Internet shopping and internet banking in sequence: An explanatory case study

Adoption of Internet banking often follows on from usage of Internet shopping, but policies to increase Internet banking use typically ignore this ordering. This article presents a case study that underscores this sequence of Internet service adoption and identifies factors that shape the propensity to use the Internet for shopping and banking. Application of bivariate probit regression techniques to data sourced from a survey of 259 respondents in Athens, Greece, and estimation of marginal effects of the determinants of Internet banking use conditioned on the determinants of Internet shopping use illustrate that ignoring the sequence of Internet service use can lead to incorrect policy recommendations. This article contributes to the literature by theorising the underlying causal mechanisms of Internet banking adoption and presenting supporting evidence via a sequential modelling approach. We find that personal capacity is an important determinant of Internet banking use in a standard, non-sequential approach but it has no significant effect when the model is sequential. Our results suggest that policymakers should emphasise usefulness attributes of Internet banking when attempting to increase Internet banking usage by people who already use the Internet for shopping.     

Wavelet timescales and conditional relationship between higher-order systematic co-moments and portfolio returns

This paper investigates the association between portfolio returns and higher-order systematic co-moments at different timescales obtained through wavelet multi-scaling, a technique that decomposes a given return series into timescales enabling investigation at different return intervals. In Australian industry portfolios, the relative risk positions indicated by systematic co-moments at some timescales are different from those revealed in daily returns. A strong positive (negative) linear association between beta and portfolio return and co-kurtosis and portfolio return in the up (down) market is observed in daily returns and at different timescales. The beta risk is priced in the up and down markets. Co-kurtosis is not priced when the beta is in the pricing model. Co-skewness appears to be priced at a relatively high timescale and this is observed only after the up and down separation of market returns.     

Gandhian Economics from the Perspective of John R. Commons

We examine the evolution of law regarding corporations' legal status and the power of government to regulate corporations. John R. Commons described this jurisprudential history as changing the meaning of property from individual ownership to a going business owned by a going concern. Despite this history, the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, accorded corporations the rights of individual citizens, characterizing the corporation as an "association of citizens." If corporations are associations of citizens rather than going concerns distinct from their owners, the law will elevate private interests of shareholders above collective interests.     

Corporate tax rates and foreign direct investment in the United States

A significant research effort has been directed at establishing the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI), with taxation policy identified as an important factor. However, the empirical literature has been limited in several respects, with most work focused exclusively on host country tax regimes. This paper seeks to extend the boundaries of FDI empirical inquiry by using a panel of nine investing tax exemption and tax credit countries over the period 1982–2000, constituting more than 85% of total US FDI inflows, and incorporating home country tax rates to analyse two as yet unanswered questions. First, are corporate income tax rates an important determinant of FDI in the US? Secondly, do investors from tax credit countries differ significantly in their tax response relative to those from tax exemption countries?     

Policies to stimulate growth: should we invest in health or education?

Empirical studies in the literature on economic growth have focused on the affect of education and yet Knowles and Owen (1995, 1997) found health, proxied by life expectancy, to be highly statistically significant with education having a modest role. This study extends their model and employs variables that are more conducive to policy formulation: calorific intake and school enrolment ratios. Results suggest that reducing undernutrition would only make a modest contribution to economic growth while increasing enrolment ratios, especially secondary, has a positive and more significant effect. Policies to increase economic growth should favour investments in education over health.     

An analysis of small,high performing minority and nonminority banks’ strategies, 1980-1988

This is a study of high performing, small banks. The study defines a small, high performing bank and, then, compares the performing characteristics between high performing minority and high performing nonminority banks during two distinct time periods: 1980 and 1988. Performance differences between the two groups were greater in 1988 than in 1980. These differences identified the complexity of managing high performing minority banks relative to high performing nonminority banks and suggested the minority banks’ basic banking philosophy and operating strategies may have been a major contributor to their high performing status. All small, high performing banks do not employ the same strategies to achieve high performing status. The markets for the two groups of banks in this study appear to be segmented. Small, minority and nonminority banks employ different strategies to become successful. This report examines those differences.     

A hedging deficiency in eurodollar futures

The eurodollar futures contract of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is arguably the most successful of all futures contracts. The contract is structured such that its price does not converge to the price of the underlying eurodollar time deposit. Ignoring the daily settlement, one typically assumes that a eurodollar futures contract perfectly hedges an anticipated loan pegged to LIBOR, provided the loan rate is set at the eurodollar expiration. This article demonstrates that this hedge is not perfect, leaving a risk empirically estimated at four basis points, a seemingly small amount but considerably larger than the bid–ask spread on the futures. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 26:189–207, 2006     

Defining and improving technology transfer business and management processes in university innovation centres

The complex and dynamic behaviour associated with technology transfer business processes combined with the technological risk involved in the participating small firms, has led to a lack of business process definition and improvement in this area. Furthermore, the embryonic firms are highly individualistic with differing needs for assistance and development. There may also be a tendency to provide infrastructure and basic services with an avoidance of business process definition and hence, improvement.The aim of this paper is to investigate how potential business and management inputs can be used to define and to suggest improvements for two key technology transfer business processes, namely the technology licensing process and the business building process.A stratified pathway process mapping approach is used. This research approach includes semi-structured interviews with University Innovation Centre small firms, focus groups with Innovation Centre stakeholders and best practice benchmarking.The findings indicate that a modified processual approach can be adopted to define key business processes within technology transfer. Using this approach it is possible to show where business and management interventions can most effectively be deployed in each process.     

Relative risk aversion among the elderly

This paper examines portfolio allocation behavior of the elderly, investigating whether their behavior conforms to Arrow's postulate of increasing relative risk aversion. Additionally, the effects on risk aversion of age, race, gender, education, health status, and the number of children are examined. The source of data is the AHEAD data set that is comprised of households with at least one member aged 70 or over. In the preferred specification, evidence supports a finding of modestly decreasing relative risk aversion and statistical significance for the personal characteristics examined. Implications are drawn for the likely security markets effects of an aging population.