Green hotel servicescape: attributes and unique experiences

ABSTRACT

The relationship between green hotel service attributes and consumption experiences remains unclear in the extant research, especially in the context of emerging economies such as India. This work uses a multi-method approach that combines in-depth interviews, word association and two-stage empirical validation to propose a three-dimensional framework for measuring a hotel’s green servicescape, composed of atmospherics, motifs and human encounters. Individual effects of each green servicescape sub-dimension on those of green experiential values, namely utilitarian, emotional, social and altruistic values, are examined. The results reveal interesting findings, some counterintuitive, which are expected to create new insights for academicians and practitioners alike.     

Samuelson Hypothesis & Indian Commodity Derivatives Market

Samuelson (1965) devised that futures price volatility increases as the futures contract approaches its expiration. The relation amid the volatility and time to maturity has significant inference for hedging strategies. Interestingly, so far the empirical evidence in favor of the Samuelson Hypothesis (maturity effect) is mixed in various markets. Considering no significant work to examine the relationship is so far carried out in commodity derivative markets of India, this paper ordeal the Samuelson Hypothesis on 8 commodities traded on Multi-Commodity Exchange (MCX), India. We have examined the issue by applying different regression techniques to test the hypothesis for 8 commodities (Aluminium, Nickel, Copper, Gold, Silver, Natural Gas, Crude Oil and Wheat) using inter-day data on MCX India. In order to test the Samuelson’s hypothesis, tests have been conducted using a series of GARCH, EGARCH and TGARCH models by including trading volume, open interest and time-to-maturity in the conditional variance equation. From our results, it is concluded that Samuelson’s hypothesis does not hold true for majority of commodity contracts considered. Our results also find that volatility series depend on the trading volume, compared to the time-to-maturity or open interest. As Samuelson hypothesis does not hold true for majority of commodity contracts, traders in Indian commodity derivative markets should not bias their decisions solely based on the time-to-maturity, but should also consider trading volume and open interest as they are an important determinant of price volatility. They should also consider the possibility of leverage effect while predicting future price volatilities, and the associated margin requirements.     

Risk Taking and Performance of Public Insurers: An International Comparison

We investigate how investor protection, government quality, and contract enforcement affect risk taking and performance of insurance companies from around the world. We find that better investor protection results in less risk taking, as do higher quality government and greater contract enforceability. However, we find only limited evidence that these factors influence firm performance. We conclude that better overall operating environments result in less risk taking by insurers without the concomitant decline in performance. These results imply that better investor protection environments benefit policyholders and outside stockholders by preventing corporate insiders from expropriating wealth from policyholders and outside stockholders.     

An application of the monetary approach to black market exchange rates

Zusammenfassung Eine Anwendung des monet?ren Ansatzes zur Erkl?rung von Schwarzmarkt-Wechselkursen. — Dieser Aufsatz entwickelt einen monet?ren Ansatz zur Analyse der Schwarzmarkt-Wechselkurse unter besonderer Berücksichtigung Indiens. Der Gleichgewichtskurs auf solchen M?rkten wird in einem Modell durch die Bedingungen des Bestandsgleichgewichts bestimmt. Berücksichtigt wird dabei das m?gliche Zusammenwirken zwischen dem Schmuggel und dem Schwarzmarkt für Devisen. Die empirischen Sch?tzungen lassen vermuten, daΒ die Ausweitung der Geldmenge im Inland und der internationale Goldpreis neben anderen Faktoren einen bedeutenden EinfluΒ auf den Schwarzmarkt-Wechselkurs in Indien haben.

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Résumé Une application de l’approche monétaire aux taux de change sur le marché noir. —Cet article développe une approche monétaire pour l’analyse des taux de change sur le marché noir en considération particulière de l’Inde. Dans le modèle, le taux de change d’équilibre sur le marché noir est déterminé par les conditions d’équilibre de stock. Le modèle permet l’interaction possible entre la fraude et le marché noir pour les monnaies étrangères. Les estimations empiriques suggèrent que l’expansion monétaire locale et le prix mondial d’or (complémentairement aux autres facteurs) ont une influence significative sur le taux de change sur le marché noir indien.

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Resumen Una aplicación del aprocha monetaria a las tasas de cambio del mercado negro. — En este artículo se desarrolla un aprocha ?monetaria? para el análisis de las tasas de cambio del mercado negro con especial referencia a la India. En el modelo, el equilibrio de la tasa de cambio del mercado negro se determina por las condiciones del equilibrio de stock. Se permite una posible interacción entre contrabando y mercado negro de monedas extranjeras. Las estimaciones empíricas sugieren que la expansión monetaria doméstica y el precio mundial del oro (agregados a otros factores) tienen una influencia significativa sobre la tasa de cambio de mercado negro en la India.

     

Estimating Direct Gains in Consumer Welfare in Telecommunications Sector

This paper discusses the benefits of product and process innovation as well as deregulation in consumer telecommunication products markets. The twin trends of price reduction and new features have benefited consumers. These major changes have taken place alongside deregulation. Using the data from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development telecommunication reports, the paper provides estimates of gains in consumer welfare over the years. These direct gains are significant (hundreds of billions of dollars) and thus justify the public investment that goes into the telecommunication infrastructure improvement.     

NOTES AND MEMORANDA INCOME, CONSUMPTION AND SAVING IN URBAN AND RURAL INDIA: A NOTE

In a recent issue of the Review of Income and Wealth [1], Uma Datta Roy Choudhury presented some results on consumption and saving functions in India. While the study is interesting, some of the results are quite peculiar. Thus she reports a marginal propensity to save of 0.88 for the urban sector, an abnormally high figure. Other available evidence points to a much lower figure. Again she reports a negative marginal propensity to consume out of permanent income for urban households. This makes no economic sense. Furthermore her attempts at explaining urban consumption behaviour are not very successful. In this paper, we shall show that these suspicious results are the consequences of the measurement and definitions of the variables, and the specification of the functions. Once these shortcomings are removed, we obtain more satisfactory and more plausible results.
In the first section we present a critique of Mrs. Roy Choudhury's article. In the second section we present our results. The last section summarizes the conclusions.     

A general class of estimators for estimating population mean using auxiliary information

Summary A general class of estimators for estimating the population mean of the character under study which make use of auxiliary information is proposed. Under simple random sampling without replacement (SRSWOR), the expressions of Bias and Mean Square Error (MSE), up to the first and the second degrees of approximation are derived. General conditions, up to the first order approximation, are also obtained under which any member of this class performs more efficiently than the mean per unit estimator, the ratio estimator and the product estimator. The class of estimators in its optimum case, under the first degree approximation, is discussed. It is shown that it is not possible to obtain optimum values of parameters “a”, “b” and “p”, that are independent of each other. However, the optimum relation among them is given by (b−a)p=ρ C _y/C _x. Under this condition, the expression of MSE of the class is that of the linear regression estimator.     

The effect of time-varying covariances on asset risk premia

In this article we examine an intertemporal capital asset pricing model (CAPM) that allows for time-varying conditional covariances that are assumed to follow a multivariate integrated generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedastic (IGARCH) process. The resulting pricing equation includes idiosyncratic risk premia in addition to the usual market beta. Empirical analysis based on ten size and ten industry portfolios reveals significant idiosyncratic premia for most portfolios. Overall, we reject the static CAPM in favor of the intertemporal CAPM.     

Equilibrium urban unemployment in developing countries: is migration the culprit?

"This paper challenges the prediction of Todaro's model of rural-to-urban migration that an 'increase in urban employment increases urban unemployed.' It is shown that if the urban demand for labor is isoelastic or inelastic, creation of urban jobs causes urban unemployment to decline and urban-to-rural migration to take place. Moveover, urban job creation always reduces the rate of urban unemployment. The paper then remodels the urban job search process and derives the result that equilibrium urban unemployment would not vanish even if the urban-rural wage gap were eliminated." The geographical focus is on developing countries.     

Static Hedging of Exotic Options

This paper develops static hedges for several exotic options using standard options. The method relies on a relationship between European puts and calls with different strike prices. The analysis allows for constant volatility or for volatility smiles or frowns.