Stores

Summary There is scope and incentive for stores to endogenously arise in an exchange economy when agents possess different levels of bargaining power and coalition formation is costly. In the absence of stores, agents face a trading lottery where the expected outcome for an individual agent depends upon his relative bargaining strength. By setting appropriate, preannounced prices, a store can profitably offer relatively weak bargainers trading opportunities which they prefer to the trading lottery. While relatively weak bargainers are attracted to the store, relatively strong bargainers prefer the trading lottery to the store. Thus, the simultaneous existence of barter and mediated trade is explained.The work reported here was conceived while both authors were visiting the University of Southern California. We thank Martine Quinzii and two anonymous referees for helpful comments.     

领先技术能挽救EDA行业吗?--商业化的半导体设计软件业未雨绸缪

也许从表面上看,EDA(电子设计自动化)领域风平浪静,但其实一些大的改变正在酝酿着.     

Financial acumen, women speculators, and the Royal African company during the South Sea bubble

Price bubbles provide a unique opportunity to study the financial acumen of shareholders. We focus on the 1720 South Sea episode as experienced by the Royal African Company whose stock was more speculative than other joint stocks. During 1720 the company had a new large stock issue. This paper examines the financial acumen of those women who traded senior and engrafted stock across 1720. We find that depending on the pricing regime, these women at worst broke even on their activities or had positive speculative gains. Our findings are consistent with a growing literature on the positive link between gender, capital gains and financial markets.     

Determinants of Consumer Preferences for Honey in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Honey is one of the important non-timber forest products consumed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and, as such, an important source of income for many households. However, poor knowledge of buyers’ preferences in the marketing of honey presents a major challenge to the profitability of the honey enterprises. The research presented in this article identifies key consumer characteristics that influence the preferences of honey consumers in the DRC. The primary data source used in this analysis is drawn from a survey of 214 consumers. Results show that consumers who are married and have reached at least the level of secondary education have a strong preference for local forest and savannah honey. Those between the ages of 30 and 50 do not prefer honey from beekeeping, but would rather have it imported. We conclude that segmentation of the honey market and increasing consumer awareness must go in tandem in order to develop a good marketing strategy.     

Illustrating the Power of fsQCA in Explaining Paradoxical Consumer Environmental Orientations

Prior research on proenvironmental and prosocial behavior focuses primarily on explaining consistent rather than paradoxical tendencies. Even though this field receives wide attention from different scientific disciplines, findings for many causal factors of such proenvironmental orientation are contradictory. Nevertheless, knowing who those individuals are who think and behave in a pro‐/antienvironmental way or show a paradoxical behavior in this regard becomes useful for many different parties in human societies including public policy makers, governmental and nongovernmental environmental protection organizations, and for‐profit firms. Therefore, this study identifies those individuals who show neither consistent proenvironmental nor consistent antienvironmental tendencies as the “walkers‐only” and “talkers‐only” (i.e., for short, “walkers” and “talkers”). The former are defined as persons who put much effort into the recycling of waste materials but do not support pollution standards, whereas the latter term describes individuals who have a strong opinion with regard to the support of pollution standards yet do not engage in recycling efforts. The present study reports evidence of the existence of walkers and talkers. Further, this research is the first study to employ “fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis” to identify the complex antecedent conditions for some individuals’ paradoxical belief–behaviors in the field of socially and environmentally directed behaviors and orientations. The findings yield valuable insights both into the applicability and benefits of configural analysis and for public policy makers and managers in waste management and recycling industries.     

Employment and absenteeism in working-age persons with multiple sclerosis

Aims: To better understand the impact of the clinical course of multiple sclerosis (MS) and disability on employment, absenteeism, and related factors.

Materials and methods: This study included respondents to the North American Research Committee on Multiple Sclerosis Registry spring 2015 update survey who were US or Canadian residents, aged 18–65 years and reported having relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS), secondary progressive MS (SPMS), or primary progressive MS (PPMS). The RRMS and SPMS participants were combined to form the relapsing-onset MS (RMS) group and compared with the PPMS group regarding employment status, absenteeism, and disability. Multivariable logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between employment-related outcomes and factors that may affect these relationships.

Results: Of the 8004 survey respondents, 5887 (73.6%) were 18–65 years of age. The PPMS group (n?=?344) had a higher proportion of males and older mean age at the time of the survey and at time of diagnosis than the RMS group (n?=?4829). Female sex, age, age at diagnosis, cognitive and hand function impairment, fatigue, higher disability levels, ≥3 comorbidities, and a diagnosis of PPMS were associated with not working. After adjustment for disability, the employed PPMS sub-group reported similar levels of absenteeism to the employed RMS sub-group.

Limitations: Limitations of the study include self-report of information and the possibility that participants may not fully represent the working-age MS population.

Conclusions: In MS, employment status and absenteeism are negatively affected by disability, cognitive impairment, and fatigue. These findings underscore the need for therapies that prevent disability progression and other symptoms that negatively affect productivity in persons with MS to enable them to persist in the workforce.     

Do measurement-related fair value disclosures affect information asymmetry?

Using a sample of European real estate firms over the 2007–2010 period, this study provides some evidence that measurement-related fair value disclosures reduce information asymmetry. We find a negative association between the extent of fair value disclosures and the bid-ask spread, but no association with two additional measures of information asymmetry (zero returns and price impact). Contrary to our expectation, we fail to find evidence that firms using model estimates exclusively benefit the most from such additional disclosure. Analysing measurement errors (the absolute difference between the selling price of an asset and its fair value prior to sale), we find that firms that use model estimates exclusively and provide more measurement-related disclosures have lower errors and more accurate fair value estimates. In other words, if our lack of results is due to investors not using this additional disclosure this is to their detriment.     

特权商标:冠名权与公共设施(下)

本文批判了以公司品牌、商品名称或个人姓名冠名于公共设施领域(physical public domain)的现象。文章指出,政府机构推行的冠名权政策及实践、商标法与公开权法理三者之间存在着未被意识到的公共政策的冲突。文章认为,冠名行为往往使公共资产遭到不民主、不公平、不合法、不适当的私用,并构成一种受迫性言论(compelled speech)。文章认为可以采用替代机制来选定公共设施的冠名。     

A Model of the Determinants of International Trade in Higher Education

This article focuses on a neglected aspect of international trade in services i.e. trade in Higher Education. The purpose of the research endeavour is to draw together the determinants of this trade using its most visible aspect - foreign students. There are many categories of foreign student, but the study is confined to those students who opt to complete higher educational outside the home country. There is much competition among host nations for international students and the factors influencing demand for and supply of university places for foreign students are considered, using medical education as a case study. Little if any attention has been given to theory generation in this field and this study was undertaken to redres the balance. The model presented here clearly illustrartes the many variables which impact on a student's decision to stydy overseas, and their choice qf destination, the most critial one being information.     

Evidence of Industry Scale Effects on Audit Hours,Billing Rates,and Pricing

Using a proprietary data set consisting of all private firm audit engagements in 2000 from one Big 4 firm in Belgium, we investigate (i) whether audit office industry scale is associated with a reduction of total, partner, and staff audit hours and thus with efficiency gains triggered by organizational learning from servicing more clients in an industry and (ii) whether the extent of efficiency pass‐on from the auditor to its clients depends on the audit firm's market power. We find that auditor office industry scale is associated with efficiency gains and a reduction of the variable costs (i.e., fewer total audit hours, partner hours, and staff hours), ceteris paribus. Our results also suggest that, on average, realized efficiencies are entirely passed on, as evidenced by a nonsignificant effect of auditor industry scale on the auditor's billing rate. Furthermore, we find that the extent of the efficiency pass‐on decreases with the market power of the audit firm in the industry market segment as we document a higher billing rate for auditors with high market power (versus low market power). In addition, we find that the lower audit hours associated with auditor industry scale do not compromise audit quality.