Optimal price and advertising policy for new products

Extending a model originally proposed by Bass, a “diffusion model” is developed that allows us to investigate the effects of certain price and advertising strategies during and after the introduction of new products by means of numerical computer simulation. The distinction between “innovators” and “imitators” forms the core of the model. A wide variety of implications for marketing strategies is derived.     

Problem einer synthetischen Betrachtung der Produktionsfunktion

Ohne ZusammenfassungMit 5 TextabbildungenVortrag, 5. Februar 1964, Technische Hochschule Hannover.     

Systemically important banks: an analysis for the European banking system

In this paper we perform an empirical analysis to identify systemically important banks by a few individual bank characteristics that are easy to observe in practice. This analysis builds on a new method to construct measures of systemic relevance of individual institutions that are consistent with a risk analysis at the level of the banking system, taking correlations in bank asset returns into account. We derive asset return correlations for a sample of European publicly traded banks from market data and construct two risk measures: incremental value at risk and conditional expected shortfall. Incremental value at risk quantifies the individual contributions of banks to the system’s Value-at-Risk. Conditional expected shortfall measures the increase in the expected system wide deposit insurance liability that would follow from the default of an institution. The analysis of hypothetical defaults of institutions is performed consistently with the observed distribution of asset returns by using the conditional distribution. Both measures are then analyzed in a panel regression where individual characteristics are used to explain incremental value at risk and conditional expected shortfall.     

The impact of different scenarios for intermittent bladder catheterization on health state utilities: results from an internet-based time trade-off survey

Aims: Intermittent catheterization (IC) is the gold standard for bladder management in patients with chronic urinary retention. Despite its medical benefits, IC users experience a negative impact on their quality of life (QoL). For health economics based decision making, this impact is normally measured using generic QoL measures (such as EQ-5D) that estimate a single utility score which can be used to calculate quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). But these generic measures may not be sensitive to all relevant aspects of QoL affected by intermittent catheters. This study used alternative methods to estimate the health state utilities associated with different scenarios: using a multiple-use catheter, one-time-use catheter, pre-lubricated one-time-use catheter and pre-lubricated one-time-use catheter with one less urinary tract infection (UTI) per year.

Methods: Health state utilities were elicited through an internet-based time trade-off (TTO) survey in adult volunteers representing the general population in Canada and the UK. Health states were developed to represent the catheters based on the following four attributes: steps and time needed for IC process, pain and the frequency of UTIs.

Results: The survey was completed by 956 respondents. One-time-use catheters, pre-lubricated one-time-use catheters and ready-to-use catheters were preferred to multiple-use catheters. The utility gains were associated with the following features: one time use (Canada: +0.013, UK: +0.021), ready to use (all: +0.017) and one less UTI/year (all: +0.011).

Limitations: Internet-based survey responders may have valued health states differently from the rest of the population: this might be a source of bias.

Conclusion: Steps and time needed for the IC process, pain related to IC and the frequency of UTIs have a significant impact on IC related utilities. These values could be incorporated into a cost utility analysis.     

Delay in contests

Why is there delay in contests? In this paper, we follow and extend the line of reasoning of Carl von Clausewitz to explain delay. For a given contest technology, delay may occur if there is an asymmetry between defense and attack, if the expected change in relative strengths is moderate, and if the additional cost of investment in future strength is low.     

Confidence Bands for Impulse Responses: Bonferroni vs. Wald

In impulse response analysis estimation uncertainty is typically displayed by constructing bands around estimated impulse response functions. If they are based on the joint asymptotic distribution possibly constructed with bootstrap methods in a frequentist framework, often individual confidence intervals are simply connected to obtain the bands. Such bands are known to be too narrow and have a joint coverage probability lower than the desired one. If instead the Wald statistic is used and the joint bootstrap distribution of the impulse response coefficient estimators is taken into account and mapped into the band, it is shown that such a band is typically rather conservative. It is argued that, by using the Bonferroni method, a band can often be obtained which is smaller than the Wald band.     

Exploring the ethical behavior of managers: A comparative study of four countries

Donaldson and Dunfee's (1994) social contracts theory of economic ethics was subjected to empirical scrutiny to determine whether it can explain differences in behavior between cultures. Data collected utilizing a series of vignettes developed by Fritzsche and Becker (1984) were examined for differences in indicated ethical behavior among American, Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese managers. Rationale for the behavior was classified according to hyper and community norms which were supported or violated. The results suggest that the three East Asian countries do not neatly cluster together in relation to the U.S. in terms of their patterns of ethical behavior. Nonetheless, when we examined the specific rationale for the decisions provided by the managers, the effects of Asian cultural characteristics became more notable. We also found that the social contracts theory provided a much needed bridge between ethical universalists and relativists. The specific reasons underlying their decisions are discussed in the light of cultural and social differences.This research project was partially supported by a research grant from the School of Business and Management, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.     

Das neue Medien-Menü: Fernsehen und WWW als funktionale Alternativen?

As new media technologies develop and become established, the supply of media services expands. Along with this development, the question arises of how this affects traditional media. As other new media have, the Internet, too, has triggered debates about the future of the «old» media. This paper discusses whether the proliferation of the World Wide Web can have effects on television use. To do this, both relevant theoretical approaches and the state of empirical research are introduced and discussed. Present research results do not consider the systematic difference between cognitive schemata concerning media use as they are reproduced in face-to-face interviews on the one hand, and actual media use on the other. An innovative research concept is developed that takes this critique into account and differentiates between gratification expectations and situational gratifications sought and obtained. As regards gratification expectations, television is superior to the World Wide Web. It is more powerful on all gratification dimensions. Considering actual use, though, the World Wide Web has already outstripped television on some of the dimensions. It is used more often to satisfy specific needs. Thus, cognitive schemata of media use lag behind the actual changes in every day life.     

Conflict and the Social Contract*

We consider social contracts for resolving conflicts between two agents who are uncertain about each other's fighting potential. Applications include international conflict, litigation and elections. Even though only a peaceful agreement avoids a loss of resources, if this loss is small enough, then any contract must assign a positive probability of conflict. We show how the likelihood of conflict outbreak depends on the distribution of power between the agents and their information about each other.