Trust in financial services: Retrospect and prospect

Fostering and maintaining high levels of trust in the financial services sector is seen as crucial because of the characteristics of many financial service and in order to promote consumer engagement in the sector. In this article, we report evidence from a body of work and other commentary to provide an insight into trends in consumer trust in the sector as a whole, in comparison with other organisations and how different types of financial services provider have performed relative to each other. We show that the financial services sector as a whole is trusted more than some comparator institutions, and that aggregate levels of trust in the sector have fluctuated a relatively small amount subsequent to the financial crisis. However, important differences between provider types are apparent and these differences have become more profound in the recent past. We provide suggestions as to how trust in the sector may be improved and provider an analysis of current initiatives to improve trust levels in the sector in general and in banking in particular.     

Negligence,capture, and dependence: safety regulation of the design of India’s Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor

This article contributes a case study of regulation of the design of India’s Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR). This reactor is the first of its kind in India, and perceived by the nuclear establishment as critical to its future ambitions. Because fast breeder reactors can experience explosive accidents called core disruptive accidents whose maximum severity is difficult to contain, it is difficult to assure the safety of the reactor’s design. Despite the regulatory agency’s apparent misgivings about the adequacy of the PFBR’s design, it eventually came to approve construction of the reactor. We argue that the approval process should be considered a case of regulatory failure, and examine three potential factors that contributed to this failure: institutional negligence, regulatory capture, and dependence on developers and proponents for esoteric knowledge. This case holds lessons for nuclear safety regulation and more generally in situations where specialized, highly technical, knowledge essential for ensuring safety is narrowly held.     

Audit as Leviathan: Constructing Quality Registers in Swedish Health Care

This paper explores the rise of an audit practice: the national quality registers in Swedish health care. Based on actor‐network theory, the study tells the story of an actor‐network formed by physicians in the 1970s who mobilized themselves around a common object; to develop the knowledge‐base of medical professionals. However, over time more actors became persuaded of the potential of the network and associate themselves with it, resulting in reformed registers. The study shows how the network develops into a macro‐actor, a Leviathan in health care, how this macro‐actor comes to affect health care practices and how it contributes towards maintaining a new governance regime.     

Europe,Germany and “The German Model”: Economic Links and Implications for China

Abstract

In this paper, I examine the economic links first between the European Union (EU) and China and then I focus on the economic relationships between Germany and China. The links I will consider include international trade and direct investment. Lastly I highlight some elements of the so-called “German Model” or the “Berlin Way” and examine if they can be of policy relevance to China. There are four main results: first, EU-China trade and investment relationships are strong, deepening rapidly but they are somewhat unbalanced and asymmetric. Second, the economic relationships between Europe and China are focused on manufacturing. Third, the EU-China relationships are primarily Deutschland-centric. Lastly, elements of the “German Model” such as Mitbestimmung, Mittelstand and the German apprenticeship system can have important structural and policy implications as China continues to grow and experiment with reforms aiming at combining stability, harmony and competitiveness.     

The impact of external reference price on consumer price expectations

Comparative pricing practices are frequently used where actual product prices are accompanied by higher external reference prices. All types of stores, regular-price department stores as well as discount stores, use comparative price claims to frame price deals as attractive [Marketing Science 4 (1985) 199]. In this paper, a quadratic model is specified for the impact of external reference price (ERP) on consumer price expectations. Based on the research on communication discrepancy and advertising claim discrepancy, which in turn draw on assimilation-contrast, attribution, and prospect theories, we hypothesize a quadratic effect of external reference prices on consumer price expectations. An interactive, computer-controlled experiment using multiple levels of ERP is used to estimate the proposed model. As hypothesized, support for an inverted U-shape relationship is found between consumers’ updated price expectations and the difference between ERP and initial price expectations. That is, as the difference between ERP and subjects’ initial price expectations increases, subjects’ updated price expectations increase to a point and then start to decrease. We find that the fit of the quadratic model specification for the effect of external reference price on price expectations is noticeably superior to that of linear, logarithmic, square root, and S-shaped specifications. Finally, we provide implications of our results for both retail managers and for regulatory authorities alike.     

Reforming European Merger Review: Targeting Problem Areas in Policy Outcomes

This paper is an attempt to derive priorities for the reform of European merger policy from observed problems with decision making in merger cases. We identify problems in the application of theory and empirical method as well as the impact of resource constraints and the potential for systematic decision bias. In contrast to the intense debate about the merits of a switch from a dominance criterion to a significant lessening of competition test, we find that such a switch would not effectively address any of the problems in Commision decision making on mergers. Similarly, the lack of an efficiency defense does not seem to explain any of the weaknesses of European merger policy. In contrast, we find that most of the problem areas identified in current merger control practice can be effectively addressed by reforming the merger procedure, the internal organization of merger control in the Commission, as well as addressing resource issues. Together with carefully crafted merger guidelines these should have strong priority for the reform of merger policy in Europe.     

Hierarchical Bayesian conjoint models incorporating measurement uncertainty

The authors explore situations where consumers supplement their judgments with a measurement of uncertainty about their own preferences, either implicitly or explicitly, and develop two sets of hierarchical Bayesian conjoint models incorporating such measurements. The first set of models uses the relative location of a rating to determine the importance or weight given to the rating, in a regression setting. The second set uses interval judgment as a dependent variable in a regression setting. After specifying the models, the authors perform a theoretical comparison with a basic Bayesian regression model. They show that, under different conditions, the proposed models will yield more precise individual-level partworth estimates. Two simulated data examples and data from a conjoint study are used to illustrate the gains that could be obtained from modeling uncertainty. In the empirical application, the authors show that model fit improves when ratings for items that respondents do not like are given more weight compared to ratings for items that they do like. Electronic Supplementary Material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

创新沙盒

在印度，大约有7亿处于金字塔底部的消费者，他们的需求受到许多不可变更的外部预设条件限制，《金字塔底部的财富》作者普拉哈拉德在本文中将这部分消费者比喻成“沙盒”，探讨如何围绕这个新兴市场创新商业模式。