Time to Do Sports!—— China International Sports Culture Expo 2012

“Look at the incredible skill of that tail basketball player.It's amazing that he can play three basketballs at the same time!" cried Xiao Bei,a young girl attending the China Sports Culture Expo."I enjoy watching it much.” It was her first time to visit such expo,and actua y it was the first session of the Expo.From December 15 to 18,China International Exhibition Center in Beijing embraced the energetic and sportive festival,sponsored by China State General Administration of Sports,and organized by China Sports Culture Development Center of the General Administration of Sport.     

Make a Switch to TCM

Soaring prices of TCM raw materials The price of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) raw materials,such as radix pseudostellariae,hiked dramatically since 2010.More and more TCM companies feel more and more pressure in business:costs are up,and profits are down.In July 2011,Jiangzhong Pharmaceutical,a local TCM company,had to declare to raise the retail price for its two most popular TCM OCT,Jiangzhong Jianwei Xiaoshi Tablet (a digestion aid),and Compound Sarcandra Glabra Tablet,even though the sales of digestion tablets had grown by nine times in 10 years.     

Der umgekehrte Werther-Effekt

Over the past centuries, concerns have been raised that suicide stories in the media could lead to imitation. Nonetheless, the existence of the so-called “Werther effect” is still questionable and has barely been tested for Germany. The present study revisits two classic assumptions about the Werther effect and argues that these assumptions are neither appropriate for causal deduction in research, nor for giving journalists recommendations for the coverage of suicides. The author explains the inconsistent results of Werther research so far with overlapping effects in different directions. In a study, 140 suicide reports published nationally over the period 2001 to 2003 were recorded with a standardised (functional) content analysis and quasi-experimentally tested for their specific influence on official death statistics. Except for observer-model-similarity in the suicide rate of young men, the tested classic assumptions could not be replicated. As several confounders weakened the causal evidence provided by the quasi-experiment, a cluster analysis was subsequently used to identify four different types of suicide reports which contained all confounding aspects. A classical Werther effect with a short-term rise in suicides was observed after suicide reports using a vague prominence. Suicides decreased after stories about anonymous perpetrators were published. This finding confirms the expectation of a reversed Werther effect. Both other types of stories caused no recognizable impact.     

The impact of sovereign risk on bond duration: Evidence from Asian sovereign bond markets

This paper examines the effect of sovereign risk on bond duration. We compare the sovereign risk-adjusted duration for U.S. dollar-denominated Asian sovereign bonds with their Macaulay duration for both investment grade bonds and speculative grade bonds. We find that the sovereign risk-adjusted duration is significantly shorter than its Macaulay counterpart for all bonds, regardless of their bond rating and their maturity. Further, the “shortening” effect of sovereign risk on duration gets stronger as bond rating deteriorates and in recessionary conditions. Our findings provide strong support for the importance of adjusting for sovereign risk when bond portfolio managers apply the popular duration measure to hedge interest rate risk.     

Love Creation=Money Industry

On Nov 25,2009,the magnificent＂Love ＆ Money-50 Years of Creative Britain＂was opened for the first time at the 2nd China Trade in Services Congress was hosted by MOFCOM and Beijing Municipal Government and with sponsorship and patronage by UKTI,the British Enbassy to China and BBC Worldwide.     

Light Up the Light Industry

Based on small consumer goods production, light industry is usually less capital-intensive than heavy industry, and is more consumer-oriented than business-oriented, as most light industry products are produced for end users rather than as intermediates for use by other industries. When Katie Melua sang the fact that ＂There are nine million bicycles in Beijing.＂ in her song, she also released a clue of China as a manufacturing and consumption giant in light industry. China, boasting the fame of global workshop, supplies a large proportion of light manufactured products to the world. However, since last September, China＇s light industry products export fell sharply. Chinese enterprises in the field are suffering a tough period due to the global economic crisis.     

Alternative Models for Estimating the Cost of Equity Capital for Property/Casualty Insurers

This paper estimates the cost of equity capital for Property/Casualty insurers by applying three alternative asset pricing models: the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), the Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT), and a unified CAPM/APT model (Wei (1988). The in-sample forecast ability of the models is evaluated by applying the mean squared error method, the Theil U2 (1966) statistic, and the Granger and Newbold (1978) conditional efficiency evaluation. Based on forecast evaluation procedures, the APT and Wei's unified CAPM/APT models perform better than the CAPM in estimating the cost of equity capital for the PC insurers and a combined forecast may outperform the individual forecasts.     

Gendered cognitions: a socio-cognitive model of how gender affects entrepreneurial preferences

ABSTRACT

This research explores the social-cognitive factors which lead both women and men to pursue ventures consistent with their gendered social identity, therefore, reinforcing the gender gap in entrepreneurship. We measured the self-assessments of individuals presented with experimentally manipulated entrepreneurial opportunities that were either consistent or inconsistent with their self-reported gender. A theoretical model derived from Social Role Theory is presented and tested. It posits that a gender match (mismatch) with the entrepreneurial opportunity results in higher (lower) reported self-efficacy, anticipated social resources, and venture desirability and lower (higher) venture risk perceptions. The experimental data are tested in a sequential mediation SEM model. We find evidence that self-efficacy and anticipated social resources mediate the effect of gender congruency on perceived risk and venture desirability. The results provide insight into the insidious barriers that play a role in reproducing a gender gap in entrepreneurial outcomes by ‘nudging’ women into lower-return ventures in less lucrative industries.