The Role of Brand Names and Visual Cues in Enhancing Memory for Consumer Packaged Goods

The research focuses on the degree of association between brand names and accompanying visuals featured on packages to improve consumer learning. It was found that when visuals are associated with the target information (such as a brand name), then memory for the brand is enhanced. It was also found that memory will be greater for brand names that are prior-associated in consumers' memory than for family and novel brand names. The findings are congruent with associative network theory that would suggest easier processing and greater memory for target elements that are prior- and/or visually linked to existing memory pathways.     

Competition for Business Location: A Survey

This paper focuses on the links between firms’ mobility and the shaping of regional policy, with a particular focus on tax and infrastructure policy decisions. We survey the recent literature exploring the impact of firms’ location choice, and its determinants, on the level of competition between regional governments. We confront theoretical results with empirical evidences.      

Book review

Book reviewed The Connecticon: Learning for the connected generation Frank Rennie and Robin Mason, 2004. Published by Information Age Publishing, Greenwich, CT. ISBN 1‐59311‐209‐2 (paperback) and 1‐59311‐210‐6 (hardback).     

A Preliminary Investigation into the Role of Positive Psychology in Consumer Sensitivity to Corporate Social Performance

Research on positive psychology demonstrates that specific individual dispositions are associated with more desirable outcomes. The relationship of positive psychological constructs, however, has not been applied to the areas of business ethics and social responsibility. Using four constructs in two independent studies (hope and gratitude in Study 1, spirituality and generativity in Study 2), the relationship of these constructs to sensitivity to corporate social performance (CSCSP) were assessed. Results indicate that all four constructs significantly predicted CSCSP, though only hope and gratitude interacted to impact CSCSP. Discussion focuses upon these findings, limitations of the study, and future avenues for research.     

Developing the evidence base of patient and public involvement in health and social care research: the case for measuring impact

While patient and public involvement (PPI) in health and social care research has progressed successfully in the last decade, a range of difficulties with the evidence base exist, including poor understanding of the concept of impact, limited theorization and an absence of quantitative impact measurement. In this paper, we argue that a paradigm change towards robust measurement of the impact of involvement in research is needed to complement qualitative explorations. We argue that service users should be collaboratively involved in the conceptualization, theorization and development of instruments to measure PPI impact. We consider the key advantages measurement would bring in strengthening the PPI evidence base through a greater understanding of what works, for whom, in what circumstances and why.     

ON THE MARTINGALE PROPERTY IN STOCHASTIC VOLATILITY MODELS BASED ON TIME‐HOMOGENEOUS DIFFUSIONS

Lions and Musiela give sufficient conditions to verify when a stochastic exponential of a continuous local martingale is a martingale or a uniformly integrable martingale. Blei and Engelbert and Mijatovi? and Urusov give necessary and sufficient conditions in the case of perfect correlation (). For financial applications, such as checking the martingale property of the stock price process in correlated stochastic volatility models, we extend their work to the arbitrary correlation case (). We give a complete classification of the convergence properties of both perpetual and capped integral functionals of time‐homogeneous diffusions and generalize results in Mijatovi? and Urusov with direct proofs avoiding the use of separating times (concept introduced by Cherny and Urusov and extensively used in the proofs of Mijatovi? and Urusov).     

Not all call auctions are created equal: evidence from Hong Kong

On 25 March 2002, the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd (HKEx) introduced an opening call auction. This trading mechanism is designed to facilitate price discovery in the presence of asymmetric information at the market open, increasing opening price efficiency. The design of the HKEx differs significantly from opening auctions in other markets. Contrary to previous research, the results indicate a decrease in market quality following the introduction of the opening call auction. This decline is largest in the less actively traded stocks.

Pricing accuracy,liquidity and trader behavior with closing price manipulation

We study the effects of closing price manipulation in an experimental market to evaluate the social harm caused by manipulation. We find that manipulators, given incentives similar to many actual manipulation cases, decrease price accuracy and liquidity. The mere possibility of manipulation alters market participants’ behavior, leading to reduced liquidity. We find evidence that ordinary traders attempt to profitably counteract manipulation. This study provides examples of the strategies employed by manipulators, illustrates how these strategies change in the presence of detection penalties and assesses the ability of market participants to identify manipulation.