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Schlafst?rungen vorbeugen - Oft sind Schlafst?rungen Bestandteil psychischer, organischer oder neurologisch degenerativer Erkrankungen. Sie k?nnen aber auch die Folge falschen Verhaltens oder ungemessener Schlafbedingungen sein. Also: Was f?rdert gesunden Schlaf, was behindert ihn?     

Flexible Estimation of Copulas: An Application to the US Housing Crisis

Zimmer (‘The role of copulas in the housing crisis’, Review of Economics and Statistics 2012; 94 : 607–620) provides an interesting case study of the pitfalls of using parametric copulas to understand the US housing crisis in the latter part of 2000s. The original study by Zimmer (2012) employs a finite‐mixture copula to illustrate that the symmetry of the Gaussian copula may not be tenable, especially for US housing price data during the time period from 1975:Q2 to 2009:Q1. We undertake a replication of his study in a wide sense. First, we replicate the study by incorporating revised data and then extending the dataset to include the most recent data. Second, we implement a nonparametric copula estimator recently proposed by Racine (‘Mixed data kernel copulas’, Empirical Economics forthcoming) to the parametrically filtered data used in Zimmer (2012). Our replication finds that the application of the nonparametric copula to the same and extended filtered data provides an alternative flexible specification for copulas. However, the overall cautionary message of the flexible‐form copula espoused in Zimmer (2012) remains. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The revealed comparative advantage of the east asian NICs

The spectacular export performance of the East Asian NICs is clearly indicated by their increasing shares of manufactured exports in the world markets. However, the conventional wisdom that the comparative advantage of industrialized countries such as Japan has systematically shifted to the NICs is challenged by the results from this study. A detailed analysis of the threedigit SITC product categories for manufactures indicates that NIC exports have not replaced Japan's in the U.S. market. The growth of manufactured exports from the NICs is moving along with the growth of Japan's exports in similar product categories but at different stages of the product cycle or of technology sophistication. Hence, the NICs, rather than replacing the exports from Japan, are merely supplying some complementary manufactured products to the industrialized market.     

Perceptual differences between recruiters and students on the importance of applicant and job characteristics: a research note based on evidence from Singapore

This study compared the perceptions of various important job applicant characteristics, job characteristics and job benefits between 107 corporate recruiters and 191 business undergraduates in Singapore. Results indicated significant incongruence between recruiter and student perceptions of a large number of job characteristics and benefits. However, perceptual differences were less extensive in the case of applicant attributes. The implications of these findings, and suggestions for greater perceptual congruence between recruiters and applicants, are discussed.     

Stereotype Processing's Effect on the Impact of the Myth/Fact Message Format and the Role of Personal Relevance

This research examines the effectiveness of the myth/fact message format (MFMF)—a message format that first presents a common misperception as a myth then counters it with a correcting fact—within the health‐care and social marketing context of mental illness (MI). Stereotype processing theory predicts that the use of a negative aspect of the stereotype in a MFMF may further instantiate the negative belief, thereby reducing the effectiveness of the message. Conversely, using a message format that conveys only facts (i.e., new positive beliefs) without inclusion of the myth will lead to more positive attitudes. However, this effect will only be seen among people with personal relevance with MI as only they are sufficiently motivated to suppress the automatically activated stereotype and elaborate on the message. A study demonstrates that advertising utilizing a fact‐only format leads to more positive attitudes than the MFMF among people with personal relevance while people without personal relevance to MI demonstrate no differences in attitude between myth/fact and fact‐only message formats. Personal relevance had the opposite moderating effect on perceived learning. These findings suggest that the MFMF's impact on attitudes, the typical focal point of social marketing campaigns targeting misconceptions about stereotyped groups, may be ineffective. Thus, using a fact‐only format that conveys new positive beliefs in a social marketing message is recommended within the specific context of MI and may be warranted in other health‐care and social issues.     

Exploring subcultural differences in hofstede's value survey: The case of the Chinese

Hofstede's Value Survey Module (VSM) identifies fundamental differences in the way people in various countries perceive and interpret their worlds. After adjusting value scores on the basis of demographic features of samples in the present study, values between subcultural groupings in four Chinese-populated regions (Taiwan, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Wuhan) were compared, and strong subcultural differences revealed. A methodology is proposed to facilitate VSM comparisons using limited, secondary data sources. Propositions concerning subcultural differences are suggested on the basis of the findings.     

The Dynamics of Dealer Markets Under Competition

The behavior of competing dealers in securities markets is analyzed. Securities are characterized by stochastic returns and stochastic transactions. Reservation bid and ask prices of dealers are derived under alternative assumptions about the degree to which transactions are correlated across stocks at a given time and over time in a given stock. The conditions for interdealer trading are specified, and the equilibrium distribution of dealer inventories and the equilibrium market spread are derived. Implications for the structure of securities markets are examined.     

Contract theory and agricultural policy analysis: a discussion and survey of recent developments*

This paper surveys some recent developments in contract theory and illustrates how this theory might be useful for conceptualising policy issues related to vertical coordination and contracting in the agro‐food industry. The article begins by surveying contract theory to identify key economic distortions that can potentially justify government involvement. Next, the general ingredients of agricultural contracts that are most likely to create inefficiencies are discussed. Finally, controversial aspects of real‐world agricultural contracts are highlighted and lessons from the theory are used to determine whether government intervention is justified. Actual legislation that has been proposed in the USA is analysed where appropriate and topics that await further research are also discussed.     

Exchange-rate volatility, trade and “fixing for life” in Thailand

At the outset of the 1997 financial crisis, the quest to find a more suitable exchange-rate policy has become an urgent task facing the East Asian economies. One of the key policies agreed under Thailand’s August 1997 Letter of Intent (LOI) with the IMF was the adoption of a more flexible exchange-rate policy. However, the country re-adopted its pre-1997 crisis rigid exchange-rate policy in early 1999. To grasp this “fixing for your life” phenomenon, we test the impact of the exchange-rate volatilities of Thailand’s baht against the yen and the US dollar on the performance of the country’s bilateral trades with the two key partners.