Drownings in Scotland: the real story

The Scottish Accident Prevention Council is responsible for promoting water safety in Scotland. It has long expressed concern that the number of reported drownings in Scotland underestimates the actual figures. The key aims of this study were to establish a valid database of water-based incidents in Scotland and test the under-reporting proposition. A survey involving interviews and correspondence was undertaken to establish the sources of information on drownings. Once identified, a database was established and data for a 7-year period acquired. The study identified the organizations essential to the establishment of a complete database. It also established protocols for gaining annual information. Data analysis confirmed a significant under-reporting of accident data and signalled a number of areas of concern with regard to those most at risk. The study produced, for the first time, a mechanism for recording complete details of drownings in Scotland.     

通用电气有一个不错的主意

通用电气公司使用因特网后，在其保底线外又增加了１６亿美元的收入。这是一种意外收获，还是一种开始？     

Rating tourism and hospitality journals

This paper reports on the findings of a global study of tourism and hospitality academics asking them to rate their collective literature. The study adopted a peer assessment method, using a snowball sample to maximize response rates. Overall, 70 tourism and hospitality journals were assessed (40 tourism and 30 hospitality) by 314 tourism and 191 hospitality experts. The study revealed that tourism and hospitality community, collectively, rates its journals in a clear hierarchy based on a combination of awareness and perceived quality rating.     

‘All they lack is a chain’: lean and the new performance management in the British civil service

The adaptation of lean techniques in public services is viewed as an innovative managerialist response to government demands for more efficient services amidst large reductions in public spending. This paper explores workers' experiences of the impact of lean on work organisation and control and provides new insights into developments within contemporary back office clerical work.     

Variance Spillover and Skewness in Financial Asset Returns

Bond and stock returns have been observed in the literature to exhibit unconditional skewness and temporal persistence in conditional skewness. We demonstrate that observed persistence in conditional third central moments can be due to the spillover of conditional variance dynamics. The confounding of true skewness and a variance spillover effect is problematic for financial modeling. Using market data, we empirically demonstrate that a simple standardization approach removes the variance‐induced skewness persistence. An important implication is that more parsimonious return and asset pricing models result if skewness persistence need not be modeled.     

The role of social presence in mortality salience effects

Terror management theory (TMT; Greenberg et al., 1986) suggests that reminders of death intensify the desire to express cultural norms leading to culturally prescribed behavior such as charitable giving, church attendance, and exorbitant spending. Living up to these norms provides high levels of self-esteem, which can serve as a buffer against existential anxiety. The present paper argues that people can experience an extra self-esteem boost when they act in accordance with cultural norms while others can observe this behavior. More specifically, the present studies hypothesized and found that the presence of others (i.e., social presence) moderates mortality salience effects on consumption-related behavior. Study 1 demonstrates that consumers, under conditions of mortality salience, express more favorable attitudes towards a luxury brand (valued in Western cultures) when they know that other can observe their behavior. Study 2 extended these results to non-luxury brands. Under conditions of mortality salience, consumers express less favorable evaluations of non-luxury (non-valued brands) when they are aware of the presence of others. These results imply that consumers derive self-esteem indirectly from the knowledge that others observe their appropriate behavior rather than directly from following the cultural values or norms of one's society.     

战胜感性

如何恪守理性投资是每个投资者面临的难题。而神经经济学的一些新发现可以帮助你在解决这个难题时做得更好有时候,你会冲动地买进一只危险的股票。有时候,你的投资正在不停地贬值,可你就是没法卖出它。还有的时候,你明明知道自己该为退休做更充分的准备,但就是无法恪守自己的计划。对绝大多数投资者而言,这些不理智、短视的决定往往都是下意识的行为:就像看到蟑螂马上用报纸去打一样。但是,新诞生的神经经济学 (neuroeconomics)这个学科可以帮助投资者们学会如何抵制他们这种自我毁灭的倾向。     

Issues in measuring a monthly house price index in New Zealand

The sale price appraisal ratio (SPAR) method, which takes the ratios of the current house prices and their previous assessed values to construct an index, has been applied in New Zealand since the 1960s. This paper uses housing market transaction data for 12 cities in New Zealand (1994–2004) to develop monthly SPAR house price indices. These indices were subjected to a variety of statistical tests and benchmarked against the comparable monthly quality controlled weighted repeat sales indices. Finally, the paper provides some useful suggestions for future research based on the SPAR index and other alternative house price indices, such as the assessed value (AV) method.