Modelling Category Inflation with Multiple Inflation Processes: Estimation,Specification and Testing1

Zero-inflated ordered probit (ZIOP) and middle-inflated ordered probit (MIOP) models are finding increasing favour in the discrete choice literature. We propose generalizations to these models – which collapse to their ZIOP/MIOP counterparts under a set of simple parameter restrictions – with respect to the inflation process. These generalizations form the basis of a new specification test of the inflation process in ZIOP and MIOP models. Support for our generalization framework is principally demonstrated by revisiting a key ZIOP application from the economics literature, and reinforced by the reassessment of an important MIOP application from political science. Our specification test supports the generalized models over the original ZIOP/MIOP ones, suggesting an important role for it in modelling zero- and middle-inflation processes.     

The role of domestic financial and economic development in financial integration

Using two-step system generalized method-of-moments on an unbalanced panel of 75 countries from 1996 to 2010, this study shows that financial development’s effect on the pace of a country’s financial integration is conditional on economic development. Indeed, the results validate the observation that greater financial development conditioned on similar levels of economic development should precede closer financial integration.     

Mortality Inequality in England over the Past 20 Years*

In this paper, we study the evolution of age‐group‐ and gender‐specific mortality and mortality inequality in England between 2003 and 2016, by comparing small geographic areas ranked by deprivation and grouped into bins of similar population size. We show that across all age groups, but especially in the older age groups (65+), there has been a clear and significant reduction in rates of mortality since 2003. In spite of these improvements, we continue to see significant inequalities in mortality across most age groups in 2016 and evidence of rising inequalities among women in the 65+ and men in the 80+ age groups. Furthermore, we see a striking stalling of the downwards trend in mortality and mortality inequality observed between 2003 and 2010 during the years of economic austerity in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis in England between 2010 and 2016. Analysis of specific causes of death among adults aged 20–79 allows us to examine the drivers and dynamics of these trends in more depth, as well as to consider scope for, and types of, interventions that would be appropriate at different ages.     

Is there evidence of insider trading in Australian water markets?

Insider trading is a much studied form of market manipulation in the financial market literature. However, studies addressing the issue of insider trading in resource markets, and in particular water markets, are rare. This study investigates the occurrence of insider trading practices around important water market allocation announcements in the Goulburn temporary water market trading zone in the Murray–Darling Basin, Australia, which is one of the largest and longest operating water market districts in the world. Nine years of daily water allocation volume and price transactions between 2008 and 2017 are modelled, with some evidence found of abnormal price movements in the 3 or 5 days preceding water allocation announcements, and especially before the introduction of insider trading rules in 2014. However, although the results do suggest some very weak statistically significant evidence that insider trading may still be present in Goulburn water markets post‐2014, it is just as feasible that our results may also reflect an increased sophistication of trader behaviour over time.     

Value co‐creation in online healthcare communities: The impact of patients’ reference frames on cure and care

The gradual transition of health care toward businesses during the past 50 years has converted passive patients into active customers. In our digital society, patients increasingly use online health communities to satisfy complex needs that healthcare professionals leave unmet, including the creation of cure‐oriented (i.e., functional) and care‐oriented (i.e., emotion) value. This research investigates patients’ reference frames (self versus other) as an information processing mechanism and their impact on value creation in online communities. The analysis of 1,687 online postings of a leading healthcare platform shows that self‐referencing is typical for information obtained through an individualistic, patient–doctor encounter; other‐referencing emerges when patients focus on the needs of their peers. Information gathered through the patient–doctor encounter and processed with a self‐referencing frame accordingly enhances cure‐related value, but limits care‐oriented value co‐creation. Other‐referencing does exactly the opposite: it creates a barrier to cure‐related value, but stimulates care‐related value. A patient's experience with the community largely moderates the impact of both self‐ and other‐referencing on cure‐ and care‐related value. These findings show that online health communities can identify and address unmet patient needs, but healthcare professionals still play a critical role in terms of ensuring information quality in online health communities.     

Community-owned tourism and degrowth: a case study in the Kichwa Añangu community

Abstract

Tourism is a booming global industry, seemingly at odds with a degrowth movement seeking to challenge the profit-maximizing model embedded in capitalist expansion. However, the tourism industry is not a homogenous entity, but is instead characterized by diverse forms of distinct tourisms. In Ecuador, the Kichwa Añangu Community has chosen to dedicate their livelihood to community-owned tourism. Añangu owns and operates two lodges, whose management and oversight are administered through communal governance. As a result, tourism is locally embraced as a vehicle for livelihood wellbeing, cultural reclamation, and environmental stewardship. Community-owned tourism will not provide a cure-all answer to the critiques levied against tourism or to the vulnerabilities inherent in the practice of tourism. However, Añangu’s project offers a compelling case study for considering how certain tourisms could become a vehicle for developing a localized degrowth society. The Añangu have decentralized the value placed upon profit in the practice of tourism, replacing it with Kichwa forms of communal organizing guided by their goal for Sumak Kawsay, or the “good life.” For the Añangu, the sustainability of their project cannot be separated from its economic viability, however, success is also measured by how tourism contributes to a number of community-defined goals.     

Ethical dilemma at work: the viewpoint of bank marketers in Nigeria

The study sought to investigate the major factors that constitute ethical dilemmas for bank marketers in the workplace. The conclusive research design was adopted, and the population of the study consisted of part-time postgraduate students in the faculty of management sciences at the University of Benin who are bank marketers. Research data were analysed using structural equation modelling. Results indicate that sales target and deceptive marketing significantly influence the ethical dilemma faced by bank marketers in Nigeria. The results also showed that respondents’ perception is related to education but not related to sex, marital status and age.

     

Need for speed: Hard information processing in a high‐frequency world

I study the role of high‐frequency traders (HFTs) and non‐high‐frequency traders (nHFTs) in transmitting hard price information from the futures market to the stock market using an index arbitrage strategy. Using intraday transaction data with HFT identification, I find that HFTs process hard information faster and trade on it more aggressively than nHFTs. In terms of liquidity supply, HFTs are better at avoiding adverse selection than nHFTs. Consequently, HFTs enhance the linkage between the futures and stock markets, and significantly contribute to information efficiency in the stock market by reducing the delay between the stock and the futures markets.     

Of Boldness and Badness: Insights into Workplace Malfeasance from a Triarchic Psychopathy Model Perspective

Research has shown that individuals with high levels of psychopathic personality traits are likely to cause harm to others in the workplace. However, there is little academic literature on the potentially adaptive outcomes of corporate psychopathy, particularly because the “boldness” psychopathy domain has largely been under-acknowledged in this literature. This study aimed to elaborate on past findings by examining the associations between psychopathy, as operationalized using scales from the relatively new triarchic model of psychopathy (boldness, meanness, and disinhibition), and both adaptive and maladaptive workplace behaviors. Participants were 343 working community adults who completed a series of self-report questionnaires that measured psychopathy and various workplace behaviors, including counterproductive work behaviors (CWB), tactics of influence, unethical decision-making, leadership strategies, team play, and creativity. Structural equation modeling was used to estimate the associations between latent constructs of boldness, meanness, and disinhibition, and the eight different constructs related to workplace behaviors. It was found that boldness preferentially predicted the use of soft tactics of influence, adaptive leadership, and team play, and negatively predicted passive leadership. Meanness predicted unethical decision-making, poor team play, and hard tactics of influence. Disinhibition positively predicted CWB and passive leadership. Meanness also moderated the association between disinhibition and CWB, in that greater scores on both psychopathy domains indicated greater levels of CWB. These findings provide conceptual support for the triarchic model, including the “boldness” domain, which measures adaptive aspects of psychopathy in addition to maladaptive ones, as well as suggest that not all individuals high on psychopathy would be an overt menace to the workplace. The different psychopathy traits may also interact with each other to predict different types or levels of workplace behaviors.     

Stages of Organizational Transformation in Transition Economies: A Dynamic Capabilities Approach

How do organizations previously dominated by the state develop dynamic capabilities that would support their growth in a competitive market economy? We develop a theoretical framework of organizational transformation that explains the processes by which organizations learn and develop dynamic capabilities in transition economies. Specifically, the framework theorizes about the importance of, and inter‐relationships between, leadership, organizational learning, dynamic capabilities, and performance over three stages of transformation. Propositions derived from this framework explain the pre‐conditions enabling organizational learning, the linkages between types of learning and functions of dynamic capabilities, and the feedback from dynamic capabilities to organizational learning that allows firms in transition economies to regain their footing and build long‐term competitive advantage. We focus on transition contexts, where these processes have been magnified and thus offer new insights into strategizing in radically altered environments.