Running the Numbers on Lotteries and the Poor: An Empirical Analysis of Transfer Payment Distribution and Subsequent Lottery Sales

State lottery revenues are shown to increase during the week transfer payments are distributed. The timing of the increase in lottery purchases suggests a portion of the transfer payments is used to purchase lottery tickets. In addition to providing information on the timing of lottery purchases, this study finds sales of Pick 3 and Pick 4 tickets increase during the period, while sales of Pick 5 and Pick 6 games do not, suggesting a general preference for the relatively higher probability, smaller jackpot games for the group.

Consumer adoption of Internet banking in Jordan: Examining the role of hedonic motivation,habit, self-efficacy and trust

Despite the rapid growth of Internet banking (IB), customers in developing countries still hesitate to adopt this technology and its use in the Middle East remains low. This study aims to identify and examine the factors that predict behavioural intention and adoption of IB in Jordan. Four factors – hedonic motivation, habit, self-efficacy and trust – are proposed in a conceptual model. Data was collected by means of a survey with bank customers in Jordan. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to analyse the data. The results strongly supported the conceptual model. Further, hedonic motivation, habit, self-efficacy and trust were all confirmed to have a significant influence on behavioural intention. Trust was found to be strongly predicted by both hedonic motivation and self-efficacy. This study provides both academics and practitioners with an insight into the factors that can be used to encourage customer adoption of IB specifically in a Middle East context.     

Financial Globalization and Banking Crises in Emerging Markets

Bank crises in emerging economies have been a feature of the recent global crisis, and their incidence has increased in the post-Bretton Woods era. This paper investigates the impact of financial globalization on the incidence of systemic bank crises in 20 emerging markets over the years 1976–2002 using measures of de facto and de jure financial openness. An increase in foreign debt liabilities contributes to an increase in the incidence of crises, but foreign direct investment and portfolio equity liabilities have the opposite effect. A more liberal de jure capital regime lowers the incidence of banking crises, while a regime of fixed exchange rates increases their frequency. The results of the econometric analysis is consistent with the experience of East European and central Asian emerging markets, which attracted a relatively large proportion of capital flows in the form of debt in recent years and have been particularly hard hit by the global financial crisis.     

AN ARBITRAGE INTERPRETATION OF CLASSICAL OPTIMIZATION

The paper mathematically develops the heuristic idea that the first-order necessary conditions for a classical constrained optimization problem are equivalent to a market being arbitrage-free - with the Lagrange multipliers being the arbitrage-free market prices. The arbitrage notions start with the multiplicative Kirchhoff's Voltage Law and then generalize to matrix algebra. The basic result shows the normalized arbitrage-free «market prices» (the Lagrange multipliers) resulting from a classical constrained optimizaton problem can always be obtained as a ratio of cofactors. The machinery also gives an economic interpretation of Cramer's Rule as a competitive equilibrium condition.     

A Test of Consumer Awareness for Adults

The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument to measure adult awareness of consumer product/service information sources, consumer protection laws and channels of recourse. The process included identification of prevalent consumer problems, development of test items based on the identified problems, and assessments of the content validity and the reliability of the instrument. The process of construct validity was initiated by developing and testing hypotheses concerning the relationships between scores on the instrument and selected socio-economic characteristics of consumers. Low consumer awareness scores were predominant, supporting the need for consumer education for adults.