Tourism's role in urban regeneration: examining the impact of environmental cues on emotion,satisfaction, loyalty,and support for Seoul's revitalized Cheonggyecheon stream district

This study explores the use of sustainable tourism as a tool for the regeneration and “greening” of urban areas. It is based on evidence from the revitalization of the Cheonggyecheon stream district in downtown Seoul, a process that emphasized nature conservation and recreational opportunities. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of environmental cues on emotion, satisfaction, loyalty, and support for the revitalized Cheonggyecheon stream district by applying a stimulus–organism–response framework. We conducted an on-site survey on visitors to Cheonggyecheon during November 2010. The results indicated that environmental cues from the revitalization arouse positive emotions that lead to visitor satisfaction and loyalty, which, in turn, bring about strong support for the stream and further tourism development. Structure and ambiance affected both positive emotion and satisfaction. Visitors appreciated not only nature, but also man-made facilities (e.g. culture center, artificial waterfall, fountain, artwork, stepping stones, lighting, signage, and nightly laser show) that aroused positive emotion and satisfaction. A strong case is made for long-term and holistic planning to maintain the natural and man-made surroundings of Cheonggyecheon in order for it to remain popular with visitors and residents. Discussions and implications are drawn from the findings.     

Trade Liberalisation and Poverty Reduction in Vietnam

This paper investigates the impacts of trade liberalisation on poverty reduction in Vietnam during the period of economic reform. Using a combined approach dealing with four transmitting channels from trade to poverty, the major findings are summarised as follows. First, Vietnam's trade liberalisation has fostered economic growth, which has helped to raise per capita GDP and reduce poverty. Second, trade liberalisation has directly benefited the poor through creating pro‐poor employment and raising wages. Third, another impact of trade liberalisation on poverty is income and substitution effects associated with reduced domestic prices of importables and increased domestic prices of exportables such as coffee and rice. Fourth, trade liberalisation has indirectly benefited the poor because it raises government revenue, which enhances the government's ability to subsidise the poor. Finally, although the poverty rate in Vietnam has been reduced impressively, there is an increasing disparity between urban and rural areas and, among the latter, concern does exist regarding ethnic minorities.     

Factors influencing social capital in rural tourism communities in South Korea

This study aimed to identify the factors influencing social capital as it affects community conflict management for community residents in rural tourism villages. An on-site survey consisting of self-administered questionnaires was conducted with residents of rural tourism communities. These self-administered surveys were obtained from 380 community residents in the study area. A factor-clustering method identified distinct segments: high social capital (52%) and low social capital (47.7%). The estimation of a binary logistic regression model determined the characteristics of community residents who were most likely to be associated with each type of social capital. Results indicated that fruit, vegetable and rice farmers who also operated farm-stay businesses and rural activity programmes for tourists had the most social. We suggest that certain types of government policy programmes are helpful for increasing social capital and managing community conflicts by means of involvement in the tourism business.     

The participatory Vickrey–Clarke–Groves mechanism

This paper introduces the participatory Vickrey–Clarke–Groves mechanism, which satisfies both ex-ante budget balance and interim individual rationality. We bound the efficiency loss of this mechanism by a parameter that captures the structure of marginal contributions to the social welfare. We then apply the theory to quite general multiple unit double auction problems to show that the participatory VCG mechanism achieves asymptotic efficiency.     

Feeling happier when paying more: Dysfunctional counterfactual thinking in consumer affect

In this research the authors examine whether counterfactual thinking, the process of imagining alternatives to reality, can have a detrimental impact on consumers' feelings. Five studies examine the dysfunctional role of counterfactual thinking in the presence of Minimum Purchase Requirement conditional message framing (“X% off all purchases if you spend at least $Y”), and its affective consequences. Results show that the presence or absence of the minimum amount restriction (Studies 1A and 1B), success or failure to meet the restriction (Studies 2A and 2B), and perceived closeness (i.e., outcome proximity) to success or failure in meeting the restriction (Study 3), drastically influence consumer affect to the extent that participants receiving an inferior deal exhibited higher satisfaction than those receiving a superior deal. It is suggested that such promotion‐induced counterfactual thinking polarizes consumer satisfaction, which may impede consumers from arriving at optimal conclusions. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Developing a process of concept generation for new product-service systems: a QFD and TRIZ-based approach

This research aims at suggesting a novel approach to creating promising product-service system (PSS) concepts by resolving contradictions between product and service components. In order to resolve these interference problems, theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ) method is applied and the suitability of this method for PSS is evaluated by applying the 40 inventive principles in TRIZ method to PSS cases among Fortune Global 500 companies. In addition, quality function deployment is adopted to identify the critical features of products and services. By applying the suggested approach to a car sharing service, a representative automobile PSS, its practicability and utility are verified.     

Urban Land Development and its Prices: The Effects of Conversion Costs with Redevelopment

This paper analyzes urban land development when landowners anticipate a future large-scale redevelopment by a third party developer. Landowners' initial development activities can deter such redevelopment because they impose two conversion costs on the redeveloper: demolition costs and landowners' reservation prices. These costs are eventually borne by the landowners when the developers' market is competitive. For the landowners' initial development activities, we analyze both the efficient solution and the noncooperative solution under the Nash equilibrium. In both cases, the possibility of redevelopment results in a lower level of initial development due to the conversion costs, but increases land prices. However, the magnitude of their effects is smaller in the Nash solution due to an externality. The presence of such an externality provides a rationale for zoning and urban planning.     

Risk aversion in the expected and the nonexpected utility functions

If asset returns are i.i.d. over time, the preference parameter in the time additive von Neumann-Morgenstern expected utility is the risk aversion coefficient in the Epstein-Zin nonexpected utility. By distinguishing between risk aversion and intertemporal substitution, this article provides an explanation about the observed discrepancy in the empirical estimates of the risk aversion coefficient.     

Fairly priced deposit insurance,incentive compatible regulations,and bank asset choices

This article provides incentive compatible regulations that support fairly priced deposit insurance in a competitive banking industry. If informational asymmetry exists between the regulator and banks regarding loan quality, but the regulator can observe actual loan rates charged, then imposing a capital requirement schedule that leads market loan rates to decrease in loan quality is shown to be incentive compatible. Competition in the loan market induces banks to be indifferent to all loans that satisfy a minimum acceptable quality and reject all riskier loans. The regulator could reduce the banking industry's riskiness by imposing stricter capital requirements that increase this minimum quality.