Short-term wholesale funding and systemic risk: A global CoVaR approach

We use the CoVaR approach to identify the main factors behind systemic risk in a set of large international banks. We find that short-term wholesale funding is a key determinant in triggering systemic risk episodes. In contrast, we find weaker evidence that either size or leverage contributes to systemic risk within the class of large international banks. We also show that asymmetries based on the sign of bank returns play an important role in capturing the sensitivity of system-wide risk to individual bank returns. Since short-term wholesale funding emerges as the most relevant systemic factor, our results support the Basel Committee’s proposal to introduce a net stable funding ratio, penalizing excessive exposure to liquidity risk.     

Humor and cognitive responses to advertising stimuli: A trace consolidation approach

Despite the predictions of several attitude change theories, most empirical research suggests that humorous communications are no more persuasive than their serious counterparts. The present study adopted a trace consolidation theory approach and tested the hypothesis that humorous appeals are more persuasive than serious appeals when time for trace consolidation is allowed. The trace consolidation theory hypothesis was supported most directly by shifts in cognitive responses. On some measures, sex differences were also observed. Specifically, males were found to be more susceptible than females to the humorous persuasive appeal.     

The employee selection interview: A fresh look at an old problem

This article takes a fresh look at employee selection interviews as they are practiced in most organizations. Interviewers' selection decisions are demonstrated to be idiosyncratic and it is concluded that variation in interviewers' decision processes jeopardizes organizational effectiveness. Practical recommendations for improving employment interviews are offered. © 1996 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Sustainable tourism planning and climate change adaptation in the Alps: a case study of winter tourism in mountain communities in the Dolomites

A vast body of literature suggests that the European Alpine Region is extremely sensitive to climate change. Winter tourism is closely related to climate variations, especially in mountain regions where resorts are heavily dependent on snow. This paper explores how to effectively integrate a climate change adaptation perspective with local discourses about sustainability and tourism, an increasing priority for policy-makers in the region and elsewhere. It reports on the development and application of a participatory decision support process for the analysis of adaptation strategies for local development of an Alpine tourism destination, Auronzo di Cadore (Dolomites, Italy). This experience significantly contributed to the idea that an efficient combination of modelling capabilities, decision support tools, and participatory processes can substantially improve decision-making for sustainability. The authors show that, in this case study, such a combination of methods and tools allowed for managing the involvement of local actors, stimulating local debates on climate change adaptation and possible consequences on winter tourism, encouraging creativity and smoothing potential conflicts, and easing the integration of the qualitative knowledge and the preferences of the involved actors with quantitative information. This contributed to an integrated sustainability assessment of alternative strategies for sustainable tourism planning.     

Off-season tourists and the cultural offer of a mass-tourism destination: The case of Rimini

This paper assesses the potential implications on off-season tourism of enhancing the cultural offer of Rimini, a popular Italian seaside holiday destination hosting about 12 million overnight stays per year. Since more than 9 million of these stays are concentrated in the summer season, in the last 20 years. Rimini has been undergoing a policy of seasonality smoothing, which mainly pivots around business and cultural tourism. This assessment has been carried out through discrete choice experiments submitted to a sample of about 800 tourists who visited Rimini outside the summer months. Since tourism can be viewed as a composite good, which overall utility depends on how the component characteristics are arranged, the choice experiments allow to disentangle the importance and the willingness to pay of tourists for different attributes of the holiday. The choice model incorporates a number of possible changes to actual tourism features (which are also the subject of public debate), including them in hypothetical alternative “holiday packages”. The conditional logit analysis of the choice experiments can highlight any synergy or trade-off between cultural and business tourism. Results suggest that business and leisure tourists share many features related to the use of the territory, while there are important trade-offs between these two groups and cultural tourists. Since business tourists have a higher willingness to extend their stay, a softer budget, and their demand is also complementary to the demand of summer tourists (Brau, Scorcu, & Vici, 2009), from the destination point of view investing in this market segment would be the best option. Although a “second best”, however, cultural tourists share with the local population of Rimini many aspects of the demand of territory (Figini, Castellani, & Vici, 2009). Hence, cultural tourism can play a fundamental role in the intermediate season as a tool for smoothing seasonality, to diversify investments and to give value to the city’s cultural heritage.     

Patient intensity in an ambulatory oncology research center: A step forward for the field of ambulatory care--Part II

Nursing leaders in ambulatory care need to objectively quantify patient intensity to balance patient care needs and nursing resources. In this three-part series, current literature on acuity/intensity tools will be reviewed, and the development of an Ambulatory Intensity System (AIS) to objectively quantify nursing care will be described. In this article, the ongoing implementation of the system, its incorporation into the organization's established computerized appointment system, reliability measures, and related performance improvement activities will be discussed.     

Asymmetries and interdependencies in time use between Italian parents

In recent decades, changes in parents’ attitudes towards the importance of spending time with children to optimize their future behaviour and cognitive development have greatly affected patterns of time allocation among both working and nonworking parents in all developed countries. We compare the two waves of the Italian Time Use dataset (1988 and 2002) to analyse how family time allocation changed over time in a country that was undergoing a marked increase in female employment rate and a continuous decline in total fertility rate. We focus especially on how parents’ time with their children depends on their employment status and household characteristics. Using a simultaneous sequential approach, we consider links among the different time uses of individuals and correlations with spouses’ decisions. We find that wives’ time at work time strongly influences the time spent by both spouses with their children in 2002, but not in 1988. Fathers were much more involved in childcare and rearing in 2002 than in 1988. In general, as women's work time increased, substitutes for their childcare time were found within the household (fathers or other co-resident adults).     

Analysing the risk premium in the Italian stock market: ARCH-M models versus non-parametric models

This Paper investigates the variability of the risk premium in the Italian stock market, over the period 1978–89. We have modelled voatility using two different approaches: ARCH-M models and non-parametric models. The estimate of the ARCH-M models confirm the existence of both an ARCH process in the variance and a time-varying risk premium. Also the non-parametric specification confirms the existence of a time varying risk premium. Moreover in both models the acceleration in the inflation rate has a negative effect on stock prices.