Compulsive buying: Concept and measurement

This article investigates the probable causes of compulsive buying, proposes a conceptual framework to explain the phenomenon, and develops an appropriate measuring scale. The results of the analysis testify to the reliability and validity of the scale which was administered to 76 consumers.

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Begriffliche und empirische Erfassung von zwanghaftem Kaufverhalten

Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag behandelt zwanghaftes Kaufverhalten als einen besonderen Verhaltenstyp, der aus dem Zusammenwirken dreier Kräfte erklärt wird, nämlich erstens einer starken emotionalen Aktivierung, zweitens einer hohen kognitiven Kontrolle und drittens einer hohen Reaktivität. Der wichtigste Unterschied zwischen zwanghaftem und impulsivem Kaufverhalten wird in den kognitiven Vorgängen gesehen, die eine Person dazu führen, die Wiedererlangung des affektiven Gleichgewichtes mit einem Kaufakt zu assoziieren. Genauere Unterschiede zwischen verschiedenen Kaufverhaltenstypen bietet Figur 1. Die Zusammenhänge, die zur Entstehung von zwanghaftem Kaufverhalten führen, werden in Figur 2 gezeigt. Aus diesen Zusammenhängen ergeben sich drei Hypothesen, die empirisch geprüft werden:1. Der zwanghafte Käufer ist im allgemeinen in höherem Maße ängstlich als ein durchschnittlicher Käufer. 2. Der zwanghafte Käufer hat tendenziell ein schwächeres Selbstbewußtsein. 3. Der zwanghafte Verbraucher hat häufiger ein Elternteil mit mißbräuchlichem Verbraucherverhalten.Zur Prüfung dieser Hypothesen wird eine Skala entwickelt, die in Tabelle I beschrieben ist und deren Reliabilität und Validität sich als befriedigend erweist. Außerdem dürfte sie eindimensional sein. Die Daten, die von 38 zwanghaften Käufern und einer gleichgroßen Zahl von durchschnittlichen Käufern stammen, stützen die erste und die dritte Hypothese, die zweite Hypothese konnte nicht bestätigt werden.

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Gilles Valence and Alain d'Astous are Professors of Marketing, and Louis Fortier a graduate student, at the University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Québec J1K 2R1, Canada. The authors would like to thank Mr. Claude Sevigny (A.C.E.F. Estrie) and Mr. Claude Boucher (C.L.S.C. SOC), as well as Mrs. Monique Croteau, for graciously helping to track down compulsive buyers.This paper was first presented at the XVIIth Annual Conference of the European Marketing Academy, Bradford, England, April 5–8, 1988. A French version of the paper will be published in Recherches et applications en Marketing.     

Green not (only) for profit: An empirical examination of the effect of environmental-related standards on employees’ recruitment

Thanks to an original database on French firms we investigate the impact of environmental-related standards on employees’ recruitment. Using a bivariate probit model, we show that voluntary environmental-related standards (i.e., ISO 14001 standard, organic labeling, fair trade, etc.) improve the recruitment of professional and non-professional employees. This finding suggests that, beyond environmental considerations, human resources management can drive registration.     

What Drives the Responsiveness of the Budget Balance to the Business Cycle in EU Countries?

Intereconomics - The European Commission methodology for computing the cyclically adjusted government budget balance provides a robust measurement of the fiscal position of the Member States. The...     

Spatial wage disparities: Sorting matters!

Spatial wage disparities can result from spatial differences in the skill composition of the workforce, in non-human endowments, and in local interactions. To distinguish between these explanations, we estimate a model of wage determination across local labour markets using a very large panel of French workers. We control for worker characteristics, worker fixed effects, industry fixed effects, and the characteristics of the local labour market. Our findings suggest that individual skills account for a large fraction of existing spatial wage disparities with strong evidence of spatial sorting by skills. Interaction effects are mostly driven by the local density of employment. Not controlling for worker heterogeneity leads to very biased estimates of interaction effects. Endowments only appear to play a small role.     

On a class of law invariant convex risk measures

We consider the class of law invariant convex risk measures with robust representation r_h,p(X)=sup_fò₀¹ [AV@R_s(X)f(s)-f^p(s)h(s)] ds\rho_{h,p}(X)=\sup_{f}\int_{0}^{1} [AV@R_{s}(X)f(s)-f^{p}(s)h(s)]\,ds, where 1≤p<∞ and h is a positive and strictly decreasing function. The supremum is taken over the set of all Radon–Nikodym derivatives corresponding to the set of all probability measures on (0,1] which are absolutely continuous with respect to Lebesgue measure. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the position X such that ρ _h,p (X) is real-valued and the supremum is attained. Using variational methods, an explicit formula for the maximizer is given. We exhibit two examples of such risk measures and compare them to the average value at risk.     

How trading activity scales with company size in the FTSE 100

This paper investigates the scaling dependencies between measures of ‘activity’ and of ‘size’ for companies included in the FTSE 100. The ‘size’ of companies is measured by the total market capitalization. The ‘activity’ is measured with several quantities related to trades (transaction value per trade, transaction value per hour, tick rate), to the order queue (total number of orders, total value), and to the price dynamic (spread, volatility). The outcome is that systematic scaling relations are observed: (1) the value exchanged by hour and value in the order queue have exponents of less than 1, respectively 0.90 and 0.75; (2) the tick rate and the value per transaction scale with the exponents 0.39 and 0.44; (3) the annualized volatility is independent of the size, and the tick-by-tick volatility decreases with the market capitalization with an exponent of ?0.23; (4) the spread increases with the volatility with an exponent of 0.94. A theoretical random walk argument is given that relates the volatility exponents to the exponents in points 1 and 2.     

Volatility forecasts and at-the-money implied volatility: a multi-component ARCH approach and its relation to market models

This article explores the relationships between several forecasts for the volatility built from multi-scale linear ARCH processes, and linear market models for the forward variance. This shows that the structures of the forecast equations are identical, but with different dependencies on the forecast horizon. The process equations for the forward variance are induced by the process equations for an ARCH model, but postulated in a market model. In the ARCH case, they are different from the usual diffusive type. The conceptual differences between both approaches and their implication for volatility forecasts are analysed. The volatility forecast is compared with the realized volatility (the volatility that will occur between date t and t + ΔT), and the implied volatility (corresponding to an at-the-money option with expiry at t + ΔT). For the ARCH forecasts, the parameters are set a priori. An empirical analysis across multiple time horizons ΔT shows that a forecast provided by an I-GARCH(1) process (one time scale) does not capture correctly the dynamics of the realized volatility. An I-GARCH(2) process (two time scales, similar to GARCH(1,1)) is better, while a long-memory LM-ARCH process (multiple time scales) replicates correctly the dynamics of the implied and realized volatilities and delivers consistently good forecasts for the realized volatility.     

A mean/variance approach to long-term fixed-income portfolio allocation

Abstract

Long-term investments in bonds offer known returns, but with risks corresponding to defaults of the underwriters. The excess return for a risky bond is measured by the spread between the expected yield and the risk-free rate. Similarly, the risk can be expressed in the form of a default spread, measuring the difference between the yield when no default occurs and the expected yield. For zero-coupon bonds and for actual market data, the default spread is proportional to the probability of default per year. The analysis of market data shows that the yield spread scales as the square root of the default spread. This relation expresses the risk premium over the risk-free rate that the bond market offers, similarly to the risk premium for equities. With these measures for risk and return, an optimal bond allocation scheme can be built following a mean/variance utility function. Straightforward computations allow us to obtain the optimal portfolio, depending on a pre-set risk-aversion level. As for equities, the optimal portfolio is a linear combination of one risk-free bond and a risky portfolio. Using the scaling law for the default spread allows us to obtain simple expressions for the value, yield and risk of the optimal portfolio.