乡村旅游开发中女性村官参与行为影响机理研究--以湖南省女性村官为例

随着我国乡村旅游进入新的发展阶段,乡村旅游开发的组织机制问题越发引人关注,女性参与乡村旅游开发已经成为不争的事实,女性村官对乡村旅游开发的决策作用日渐显著。因此,乡村旅游开发中女性村官参与行为影响机理研究对于深入研究乡村旅游开发组织机制问题,促进我国乡村旅游可持续发展意义重大。文章在改进计划行为理论（TPB）模型基础上构建乡村旅游开发女性村官参与行为意向影响框架,以282位湖南女性村官的调查问卷为数据来源,应用结构方程模型（SEM）对女性村官参与乡村旅游开发行为意向的影响机理进行研究。研究发现：（1）女性村官对于借助旅游开发带动农村经济发展的参与行为意向较高;（2）主观规范、行为控制认知以及参政特征3个变量对乡村旅游开发中女性村官参与行为具有显著的影响,影响系数分别为0.406、0.258和0.250,其中,主观规范影响最大;（3）女性村官参与旅游开发的行为态度对行为意向没有直接影响,而是通过参政特征变量间接影响行为意向;行为态度的中介作用变得更为复杂,这与已有计划行为研究不同。     

Uncovering the Hit List for Small Inflation Targeters: A Bayesian Structural Analysis

We estimate underlying structural macroeconomic policy objectives of three of the earliest explicit inflation targeters within the context of a small open economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model. We assume central banks set policy optimally, such that we can reverse engineer policy objectives from observed time series data. Joint tests of the posterior distributions of these policy preference parameters suggest that the central banks are very similar in their overall objective. None of the central banks show a concern for stabilizing the real exchange rate. All three central banks share a concern for minimizing the volatility in the change in the nominal interest rate. We also show that the resulting optimal policy rule responds to exchange rate movements, even in the case where the central banks do not explicitly care about exchange rate stabilization. This result is also corroborated by results from an alternative simple-rule characterization and estimation of central bank behavior. These last two findings point to the pitfalls of making inferences, from the level of ad hoc simple rules, about what central banks may care about.     

INVESTMENT SPIKES AND UNCERTAINTY IN THE PETROLEUM REFINING INDUSTRY*

This paper investigates the effect of uncertainty on the investment decisions of petroleum refineries in the U.S. We construct uncertainty measures from the commodity futures market and use data on actual capacity changes to measure investment episodes. Since capacity changes in U.S. refineries occur infrequently, we empirically model the investment process using hazard models. An increase in uncertainty decreases the probability that a refinery might adjust its capacity. The results are robust to various investment thresholds. Our findings lend support to theories that emphasize the role of irreversibility in investment decisions.     

COSTLY BUYER SEARCH IN LABORATORY MARKETS WITH SELLER ADVERTISING*

In this experiment, sellers simultaneously choose prices and advertising strategies. Buyers either purchase at an advertised price or search sequentially for other prices. In the unique symmetric equilibrium, sellers charge a high unadvertised price or advertise a price chosen from a lower interval. Increases in search or advertising costs raise equilibrium prices and affect equilibrium advertising intensity. Empirical results are consistent with most comparative static predictions. Sellers, however, price much lower and advertise more intensely than predicted. Consequently, market outcomes more closely resemble a perfect information, Bertrand‐like equilibrium than the imperfect information, mixed strategy equilibrium with significant seller market power.     

Fiscal Multipliers at the Zero Lower Bound: The Role of Policy Inertia

The presence of the lagged shadow policy rate in the interest rate feedback rule reduces the government spending multiplier nontrivially when the policy rate is constrained at the zero lower bound (ZLB). In the economy with policy inertia, increased inflation and output due to higher government spending during a recession speed up the return of the policy rate to the steady state after the recession ends, which in turn damps the expansionary effects of the government spending during the recession via expectations. In our baseline experiment intended to capture the effectiveness of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the output multiplier at the ZLB is 1.9 when the weight on the lagged shadow rate is zero, and 0.5 when the weight is 0.85.     

Audit Labor Usage and Fees under Business Risk Auditing

The adoption of business risk audit (BRA) approaches during the 1990s by several leading audit firms has been the subject of considerable scrutiny and commentary. Under BRA, the auditor responds to the increasing complexity of auditee financial reports by acquiring a deep and comprehensive understanding of the auditee's industry, strategy, business models, and processes—tasks best accomplished by higher-ranked labor—and by employing this understanding to make audit labor allocations. Using proprietary data for 165 audits conducted in 2002, we investigate three propositions about audit labor use under BRA. First, relative to pre-BRA benchmarks for the same auditor, we expect BRA audits to use a greater proportion of higher-ranked labor. Second, we expect engagements with high assessed auditor business risk (ABR), a summary risk assessment that reflects the BRA auditor's rich understanding of the auditee, to be allocated more labor and more higher-ranked labor than pre-BRA benchmarks. Third, at all ranks of labor, we expect a positive association between assessed ABR and levels of labor use. We find empirical evidence consistent with these propositions. We also find that total labor use in our sample is only modestly lower than pre-BRA norms. Analysis of fee data from these engagements suggests that audit fees in 2002 are substantially less than would be expected under pre-BRA benchmarks. After controlling for audit labor use, both total fees and fees per hour increase with assessed ABR for first-year auditees but not for continuing auditees. Overall, our results provide evidence on the impact of the BRA audit regime and speak to the likely impact of BRA on audit effectiveness and efficiency.     

Comment on ‘Seat of Death and Terror’1

Oxley finds that smallpox consistently reduced heights, but that the fall was not statistically significant outside London or for juvenile Londoners. We demonstrate that inappropriate subdivision of the data into small samples explains the lack of significance she obtains. Further analysis of Oxley’s data shows that smallpox was a statistically significant cause of stunting, and that there were no differences in the effect by area. Juveniles exhibit greater stunting than adults, leading us to conclude that smallpox was not a proxy for overcrowding. That smallpox reduced height is important for anthropometric history: heights capture the effect of a truly awful disease.     

Variance and Lower Partial Moment Measures of Systematic Risk: Some Analytical and Empirical Results

As a measure of systematic risk, the lower partial moment measure requires fewer restrictive assumptions than does the variance measure. However, the latter enjoys far wider usage than the former, perhaps because of its familiarity and the fact that two measures of systematic risk are equivalent when return distributions are normal. This paper shows analytically that there are systematic differences in the two risk measures when return distributions are lognormal. Results of empirical tests show that there are indeed systematic differences in measured values of the two risk measures for securities with above average and with below average systematic risk.