities and consequences and consider further aspects, such as risk controllability and trust in experts and authorities. Most importantly, we find that people are able and tend to think of the electricity system as a whole portfolio: they actively realize the need to deploy multiple electricity technologies and accept some of the EHS risks. We conclude with concrete recommendations for preparing informational materials on electricity sector transitions in Switzerland and elsewhere. We also argue that future social research on energy should pay more attention to public perception of whole technology portfolios rather than single technologies.     

我国商业银行票据市场的现状及发展战略研究

票据业务以其较高的流动性和稳定的收益性,成为近年来我国各商业银行重点发展的业务品种,票据市场也因此成为货币市场的重要组成部分.本文分析了我国商业银行票据市场发展的现状,指出其具有缺乏正确的市场定位、企业信用状况低下、经营模式落后、缺乏全国统一的商业票据市场、商业票据的真实性查询困难以及发行融资性票据面临法律障碍等问题.在此基础上,从战略层面探讨了我国商业银行票据市场发展的目标定位和阶段安排;并着重指出商业银行应在改革开放和可持续发展的指导思想下,转变观念,开拓市场,为发展融资性票据做好理论、政策、管理和业务培训方面的准备.     

Stock prices,inflation, and the term structure of interest rates

In this article, the quantitative form of capital market equilibrium is derived for a multi-period economy in which (a) there are many consumption goods whose future prices are uncertain, and (b) the investment opportunities available to consumers include both common stocks and default-free bills of many different maturities. Particular emphasis is placed on consumer reaction to uncertainty about shifts in commodity prices and the term structure of interest rates and on the way one should expect to observe this reaction reflected in portfolio choices and equilibrium stock prices.     

央票发行对债券收益率影响的实证分析

文章通过对于央票招标日各期限央票、国债、金融债二级市场收益率变动特点的描述性统计,以及央票发行量对债券收益率影响的计量分析,实证考察了央票发行对债券市场收益率的影响效应。结果显示,央票招标日债券市场收益率波动性小于日常水平,且二级市场收益率与央票发行利率差值保持在合理波动范围内,体现了货币政策稳定利率的意图。     

How consumers respond to product certification and the value of energy information

I study how consumers respond to competing pieces of information that differ in their degree of complexity and informativeness. In particular, I study the choice of refrigerators in the United States, where a mandatory disclosure labelling program provides detailed information about energy cost, and a certification labelling program provides a simple binary‐star rating related to energy use. I find that the coarse certification may help some consumers to pay attention to energy information, but for others, it may crowd out efforts to process more accurate, but complex, energy information. The effect of the certification on overall energy use is thus ambiguous.     

我国短期融资券募集资金是否存在短融长投——对中国上市公司的实证研究

本文以发行短期融资券的上市公司为样本,用回归分析的方法实证研究了上市公司短期融资券募集资金的使用情况。实证结果显示短期融资券发行额与营运资金增加额呈显著的负相关关系,与长期资产现金支出、以及偿还债务所支付的现金均呈显著的正相关关系。表明上市公司发行短期融资券募集的资金存在短融长投及集中还贷的现象,也就反映了企业利用市场时机进行融资、并用短期资金进行长期投资的行为。这种短融长投的行为可能因为投融资期限不匹配而导致企业财务风险,并给投资者带来一定的兑付风险。     

ANOMALOUS BIDDING IN SHORT‐TERM TREASURY BILL AUCTIONS*

We show that Treasury bill auction procedures create classes of price‐equivalent discount rates for bills with less than 72 days to maturity. We argue that it is inefficient for market participants to bid at a discount rate that is not the minimum rate in its class. The inefficiency of bidding at other than the minimum rate is related to a quantity shortfall rather than an unexploited profit opportunity. Auction results for weekly offerings of four‐week bills and occasional offerings of cash management bills show that market participants frequently bid at inefficient rates. However, they are more likely to bid at efficient rates than chance would suggest.     

Does advertising strategy matter in influencing mutual fund purchase?

This study explores the role of advertising strategies (informational versus transformational) in consumers’ purchase intentions related to mutual funds. Moreover, this study investigates the possible moderating role of gender and financial literacy in advertising strategy. Findings of the experimental approach applied in this study suggest that advertisement strategy does influence investment intention related to the mutual funds. We also found that females are less likely to purchase mutual funds when exposed to transformational advertisements. Moreover, investors with higher financial literacy prefer informational advertisements. The results also indicate that the informational advertisements are more useful and increase awareness levels among investors.     

Online advertising and privacy

An online platform auctions an advertising slot. Several advertisers compete in the auction, and consumers differ in their preferences. Prior to the auction, the platform decides whether to allow advertisers to access information about consumers (disclosure) or not (privacy). Disclosure improves the match between advertisers and consumers but increases product prices, even without price‐discrimination. We provide conditions under which disclosure or privacy is privately and/or socially optimal. When advertisers compete on the downstream market, disclosure can lead to an increase or a decrease in product prices depending on the nature of the information.     

Time diversification and security preferences: A stochastic dominance analysis

We use stochastic dominance to test whether investor should prefer riskier securities as the investment horizon lengthens. Return distributions for stocks, bonds, and U.S. Treasury bills are generated for holding periods of one to 25 years by simulation. For each holding period, stochastic dominance tests are run to establish preferences between the alternative security classes. Contrary to previous mean-variance based studies, we find no evidence that high-risk securities (stocks) dominate low-risk securities (bonds, Treasury bills) as the investment horizon lengthens. However, we do find that corporate bonds systematically dominate government bonds.     

Low‐income,low‐asset debtors in the U.S. bankruptcy system

The United States' bankruptcy system faces a major problem: many consumers are too poor to file for bankruptcy, usually because they cannot afford the necessary attorney fees. Some consumers appear to spend months trying to save the funds to pay their attorneys, thus either delaying their bankruptcies or foregoing bankruptcy altogether when they fail to save enough money. Others file for repayment bankruptcy in order to pay attorney fees during the case, when liquidation bankruptcy is usually a better fit for consumers with low incomes and low asset levels. The most recent comprehensive bankruptcy reform, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA), exacerbated these problems by implementing additional procedural requirements that resulted in attorneys raising their fees. These problems have led to calls for administrative bankruptcy, especially for low‐income, low‐asset (LILA)/no‐income, no‐asset (NINA) debtors. Administrative bankruptcy would make bankruptcy more accessible by lowering access costs, for example, by eliminating the need for consumers to hire attorneys. Administrative programs in the United States, however, have a history of long‐term decline, especially when these programs serve low‐income people. It has become a cliché that poor people's programs become poor programs. A better solution would be to eliminate the procedural requirements imposed by BAPCPA and simplify the decision consumers must make about which type of bankruptcy to use.     

An experimental evaluation of the effects of internal and external e-Assurance on initial trust formation in B2C e-commerce

Both “internally-provided” (IPeA) and “externally-provided” (EPeA) e-Assurances are being used by e-commerce businesses to build trust amongst consumers by alleviating concerns about the privacy and security of e-commerce transactions. The primary focus of this study is to test the effectiveness of EPeA on increasing trust and purchase intentions among potential consumers, and to test if EPeA have an additional effect beyond e-Assurances provided internally (IPeA). Our findings show the presence of EPeA did not affect consumers' trust or purchase intentions, nor did the presence of EPeA increase trust or purchase intentions beyond IPeA, which raises concerns about the value of EPeA to the e-commerce community.     

金融机构票据融资发展问题探析及建议

近几年,我国票据市场的票据签发量和贴现量均大幅增加,整体呈现快速发展趋势。但票据量及价格的大幅、频繁波动,也影响了票据融资功能的正常发挥。本文通过实证分析发现,贴现余额增量与实际信贷余额增量以及货币供应量M1余额增量均呈反向变化趋势,表明贴现量变化对货币供应量的调控产生了一定的负面影响。其主要原因在于,信贷考核指标中包含了票据贴现数量,票据贴现成为贷款数量调节器。为此,文章就如何完善金融机构票据管理,进而促进票据市场健康发展提出了相关建议。     

Attitudes Towards Genetically Modified Food with a Specific Consumer Benefit in Food Allergic Consumers and Non‐food Allergic Consumers

The aim of the reported study was to investigate attitudes towards genetically modified food with a specific consumer benefit. Fifty food allergic and one hundred non‐allergic consumers took part in a telephone interview study in each of Austria, Spain and the Netherlands. Participants were first asked about their purchase intentions for an unspecified genetically modified food. Next, participants were asked about their purchase intentions for a genetically modified food with a specific consumer benefit. Food allergic consumers were asked about ‘low‐allergen food’ produced using genetic modification and non‐allergic consumers were asked about ‘food that benefits your health’ produced using genetic modification. It was found that intention to purchase genetically modified food with these specific benefits was higher than intention to purchase an unspecified genetically modified food.     

Genetic engineering,genetic modification,or agricultural biotechnology: does the term matter?

The risk perception and communication literature appears to use terms such as genetic engineering (GE), genetic modification (GM), and agricultural biotechnology (agbiotech) almost interchangeably. The present research therefore seeks to compare the effect of these three terms on consumers’ cognitive, affective and behavioral component of attitude. The variables under investigation are consumers’ perceptions of risk, benefits, personal control over technology, support and promotion of the development of technology, dread, labeling, and purchase intentions. The study draws on the equivalency framing literature in conducting two question wording experiments whereby participants are randomly assigned to receive a version that uses just one of the three different terms. The first experiment found that the framing effect of food technology as either GE or GM may be contingent on source of information. When the technology was framed as GE and the information source was a consumer organization, respondents reported higher perceived personal control over the technology compared to when the information source was government, newspaper, or no source. Therefore, framing food as GE may be a somewhat beneficial for those who seek to promote the technology while framing the technology as GM might help those who oppose the technology. The second experiment found that using the terms agbiotech and GE were associated with higher perceived benefits, positive feelings, and purchase intention compared to GM. The ‘agbiotech’ term garnered the most relative support for the technology. Implications are discussed.     

Financial literacy and shrouded credit card rewards

Credit card companies charge an interchange fee for each transaction, and almost half of this fee is returned to consumers in the form of a reward or perk program. Among credit card users who do not use cards for borrowing (convenience users), rewards are a means to negotiate the implicit price of the interchange fee. Any consumer whose time cost is less than the value of rebates should rationally choose a reward card. Half of convenience users do not own a reward card. We hypothesize that credit card companies segment customers by marketing non-salient credit card characteristics to appeal to naïve consumers while offering lower-price cards (net the rebate) to compete for more sophisticated consumers as suggested in Gabaix and Laibson (2006). Consumer sophistication is measured using a 20-question financial literacy instrument in a large national data set. When household characteristics such as education, income and wealth are controlled in a multivariate analysis, respondents in the highest financial literacy quintile were twice as likely to own a rewards card. The relation between literacy and reward cards provides evidence that credit card rebates resemble other markets where hidden product attributes create a welfare transfer from naïve to sophisticated consumers.     

Changes in Expected Security Returns,Risk, and the Level of Interest Rates

Regressions of security returns on treasury bill rates provide insight about the behavior of risk in rational asset pricing models. The information in one-month bill rates implies time variation in the conditional covariances of portfolios of stocks and fixed-income securities with benchmark pricing variables, over extended samples and within five-year subperiods. There is evidence of changes in conditional “betas” associated with interest rates. Consumption and stock market data are examined as proxies for marginal utility, in a general framework for asset pricing with time-varying conditional covariances.