From catalog to Web: B2B multi-channel marketing strategy

The literature on catalog buying is heavily skewed to the business to consumer (B2C) area and increasingly is orientated to the multi-channel world of shopping choice, including online, catalog and store options. Previous studies have primarily been single equation explanations of catalog decisions, whereas the current study takes a hierarchical or systems approach to decision making in B2B marketing. A two-equation structural equation model (SEM) has been designed and a large sample (n = 1809) of business customers used to test the model. Price and catalog layout were seen to play a particularly important role in explaining buyer behavior. Additional multiple regression analysis was carried out to understand why purchasing agents who currently use one channel (catalog), would make use of a second, new channel (Web) in the future. The study identifies five key motivating factors for consumers in adopting a new (Web) channel for purchasing purposes. The study also identifies the switching costs that act as a barrier to adopting a Web channel.     

银行究竟需要多少资本？

对银行而言,资本管理是一项重要议题和关键技能。本文按照资产规模,将全球100大银行作为样本,研究市场对银行资本的反应情况。得出的结论是,亚洲银行应该建立适当的资本水平、确定清晰的资本战略和提升资本分配的能力。     

Politics In A Dynamic View Of Land-Use Regulations: Of Interest Groups And Homevoters

The nature of land-use regulation differs by type of jurisdiction. Regulatory politics at the local level is the major source of the dynamic consistency problem. Courts are reluctant to enforce the regulatory commitments of previous officials at all levels of government, but the alternative political and reputation constraints on official promise-keeping are most problematic at the local level. Local majoritarianism presents the greatest challenge to attempts to improve the dynamic efficiency of land-use regulation.     

The Underpricing of Venture and Nonventure Capital IPOs: An Empirical Investigation

In this paper, we examine the premarket underpricing phenomenon within a group of venture-backed and a group of non-venture-backed initial public offerings (IPOs), using a stochastic frontier approach. Consistent with previous research, we find that venture-backed IPOs are managed by more reputable underwriters and generally are associated with less underwriter compensation. However, unlike other papers in the literature, we find that the initial-day returns of venture-backed IPOs on average, are, higher than the non-venture-backed group. We observe a significantly higher degree of premarket pricing inefficiency in the initial offer price of venture-backed IPOs. Further, our results show that a significant portion of the initial day returns is due to deliberate underpricing in the premarket.     

The impact of the euro on risk exposure of the world’s major banking industries

In this paper, we examine if the introduction of the euro impacted the risk exposures, risk premiums and, hence, the cost of equity of the banking industry of 11 Eurozone countries, five non-Eurozone European countries, and three non-European countries. Using a multi-factor asset-pricing model that allows time variation in the risk exposures, we find a statistically significant and economically large decline in the cost of equity of the banking industry across the three groups of countries following the introduction of the euro. Though we find an increase in the market and currency exposures after the euro, consistent with increased competition among banks, the fall in the cost of equity arises from an economically large decline in the currency premium. As expected, the Eurozone banking industry experienced the largest decrease. Our results are inconsistent with the argument that increased banking competition arising from the legislative changes accompanying the introduction of the euro would result in an increase in the overall risk premium of the banking sector.     

The incremental volatility information in one million foreign exchange quotations

The volatility information found in high-frequency exchange rate quotations and in implied volatilities is compared by estimating ARCH models for DM/$ returns. Reuters quotations are used to calculate five-minute returns and hence hourly and daily estimates of realised volatility that can be included in equations for the conditional variances of hourly and daily returns. The ARCH results show that there is a significant amount of information in five-minute returns that is incremental to options information when estimating hourly variances. The same conclusion is obtained by an out-of-sample comparison of forecasts of hourly realised volatility.     

The changing world of ancillary benefits

Amid salary and health care benefit cuts, ancillary benefits such as dental, life insurance, long-term disability and vision coverage can communicate employers' concern for their employees as well as serve as recruitment and retention tools. These benefits can be funded by the employer, the employee or both.     

Shareholder authorized inside trading: A legal and moral analysis

This article evaluates inside trading from a legal and a moral perspective. From both of these points of view, the practice of inside trading is fraudulent whether it occurs in the traditional format or in the variation known as misappropriation. Fraud is a legal tort and a moral wrong consisting of a breach of duty that intentionally causes harm to persons that the insider can reasonably foresee. In defense against allegations of fraudulent inside trading, the defendant may argue that one or more elements of fraud are not evident, or, if the elements are clear, that the fraud was a justified means of avoiding some worse evil or of achieving some greater good. The article concludes that inside trading, under circumstances approved by shareholders, is neither fraudulent nor unfair. Bill Shaw is a Professor of Business Law at the University of Texas at Austin.     

Estimating Value at Risk and Expected Shortfall Using Expectiles

Expectile models are derived using asymmetric least squares.A simple formula has been presented that relates the expectileto the expectation of exceedances beyond the expectile. We usethis as the basis for estimating the expected shortfall. Ithas been proposed that the quantile be estimated by the expectilefor which the proportion of observations below the expectileis . In this way, an expectile can be used to estimate valueat risk. Using expectiles has the appeal of avoiding distributionalassumptions. For univariate modeling, we introduce conditionalautoregressive expectiles (CARE). Empirical results for thenew approach are competitive with established benchmarks methods.     

Do US Corporate Governance Standards Effectively Discourage Risk in the Emerging Markets?

This study provides an examination of the effect of various corporate governance factors on the management of the risks inherent in business and the potential divergent impact of these factors on US firms and firms in emerging countries. In particular, the study scrutinises corporate governance and corporate risk‐taking behaviour across different political and socioeconomic environments. In a cross‐sectional time‐series setting, two‐step generalised least squares regression outcomes reveal that the impact of corporate governance on corporate risk taking demonstrates similar implications for US and emerging markets firms in several ways. Nonetheless, the findings also indicate that although some of the US governance standards are effective in the emerging markets, further strengthening of governance standards may be required. Specific governance aspects of the emerging markets, such as board and committee composition, are still lacking when compared to those of the US. Regardless of these differences, the outcomes reveal that those US governance standards adopted by the firms in the emerging markets strengthen governance structures and discourage corporate risk‐taking behaviour.