What moves German Bund futures contracts on the Eurex?

The German 10‐year Bund futures contract traded on the Eurex futures and options exchange in Frankfurt became the world's most actively traded derivative product by the end of 1999. In this article, we provide a detailed exploration of the interday and intraday return volatility in the Bund futures contract using a sample of five‐min returns from 1997 to 1998. The evolution of interday volatility is described best by a MA(1)‐fractionally integrated process that allows for the long‐memory features. At the intraday level, we find that macroeconomic announcements from both Germany and the U.S. are an important source of volatility. Among the various German announcements, we identify the IFO industry survey of business climate, industrial production (preliminary), and Bundesbank policy meeting as being by far the most important. The three most significant U.S. announcements include the employment report, the National Association of Purchasing Managers (NAPM) survey, and employment costs. Overall, U.S. macroeconomic announcements have a far greater impact on the Bund futures market than their German counterparts. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 22:679–696, 2002     

Multigeneration diffusion model for economic assessment of new technology

In the era of 21st century, development of emerging information technology is the essence of the advancement. This kind of new technology, however, often requires a great deal of amount of initial investment for both procedures of R&D and commercialization. As cost invested in developing the specified technology is increasing, investors are paying more attention to cost to benefit analysis (CBA). One of the basic elements of CBA for new technological development is the diffusion pattern of demand of such technology. Typically, it would be hard to presume the diffusion pattern of demand when the new product or the technology is under development. In this case, a simulation study is necessary. Many studies of technology evaluation have adopted a single generation model to simulate the diffusion pattern of demand. This approach, however, considers the diffusion of the new technology itself, not taking into account newer generation, which can replace the one just invented. In the real market situation, one must consider the competition and substitution phenomena between old and new technologies. In this paper, we show how multigeneration technology diffusion model can be applied for more accurate CBA for information technology. Additionally, Monte Carlo simulation is performed to find influential factors on the CBA of a cybernetic building system (CBS).     

Corporate governance and the sensitivity of investments to cash flows

We find very strong and consistent evidence that investments in Strong‐Governance firms (managers not entrenched) are strongly sensitive to availability of internal cash flows while such sensitivity is not different from zero for Weak‐Governance firms (entrenched management). We interpret this as evidence in support of Kaplan and Zingales' (1997) contention that sensitivity of investments to cash flows is not an adequate measure of financing constraints. More importantly, our findings are consistent with Kaplan and Zingales’ conjecture that the observed sensitivity of investments to cash flows in firms that do not face financing constraints may be driven by excessive risk aversion of managers.     

Information Effects on Consumers' Preferences and Willingness to Pay for a Functional Food Product: The Case of Red Ginseng Concentrate*

This paper elicits consumers' preferences associated with attributes of a very popular food product in Asia: red ginseng concentrate. The results of a choice experiment suggest that an asymmetric information problem can cause consumers' preferences and valuation for red ginseng concentrate to be significantly influenced by objective information about the product's attributes. The results imply that while objective information can result in differential changes in valuation for different product attributes, it can increase consumers' willingness to pay for red ginseng concentrate. The paper also discuss important policy and marketing implications from the results of the study.     

Market Power of Domestic Marketers and its Influence on the Consequences of the Korea–US and Korea–Australia FTAs on the Beef Market

Domestic, US and Australian beef, which are differentiated by country of origin, are sold in Korea. In this differentiated product market, tariff reductions through Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) are expected to strengthen the competitiveness of imported beef and, therefore, to mitigate the effects arising from the market power of domestic marketers. The present study develops a simulation model that evaluates this mitigating effect by explicitly reflecting the market structure that domestic beef marketers constitute. The simulation results indicate that the farm-retail marketing margin would decrease by 10.59% or 6.79% due to the Korea–US and Korea–Australia FTAs, respectively, if domestic beef marketers formed a cartel or an oligopoly market (i.e. the degree of market power is 0.5), while the marketing margin under a competitive market scenario is simulated to have no change. The value of beef production would decrease by 1009 million dollars if the marketers form a cartel and hence exercise monopoly power. The FTAs are simulated to reduce the value of beef production by 564 million dollars under the competitive market scenario.     

Examining the Factors Affecting Perceived Enjoyment and Usage Intention of Ubiquitous Tour Information Services: A Service Quality Perspective

With the advances in mobile technologies, the ubiquitous tour information service has been emerging as a new solution for providing tour information. This study examined the effects of ubiquitous tour information service on perceived enjoyment and usage intention by tourists. The study begins with a preliminary survey of mobile device users’ motives and perceptions of usage, followed by a review of the related literature. The measurements were derived from this process. The demonstrative analysis results classify the quality of ubiquitous tour information service into four categories: system quality, information quality, interface design, and convenience. Before analyzing the data, an exploratory factor analysis for reliability and validity assessment was conducted. Whereas the factors of interface design and convenience did not have a significant impact, the remaining two factors, system quality and information quality, impacted users’ perceived enjoyment to a much greater extent. The four categories of ubiquitous tour information service were shown to affect usage intention. Of the four factors, system quality was found to have the highest impact on usage intention, followed by convenience, interface design, and information quality, in that order. The association between perceived enjoyment and usage intention was also supported. Based on the results, academic and managerial implications are discussed.     

Firm-based market structure analysis using competitive advertising responses

In past literature, consumer-based measures reflecting perceptions or behaviour of consumers have been used for market structure analysis. However, for developing competitive strategies, firms may need to identify market structures based on how their competitors perceive the market and how they behave. In this article, we develop a firm-based measure using advertising reaction data to drive market structure. We then test hypotheses regarding the situations where the firm-based competitive maps converge with those derived from a traditional consumer-based approach. To derive competitive maps, we collected time-series advertising and sales data for 27 SBUs in six consumer-product categories. Survey data were also collected from marketing managers to test the hypotheses. Our investigation suggests that the maps of two approaches are consistent when markets are stable and predictable.     

Explaining cross-racial differences in teenage labor force participation: Results from a two-sided matching model

White teenagers are substantially more likely to search for employment than black teenagers. This differential occurs despite the fact that, conditional on race, individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to search. While the racial wage gap is small, the unemployment rate for black teenagers is substantially higher than that of white teenagers. We develop a two-sided search model where firms are partially able to search on demographics. Model estimates reveal that firms are more able to target their search on race than on age. Employment and wage outcome differences explain half of the racial gap in labor force participation rates.     

Informed trading in the index option market: The case of KOSPI 200 options

This study examines if informed trading is present in the index option market by analyzing the KOSPI 200 options, the most actively traded derivative product in the world. The spread decomposition model developed by Madhavan, Richardson, and Roomans (1997) is utilized and the adverse‐selection cost component of the spread estimated by the model is then used as a proxy for the degree of informed trading. We find that adverse‐selection costs constitute a nontrivial portion of the transaction costs in index options trading. Approximately one‐third of the spread can be accounted for by information asymmetry costs. A further analysis indicates that adverse‐selection costs are positively related with option delta. Our regression analysis shows that option‐related variables are significantly associated with estimated information asymmetry costs, even when controlling for proxies for informed trading in the index futures market. Finally, we find the evidence that foreign investors are better informed compared to domestic investors and that domestic institutions have an edge in terms of information over domestic individuals. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 28:1118–1146, 2008     

The Effects of Fear Appeal: A Moderating Role of Culture and Message Type

This study explores the moderating role that culture plays on the effects of fear-appeal advertisements on subjects’ message acceptance. Secondly, this study investigates the role of message type in two different cultures (South Korea and the United States). As predicted, culture played as a moderating variable in the process of fear-arousing, antismoking ads. The main difference, however, was found in the collectivistic culture; although no significant difference was found for the individualistic culture. Further, the findings also suggest that the different message strategy should be considered in the different cultures to increase message acceptance among people.