Fiscal consolidation in Germany

The German federal government’s fiscal consolidation package, announced in June, is designed to permanently reduce the federal deficit to a new target level. This article uses a three-region version of the European Commission’s QUEST model to gauge the impact of the package on Germany and the spillover to the rest of the euro area and the rest of the world.     

Financial Exposure and the International Transmission of Financial Shocks

This paper analyzes the transmission mechanism of banking sector shocks in an international real business cycle model with heterogeneous bank sizes. We examine to what extent the financial exposure of the banking sector affects the transmission of foreign banking sector shocks. In our model, the more exposed domestic banks are to the foreign economy via lending to foreign firms, the greater are the spillovers from foreign financial shocks to the home economy. The model highlights the role of openness to trade and the dynamics of the terms of trade in the international transmission mechanism of banking sector shocks: spillovers from foreign banking sector shocks are greater the more open the home economy is to trade and the less the terms of trade respond to foreign shocks.     

The influence of internet customer reviews on the online sales and prices in hotel industry

In this paper, the impact of two service quality metrics (star rating and customer rating) on hotel room sales and prices is investigated. Two of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, Paris and London, are chosen. It is found that a higher customer rating significantly increases the online sales of hotels. The study results show that a 1% increase in online customer rating increases Sales per Room up to 2.68% in Paris and up to 2.62% in London. Contrary to expectations, higher stars do not increase the sales. It is also shown that higher customer ratings result in higher prices of the hotel and the prices of high star hotels are more sensitive to online customer ratings.     

Entry to foreign markets and productivity: Evidence from a matched sample of Turkish manufacturing firms

We examine the effects of international trading activities of firms on creating productivity gains in Turkey by using a recent firm-level data set over the period 2003–2010. We establish treatment models and investigate the productivity improvements of firms through trade by using propensity score matching techniques together with difference-in-difference estimates. Three different groups of treatment are constructed: (1) firms that are involved only with import activities, (2) firms that are involved only with export activities and (3) firms that are involved with both export and import activities. The results of the study suggest that both exporting and importing have positive significant effects on total factor productivity (TFP) and labour productivity (LP) of firms. Importing is found to have a greater impact on productivity of firms compared to exporting. Further, two-way trade is found to have more significant effects than those of one-way trade on firm productivity. Finally, our results indicate that international trade has greater impact on LP rather than TFP of firms.     

哈萨克斯坦共和国的贸易与投资环境

哈萨克斯坦是我国在中亚地区重要经贸合作伙伴。为了帮助我国企业加大对哈萨克斯坦市场开拓力度,本文简要介绍了该国的贸易与投资环境,并对我国企业跨国经营应注意的问题给予了提示。     

On length biased dynamic measure of past inaccuracy

In the present communication we introduce a length biased past inaccuracy measure between two past lifetime distributions over the interval (0, t). Based on proportional reversed hazard model characterization problem for the length biased inaccuracy measure has been studied. An upper bound to the weighted past inaccuracy measure has also been derived, which reduces to the upper bound obtained in case of weighted past entropy.     

国际调停发生的讨价还价模型:一种定量检验

国际冲突是否经历调停是由调停的供给方(即调停者)和需求方(即争端方)共同决定的。与既有大多数研究强调影响调停发生的"深层原因"不同,作者借鉴理性主义解释视角,着重关注影响调停发生的"即时原因",即将调停的发生视为需求方讨价还价成功的结果。根据理性主义的解释,影响需求方讨价还价结果的主要障碍有私有信息(包括故意误传私有信息)、承诺问题和议题不可分割性三种,而第三方调停者的干预可以帮助需求方克服这三种障碍,从而增加调停发生的可能性。作者使用"国际危机行为"和"国际冲突管理"两个数据库数据,运用统计方法检验了调停发生的讨价还价模型。统计结果表明,当影响需求方之间讨价还价结果的三种问题得到有效管理时,国际冲突更容易经历调停。     

Security in a sea of insecurity: job security and intention to stay among service sector employees in Turkey

This article examines the association between job security and intention to stay for those who are employed in Turkey. There is a high level of unemployment in the country and many workers there are concerned about their job security. Job security refers to the objective dimensions of continuous contract, working full-time hours and paid and unpaid overtime. Job security also refers to the subjective dimension of perceived job security. We surveyed 407 employees in banking and related sectors' call centres, five-star hotel front-line staff and airline cabin crews. Results show that objective dimensions of job security are not associated with intention to stay. However, perceived job security is significantly and positively associated with intention to stay. We recommend that human resource managers focus on the perceived job security aspect of employment to keep valuable employees with the company.     

The Stewardship Role of Analyst Forecasts,and Discretionary Versus Non-discretionary Accruals

We examine the interaction between discretionary and non-discretionary accruals in a stewardship setting. Contracting includes multiple rounds of renegotiation based on contractible accounting information and non-contractible but more timely non-accounting information. We show that accounting regulation aimed at increasing earnings quality from a valuation perspective (earnings persistence) may have a significant impact on how firms rationally respond in terms of allowing accrual discretion in order to alleviate the impact on the stewardship role of earnings. Increasing the precision of more timely non-accounting information (analyst earnings forecasts) increases the ex ante value of the firm and reduces costly earnings management. There is an optimal level of reversible non-discretionary accrual noise introduced through revenue recognition policies. Tight rules-based accounting regulation, as opposed to leaving firms more choice over non-discretionary accrual policies, may lead firms to rationally respond by inducing costly earnings management. More generally, regulating both earnings persistence and the tightness of admissible auditing policies may not result in less equilibrium earnings management.