挑战极限之美——攀岩：勇敢者的游戏

人类在与自然的融合过程中．极限运动借助于现代高科技手段,最大限度地发挥了自我身心潜能。它除了追求竞技体育“更高、更快、更强”的精神外,更强调参与、娱乐和勇敢精神,追求在跨越心理障碍时所获得的愉悦感和成就感,同时,它还体现了人类返璞归真、回归自然,保护环境的美好愿望。     

在阳光下尽情驰骋

适当的运动不仅能使人保持健康体态,还能舒缓身心。如今,一项高雅的贵族运动正在都市白领们中间悄悄兴起,那就是骑马。假日里,骑着马在绿茵茵的草地上尽情驰骋,既可以锻炼意志、增强体魄,又能欣赏大自然的美景、呼吸新鲜空气,实在是一项非常浪漫的活动。     

流畅奢华万宝龙

一个白色的六角图案,状似雪花,又好像星星,这就是厉峰集团旗下的著名奢侈品品牌万宝龙的标识。在一个多世纪的发展过程中,万宝龙以力臻完美的宗旨打造生活精品,小小的白色六角标识也成为引领时尚的重要符号。     

“网络”客生活——晒客：网络新族群

在这个互联网时代,越来越多的入开始通过网络找到自己喜欢的数字生活方式,并乐在其中。一些以视频起家的网站推动“播客一族”走向成熟;“闪客一族”的一次次活动策划也更加专业;2007年上线的“试用网”将欧美的“试客”概念带到了中国……此外,更大众化且能为生活带来种种便利和乐趣的“拼客”、“晒客”、“账客”在互联网上已经屡见不鲜。网络时代的“客生活”不仅仅为我们带来乐趣,如果用心经营,或许还能带来一笔小小的意外之财。读完本期专题中的文章,您想要选择什么样的“客生活”？     

名人故居：大北京的“小地方”

北京是著名的旅游城市,知名景点有很多,但正是因为有这些知名景点,让很多人忽略了北京一些颇有人文底蕴的“小地方”。作为历史文化名城,在北京居住过的名人数不胜数,他们留下的故居可谓北京一景。虽然这些名人故居比起故宫、颐和园,是不折不扣的“小地方”,但若置身其间,细细品味,其特有的历史厚重感和浓郁的文化气息,却令人回味无穷。     

Investor Behavior and the Benefits of Direct Stock Ownership

Using an experiment to rule out reverse causality, we examine whether a small investment in a company's stock leads investors to purchase more of the company's products and adopt other views and preferences that benefit the company. We preregister our research methods, hypotheses, and supplemental analyses via the Journal of Accounting Research’s registration‐based editorial process. We find little evidence consistent with these hypotheses for the average investor in our sample using our planned univariate hypothesis tests, and planned Bayesian parameter estimation shows substantial downward belief revision for more optimistic ex ante expectations of the treatment effects. In planned supplemental analyses, however, we do find that the effects of ownership on product purchase behavior and on regulatory preferences are intuitively stronger for certain subgroups of investors—namely, for investors who are most likely to purchase the types of products offered by the company and for investors who are most likely to vote on political matters. The results contribute to our understanding of the benefits of direct stock ownership and are informative to public company managers and directors.     

Product Market Competition and Human Resource Practices in the Retail Food Sector

In the wake of Wal‐Mart and other mass merchandisers’ entry into food retailing, the nature of competition in the industry has changed radically. Using longitudinal data on workers and firms to construct measures of compensation and churning for traditional food retailers, this paper examines how these measures change in response to mass merchandiser entry. While there is considerable heterogeneity across retail food establishments, human resource practices are persistent even in the face of new external competition.     

Skill Level and Recreation Conflict among Skiers and Snowboarders

This paper examines out-group and in-group normative beliefs about unacceptable behaviors (conflict) reported by skiers and snowboarders with varying skill levels. Individuals with greater skills in skiing and snowboarding were predicted to experience more conflict than those with less ability in the activity. Across all skill levels, skiers and snowboarders were hypothesized to report more out-group than in-group conflict. Data were obtained from surveys (n = 595) distributed at five ski resorts in Colorado. Skiers and snowboarders rated their skill level on a four-point scale (beginner, intermediate, advanced, or expert). Multiple item indices were created to measure observed unacceptable behaviors between skiers and snowboarders. Analyses supported both hypotheses. As perceived skill level increased, out-group and in-group conflict increased for both skiers and snowboarders. Within each skill level, skiers reported more unacceptable behaviors by snowboarders than with fellow skiers, and snowboarders also identified more out-group than in-group conflict.     

Collective Wage Contracts,Opt‐Out Clauses,and Firm Wage Differentials: Evidence from Linked Employer–Employee Data

Using a large linked employer–employee data set, this article studies whether the existence and use of flexibility provisions within centralized collective wage agreements alter the structure of pay across employers. Using level regressions and first‐difference methods, we find that—compared with contracts without any flexibility—wages under opt‐out clauses are more responsive to local profitability conditions in below‐average‐performing establishments. In contrast, the sensitivity of wages to local profitability is smaller in high‐performance establishments. Our results provide further evidence for a threat potential of the existence of opt‐out clauses whose impact on flexibility is larger than the real application.     

Hedge Fund Contagion and Liquidity Shocks

Defining contagion as correlation over and above that expected from economic fundamentals, we find strong evidence of worst return contagion across hedge fund styles for 1990 to 2008. Large adverse shocks to asset and hedge fund liquidity strongly increase the probability of contagion. Specifically, large adverse shocks to credit spreads, the TED spread, prime broker and bank stock prices, stock market liquidity, and hedge fund flows are associated with a significant increase in the probability of hedge fund contagion. While shocks to liquidity are important determinants of performance, these shocks are not captured by commonly used models of hedge fund returns.