Going multilateral? Financial markets' access and the League of Nations loans, 1923–8

Why are international financial institutions important? This article reassesses the role of the loans issued with the support of the League of Nations. These long‐term loans constituted the financial basis of the League's strategy to restore the productive basis of countries in central and eastern Europe in the aftermath of the First World War. In this article, it is argued that the League's loans accomplished the task for which they were conceived because they allowed countries in financial distress to access capital markets. The League adopted an innovative system of funds management and monitoring that ensured the compliance of borrowing countries with its programmes. Empirical evidence is provided to show that financial markets had a positive view of the League's role as an external, multilateral agent, solving the credibility problem of borrowing countries and allowing them to engage in economic and institutional reforms. This success was achieved despite the League's own lack of lending resources. It is also demonstrated that this multilateral solution performed better than the bilateral arrangements adopted by other governments in eastern Europe because of its lower borrowing and transaction costs.     

Direct and Spillover Effects of Unconventional Monetary and Exchange Rate Policies

This paper explores the direct effects and spillovers of unconventional monetary and exchange rate policies. We find that official purchases of foreign assets have a large positive effect on a country’s current account that diminishes considerably as capital mobility rises. There is an important additional effect through the lagged stock of official assets. Official purchases of domestic assets, or quantitative easing (QE), appear to have no significant effect on a country’s current account when capital mobility is high, but there is a modest positive impact when capital mobility is low. The effects of purchases of foreign assets spill over to other countries in proportion to their degree of international financial integration. We also find that increases in US bond yields are associated with increases in foreign bond yields and in stock prices, as well as with depreciations of foreign currencies, but that all of these effects are smaller on days of US unconventional monetary policy announcements. We develop a theoretical model that is broadly consistent with our empirical results and that highlights the potential usefulness of domestic unconventional policies as responses to the effects of foreign policies of a similar type.     

增值税转型对我国微观经济的影响

增值税的全面转型是振兴经济的一大利好消息，力度大、范围广，对企业来说，不仅能够直接减轻税收负担，改善生存环境，更能够增加流动资金，扩大企业固定资产投资需求，因而有利于促进企业的设备更新改造和高新技术企业的发展，促进利润的提升和产业升级。在这种经济背景下，文章论述了增值税转型后给企业带来的一系列影响以及应采取的相应对策。     

Building internal business scenarios based on real data from a performance measurement system

This paper presents a new methodology to build internal business scenarios from the data gathered by some key performance indicators (KPIs) defined within a performance measurement system. The application of the principal components analysis technique leads to the identification of latent relationships between KPIs that underlies some important business aspects. Further, this methodology allows to represent not only the temporal evolution of the organisation as a function of these business aspects but also the definition and determination of internal business scenarios, being therefore the source of meaningful managerial information. At the end of the paper, results of a practical application are presented and discussed, as well as their importance for the organisation from a decision making point of view.     

A note on how to measure hubbing practices in airline networks

Benefits and costs associated to hubbing practices of airlines are still subject to much debate. In the previous literature, some standard spatial concentration indices have been proposed to measure it. However, we show that these indices are “ill-defined” because they do not take into account the salient characteristic of hubbing: connecting passengers. The purpose of this research is to present a new methodology which avoids the pitfalls of other methods. Our new methodology also analyzes the level of concentration of the connecting passengers studying two different dimensions: hub airports and routes. Finally, we apply our methodology to some US carriers.     

旅游服务的体验营销研究

以向顾客提供有价值的体验为宗旨，体验营销力图通过满足顾客的体验需要而达到吸引和保留顾客、获取利润的目的。旅游脆务本质上是为旅游者提供的一种或多种经历和体验。时旅游企业而言，服务提供者、游客、服分设施及场景、服务过程都是实施体验营销的关键要素。可采取的旅游服务的体验营销内容包括设计有吸引力的旅游体验主题，提升旅游服务的体验价值，展示体验式旅游有形物，营造旅游互动体验氛围、重视对游客的感官刺激等。     

Is the January effect still alive in the futures markets?

The January effect concerns the fact that small capitalization stocks have historically outperformed large capitalized stocks in January. We analyze evidence as to whether this anomaly can be exploited in the futures markets as a speculative investment or to add risk-adjusted value to portfolio performance. We find that the January effect is still alive in the futures markets on the Value Line minus S&P 500 spread trade, but that the marginal liquidity of the Value Line stock index futures contract has made it very risky to exploit the effect. Historically from 1982/3 to 2004/5, the trade has been profitable. This anomaly was also exploitable through a Russell 2000 minus S&P 500 spread trade from 1993/4 to 2004/5.

What Prevents Firms from Advancing in their Environmental Strategy?

The aim of this paper is to analyze the determinants of the strategic environmental behavior of firms and, more specifically, the external and internal barriers that limit and sometimes even prevent the environmental adaptation. The analysis focuses on a sample of industrial firms that have at least three workers and that are located in Aragón, a region situated in the northeast of Spain. In order to achieve this objective, first the theoretical literature on the topic is reviewed. Subsequently, from the firms which were sampled, the existence of an underlying structure among the totality of barriers is studied. Finally, this structure is analyzed in order to determine if it has any influence on the degree of proactivity of the firm’s environmental strategy.

网络环境下经济行为边界的确定

现代社会是信息社会,互联网和计算机应用是最明显的特征。人们基于网络参与经济决策与市场交易活动,道德理念、行为准则和行为安排发生了较大的变化。网络技术:一方面,极大地降低了交易费用;另一方面,由于经济行为的隐蔽性,追求经济利益的行为缺乏有效监督,人的趋利避害和机会主义倾向更容易诱发蓄意性诱导行为。在网络环境下,如何界定“经济人”的行为模式,怎样减少经济行为负的外部效应成为经济学理论研究的问题。本文主要讨论网络环境中“经济人”经济行为边界的确定。