The reluctant Hong Kong consumer: purchasing travel online

Hong Kong consumers have embraced the web but appear reluctant to buy airline tickets online, suggesting that perceptions of risk outweigh perceived convenience. In this study we identify that both risk and convenience factors are associated strongly with willingness to purchase, particularly privacy, security and poor customer service, time savings, site usability and information provision. We identify further that the experienced shopper is only moderately satisfied and that satisfaction appears to be associated strongly with willingness to make further purchases. Overall, findings suggest that although consumers recognize a number of benefits, there is deep‐rooted resistance to buying this particular product online. The explanation may lie in a combination of the physical density of the Hong Kong market, love of the whole shopping experience and a desire to minimize risk. We conclude that to tempt consumers online airlines and agents must target the Hong Kong market with a clear value proposition which includes user‐friendly sites, streamlined payment procedures, on‐ and offline customer support, price‐related promotions and tailored offline services which reinforce online offerings.     

TESTING FOR STATIONARITY OF INFLATION RATES WITH COVARIATES

This paper distinguishes between the stationarity and nonstationarity of inflation in 18 OECD countries through several unit root tests with covariates. These covariate tests are more powerful than the conventional ones through correlated covariates. Both unit root and stationarity null hypotheses are tested in this study. Our empirical results indicate that the efficient univariate unit root tests fail to reject the unit‐root hypothesis for 15 countries, whereas the covariate tests provide strong evidence in support of mean reversion in inflation for almost all countries. Overall, the findings unveil new evidence in favor of stationarity in international inflation. Policy implications on the empirical results are provided as well.     

Foreign currency borrowing surrounding the global financial crisis: Evidence from Korea

We present a complete profile of firms’ foreign currency borrowing surrounding the 2007 global financial crisis. Employing extensive data from Korean firms during 2002–2012, we find that foreign currency borrowing is significantly related to firm attributes of export revenues, firm size, tangible assets and asset growth, as well as to macro-level factors. These results offer two important implications. First, macroeconomic factors alone cannot fully explain firms’ foreign currency borrowing. Second and more importantly, these firm attributes are indicative of a lower default probability and larger collateral value, which would not only facilitate borrowers’ access to foreign currency debt markets but also offer lenders a better protective cushion from possible loan defaults in the face of exchange rate changes and information asymmetry on borrowers’ credits. Period wise, asset-related firm attributes have more pronounced effects in the post- than pre-crisis period. We further show that banking regulations following the crisis effectively limit the access to foreign currency borrowing by Korean firms, most significantly by those belonging to large business groups.     

Residential energy use and conservation: Economics and demographics

Energy consumption in the residential sector offers an important opportunity for conserving resources. However, much of the current debate regarding energy efficiency in the housing market focuses on the physical and technical determinants of energy consumption, neglecting the role of the economic behavior of resident households. In this paper, we analyze the extent to which the use of gas and electricity is determined by the technical specifications of the dwelling as compared to the demographic characteristics of the residents. Our analysis is based on a sample of more than 300,000 Dutch homes and their occupants. The results indicate that residential gas consumption is determined principally by structural dwelling characteristics, such as the vintage, building type, and characteristics of the dwelling, while electricity consumption varies more directly with household composition, in particular income and family composition. Combining these results with projections on future economic and demographic trends, we find that, even absent price increases for residential energy, the aging of the population and their increasing wealth will roughly offset improvements in the energy efficiency of the building stock resulting from policy interventions and natural revitalization.     

Bargaining and Search with Incomplete Information about Outside Options

This paper considers a model of bargaining in which the seller makes offers and the buyer can search (at a cost) for an outside option; the outside option cannot be credibly communicated, and the seller's offer is recallable by the buyer for one period. There are essentially two equilibrium regimes. For sufficiently high search cost, the game ends immediately; otherwise the search occurs in equilibrium. Compared to the case where the buyer can communicate his outside option, the seller is worse off, and the game results in search for a smaller set of values of the search cost, i.e., less equilibrium delay.C72.     

The economic burden of psoriasis with high comorbidity among privately insured patients in the United States

Objective: To evaluate the impact of comorbidities on healthcare resource use (HRU), and direct and indirect work-loss-related costs in psoriasis patients.

Methods: Adults with psoriasis (≥2 diagnoses, the first designated as the index date) and non-psoriasis controls (no psoriasis diagnoses, randomly generated index date) were identified in a US healthcare claims database of privately-insured patients (data between January 2010 and March 2017 were used). Psoriasis patients were stratified based on the number of psoriasis-related comorbidities (0, 1–2, or ≥3) developed during the 12?months post-index. All outcomes were evaluated during the follow-up period, spanning the index date until the end of continuous health plan eligibility or data cut-off. HRU and costs per-patient-per-year (PPPY) were compared in psoriasis and non-psoriasis patients with ≥12?months of follow-up.

Results: A total of 9,078 psoriasis (mean age?=?44?years, 51% female) and 48,704 non-psoriasis (mean age?=?41?years, 50% female) patients were selected. During the 12?months post-index, among psoriasis vs non-psoriasis patients, 71.0% vs 83.0% developed no psoriasis-related comorbidities, 26.3% vs 16.0% developed 1–2, and 2.6% vs 1.0% developed ≥3 psoriasis-related comorbidities. Compared to non-psoriasis patients, psoriasis patients had more HRU including outpatient visits (incidence rate ratios [IRRs]?=?1.52, 2.03, and 2.66 for 0, 1–2, and ≥3 comorbidities, respectively [all p?p?p?p?Conclusions: HRU and cost burden of psoriasis are substantial, and increase with the development of psoriasis-related comorbidities.     

Moonlighting: public service and private practice

We study job incentives in moonlighting, when public‐service physicians may refer patients to their private practices. Some doctors in the public system are dedicated, and behave sincerely, but others—the moonlighters—are utility maximizers. Allowing moonlighting always enhances aggregate consumer welfare, but equilibrium public‐care quality may increase or decrease; if quality increases, moonlighting improves each consumer's expected utility. Unregulated moonlighting may reduce consumer welfare as a result of adverse behavioral reactions, such as moonlighters shirking more and dedicated doctors abandoning their sincere behavior. Price regulation in the private market limits such adverse behaviors in the public system and improves consumer welfare.     

De ontwikkeling van de inkomensongelijkheid gemeten volgens informatietheoretische maatstaven

Summary Some years ago Theil introduced new inequality measures, originating from information theory. He applied them 8.0. to income distributions in the United States. This inequality coefficient is - in contrast to Pareto's constant - based on the whole income distribution. Moreover, the inequality can be disaggregated into inequalities for groups of population. The numerical value of the inequality depends on the chosen class intervals; this may be inconvenient when making comparisons between countries, between different periods and the like. Hence we suggest an appropriate standardizing procedure. The inequality of income distributions has been calculated for the period 1950–1964 and a cornparison is made with Pmm's constant. The investigation relates to three groups of population: wage earners, self employed and others. A remark is made about between-province inequalities.