Density forecasting through disaggregation

In this paper, the revised expectations model (REM) is developed to incorporate economic agents’ price expectation formation effects. With this incorporation, two models, an aggregate one sector model and a disaggregated multi-sector model, are estimated and used in density forecasting of the US real GDP growth rate. The experiment shows that use of the disaggregated version of the model, which incorporates price expectation effects along with modern Bayesian MCMC estimation and prediction techniques, produces more precise density forecasts than those yielded by either an aggregate version or benchmark forecasting models.     

The Impact of Store-Price Signals on Consumer Search and Store Evaluation

Always low price (ALP) and low price guarantee (LPG) are store-price signals that retailers frequently use to induce favorable store-price image and discourage consumers from comparing prices across stores. Although both policies signal low prices, only LPG is an obligatory promise to beat rival stores’ prices. Results of two shopping simulations show that when consumer search costs are relatively low, ALP may effectively discourage consumer search whereas LPG may trigger more search. Paradoxically, consumers tend to evaluate ALP stores less favorably (as having lower integrity and higher self-serving intention) than LPG stores even when both signals appear to be credible. These findings suggest that LPG is a superior tactic for creating a favorable store image while ALP is more effective for discouraging consumer search. The results also indicate that consumers visit fewer stores when the LPG is not a credible signal of lowest market price than when it is credible. This is because consumers are inclined to either claim discounts or refunds at the non-credible LPG store or to purchase at the competing store with a lower price rather than continue searching.     

Injury prevention priority setting based on the National Injury Surveillance data in Korea

For the reduction of injury burden, injury prevention efforts are essential. However, financial, material and human resources are far from sufficient, and this situation necessitates setting priorities for effective injury prevention. Hence, the aim of this study is to prioritise 13 injury mechanisms for prevention of injury using four injury burden criteria. National death certificate, hospital discharge data and emergency data during 2004 were used. According to the 13 most frequent injury mechanisms (ICD-10), mortality priority score, years of potential life lost (YPLL) priority score, morbidity priority score and hospital charge priority score were calculated. Injury mechanisms which were ranked fourth or higher on at least three of the four criteria scores were arranged in rank orders. Traffic crashes ranked highest on all four of the priority criteria for injury prevention followed by fall and poisoning in second and third positions, respectively. Categorised by age groups, in 0-19 year olds, traffic crashes, suffocation and drowning; in 20-59 years, traffic crashes, suffocation and poisoning; and in 60 and over, traffic crashes and fall were shown to be significant injury prevention priority in rank orders. Injury prevention priorities identified from this study could be useful in strategically allocating limited resources and implementing more focused prevention policies in Korea.     

A study of the relationship between corporate governance structures and the extent of voluntary disclosure

The primary objective of this study is to test a theoretical framework relating four major corporate governance attributes with the extent of voluntary disclosure provided by listed firms in Hong Kong. These corporate governance attributes are the proportion of independent directors to total number of directors on the board, the existence of a voluntary audit committee, the existence of dominant personalities (CEO/Chairman duality), and the percentage of family members on the board. Using a weighted relative disclosure index for measuring voluntary disclosure, the results indicate that the existence of an audit committee is significantly and positively related to the extent of voluntary disclosure, while the percentage of family members on the board is negatively related to the extent of voluntary disclosure. The study provides empirical evidence to policy makers and regulators in East Asia for implementing the two new board governance requirements on audit committee and family control.     

A Holistic Approach to Understanding the Use of Travel Guidebooks: Pre-, During,and Post-Trip Behavior

This study proposed a holistic approach to understanding the usage of travel guidebooks. Guidebooks were revealed to outperform other travel information sources in the stages of “during” and “post-travel” but lost their competitiveness in the pre-trip planning to the Internet, especially on the search for information on destination and accommodation. A factor analysis on an 18-item instrument concluded that travelers possess six underlying need dimensions when using guidebooks: reflective, security, confirming, destination, itinerary, and functional needs. Therefore, recommendations were provided for practitioners to reconsider the positioning of travel guidebooks when formulating product development and marketing strategies.     

Grey Relational Analysis and Neural Network Forecasting of REIT returns

This study employs the Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to measure the impact of key elements on the forecasting performance of real estate investment trust (REIT) returns. To manage risks from a real estate price bubble, the findings of GRA suggest that the REIT is best influenced by industrial production index, lending rate, dividend yield, stock index and its own lagged performance. Consequently, this paper adjusts the parameters from GRA and inserts the key elements into the fitted ANN model by comparing the learning effect of the Back-propagation Neural Network (BPN). This study found that the ranking provided by the GRA is significant in correcting prediction errors using the learning outcome of the BPN. The neural network model proved to minimize error function and was able to adjust weighted values in order to enhance prediction accuracy.     

Asymmetric Information,Auditing Commitment,and Economic Growth

We analyze in this paper the growth and welfare consequences stemming from the lack of auditing commitment in a credit market with costly state verification. By studying two endogenous growth models, one of which allows lenders to commit to costly auditing strategies, whereas the other does not, we show that the inability to commit serves as a source of informational friction that results in more stringent contractual terms, which, in turn, result in lower capital accumulation, growth, and welfare. From the policy perspective, our analysis suggests a new micro‐economic channel through which institutional failings hinder economic growth and social welfare.     

Can the baseline search and matching model quantitatively explain Okun’s law?

Okun’s Law is an empirically observed, negative relationship between changes in an economy’s unemployment rate and its growth rate of output. The baseline search and matching model with stochastic labour productivity fails to match the Okun’s coefficient, because it generates a too low unemployment volatility and a too high correlation between labour productivity and unemployment. The model is capable of matching the coefficient if it is extended with an addition of employment separation shocks plus a high calibrated value of nonmarket activities. This article also shows that changes in the stochastic properties of exogenous shocks could explain changes in the Okun’s coefficient in the Great Moderation (1984–2007).     

Taiwanese Retailing: Market Analysis and Retail Branding Model Application

ABSTRACT

The Taiwanese retail market is in a highly competitive stage. In the past three decades, the Taiwan retail grocery market has experienced many developments and changes, and recently, has started to realize the importance of developing its own retail brand. Although the idea of retail branding is still new in Taiwan, the major hypermarket players have tried to build up their own brand image and create new own label products which differ from other competitors. This paper explores retail branding in the Taiwan hypermarket industry through macro/micro environment analysis and applying retail branding models to the Taiwanese retail market. The macro/micro environment analysis is undertaken by the two STEPs model and the retail branding model is created from Dawson's three levels model combined with previous studies and theories. The approach in this study involves literature reviews and secondary research in the field of the Taiwanese retail market. The outcome of this study is to highlight key issues that deserve further research.     

The Hong Kong Equity Market and an Institutional Framework for Asset Pricing

Given the potential implications of market structure for asset pricing, this paper examines the structural and institutional features of the Hong Kong equity market and their relevance to explaining market behaviour. It was found that the Hong Kong market appears less perfect and hence less efficient than their counterparts in the more developed economies, such as the USA and the UK, so that market disequilibrium and asset mispricing might have occurred. This paper adds value to the literature as the findings provide an institutional framework for analysing and explaining the results from empirical asset pricing work, past and future, on the Hong Kong market. This has far-reaching implications for financial decisions.