Silver fetters? The rise and fall of the Chinese price level 1928–34

We show how the silver standard transmitted world silver price fluctuations into China and made the Chinese price level closely linked to the world silver price. Inflation was transmitted between 1929 and 1931 when the world silver price was falling; while deflation was transmitted during 1932 and 1934 when the world silver price was rising. Using micro-level evidence and counterfactual simulations, we show that the exchange rate was the main shock transmission channel, and silver stocks played an insignificant role.     

Behaviour of intra-daily stock return on an Asian emerging market - Hong Kong

This study examines the intra-daily return behaviour of one of the most open Asian emerging markets - Hong Kong. It is found that there is a general increase in the positive skewness and kurtosis of all the intra-daily returns after the 1987 October crash and the distributions of all the returns have become non-normal after the crash. There seems to be more day-of-the-week and time-of-the-day variations in the post-crash period than in the pre-crash period. There also exists some day-end effect in both of the periods and such a day-end effect seems to be related to the day of the week.     

A Study of the Attitude toward Convergent Products: A Focus on the Consumer Perception of Functionalities

The convergent product is an increasingly important phenomenon in the marketplace. The convergent product allows the developer to include more and more diverse functionalities into their products, which can satisfy a broad range of consumer needs. However, failures of convergent products arouse the need to understand its functionalities, and the optimal combination of functionalities and their relationships to attitude and purchase intention. In addition, because convergent product has the potential to offer more diverse functionality, we consider if this will have impacts on instrumental and emotional needs fulfillment and attitude and purchase intention. Additionally, consumer innovativeness was examined to ascertain if there were differences among consumers on their classification of the functionalities, or if it will moderate functional diversity, needs fulfillment, and product attitude. Using the Kano model, this study examined the nature of these relationships by examining the functionalities of a smartphone. Overall, our results show that the convergent products that include functionalities from two of the three categories of the Kano model, must‐have and attractive, were rated more positively. Consumer innovativeness differences were found. Consumers with high innovativeness considered must‐have and one‐dimensional functionalities the most important, and consumers with low innovativeness considered all three important, although one‐dimensional functionalities were considered significantly less important. Although increasing functional diversity positively raises product attitude and purchase intention, it tends to raise emotional needs fulfillment only once instrumental needs have been met, especially for respondents showing low innovativeness. The findings should arouse interest about factors that should not be overlooked when developing new convergent products.     

The trend and the measurement of world inequality over extended periods of accounting

The principal result of this paper is the demonstration of a method for measuring an index of (e.g.) nominal GNP over extended periods of time and the inequality thereof. ‘Snap shot’ inequality for specific points in 1964, 1972 and 1980 is also reported and decomposed for six subgroups in 122 countries.     

FINANCIAL LIBERALIZATION AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: A THEORETICAL ANALYSIS OF THE TRANSFORMING CHINESE ECONOMY

Abstract. We conduct a theoretical investigation into how financial reforms are affecting the long‐run economic performance of the partially reformed Chinese economy. In a model with a dual structure in commodity production and financial repression, allowing the co‐existence of a state banking system and an informal credit market and introducing heterogeneity in the transaction technologies of individuals, we examine the interactions between the state banking system and the informal credit market, and the effects of various measures of financial liberalization on individuals’ optimal portfolio choices and the macroeconomic aggregates.     

A qualitative cross-impact approach to find the key technology

This article presents a qualitative analysis method based on fuzzy relations for a cross-impact model designed for a technology impact assessment. The cross-impact knowledge is often uncertain or fuzzy when dealing with future events. Assessing the cross-impact relationships among future technologies creates a more uncertain or fuzzy situation because of the time and the uncertainty involved in evaluating future technologies. In addition, experts prefer to use linguistic terms or fuzzy values in their predictions. Thus a cross-impact matrix is represented as fuzzy relations on causal concepts. We therefore develop inference algorithms based on fuzzy relations and show a simple technology assessment example to illustrate this approach. This approach is useful in finding the key technology because it considers not only the direct impact but also the indirect impact.     

Dividend policies in Australia and Japan

This paper presents the findings of a comparative study of dividend policies in Australia and Japan. It examines panel data from the constituent stocks of the ASX 200 Index of the Australian stock market and the Nikkei 225 Index of the Japanese stock market. The evidence that Australia, with an imputation tax system which favors dividends over capital gains, has a significantly higher dividend payout than Japan lends support to the influence of environment on dividend policy. Dividend policies in Australia and Japan are affected by different financial factors. Fixed effects regression models indicate that dividend policies are affected positively by size in Australia and liquidity in Japan, and negatively by risk in Japan only. An industry effect is found to be significant in both countries.     

A learning-based model of repeated games with incomplete information

This paper tests a learning-based model of strategic teaching in repeated games with incomplete information. The repeated game has a long-run player whose type is unknown to a group of short-run players. The proposed model assumes a fraction of ‘short-run’ players follow a one-parameter learning model (self-tuning EWA). In addition, some ‘long-run’ players are myopic while others are sophisticated and rationally anticipate how short-run players adjust their actions over time and “teach” the short-run players to maximize their long-run payoffs. All players optimize noisily. The proposed model nests an agent-based quantal-response equilibrium (AQRE) and the standard equilibrium models as special cases. Using data from 28 experimental sessions of trust and entry repeated games, including 8 previously unpublished sessions, the model fits substantially better than chance and much better than standard equilibrium models. Estimates show that most of the long-run players are sophisticated, and short-run players become more sophisticated with experience.