Liquidity: Considerations of a Portfolio Manager

This paper examines liquidity and how it affects the behavior of portfolio managers, who account for a significant portion of trading in many assets. We define an asset to be perfectly liquid if a portfolio manager can trade the quantity she desires when she desires at a price not worse than the uninformed expected value. A portfolio manager is limited by both what she needs to attain and the ease with which she can attain it, making her sensitive to three dimensions of liquidity: price, timing, and quantity. Deviations from perfect liquidity in any of these dimensions impose shadow costs on the portfolio manager. By focusing on the trade-off between sacrificing on price and quantity instead of the canonical price-time trade-off, the model yields several novel empirical implications. Understanding a portfolio manager's liquidity considerations provides important insights into the liquidity of many assets and asset classes.     

Causal mapping and scenario building with multiple organisations

Thinking and planning for the future is critical in a competitive business world. Scenarios are a common technique for investigating the future, but can be time consuming and challenging to develop, particularly when more than a single organisation is involved. An approach is presented here which shifts the focus of scenario building from the company level to the sector level, whereby a range of organisations engage collectively on a topic of mutual importance. A rapid technique was developed, with simple scenarios being constructed in 2-4 h. This process was implemented in 13 multi-organisational workshops with participants from the construction and building industries, sectors which are traditionally short-term and reactive in their outlook. The resulting feedback, observations and experiences are discussed, together with examples of how the resultant scenarios have been applied. An example of causal map reflection (exposing an individual's causal map to others) is also presented, described and critiqued. It was found that the process was successful in engaging participants in thinking about and discussing the future, appreciating the interconnectivities of the related issues, and understanding the collective implications of their potential decisions, as well as facilitating the socialisation of participant thinking and the construction of collective futures.     

Domestic Crop Booms,Livelihood Pathways and Nested Transitions: Charting the Implications of Bangladesh's Pangasius Boom

Rapidly transforming Asian food systems are oriented largely towards domestic markets, yet literature on Asian crop booms deals almost exclusively with commodities produced for export. With reference to pangasius aquaculture in Bangladesh, we argue that ‘domestic crop booms’ – agricultural booms driven by domestic demand – are contributing to rapid social and ecological transformations in Asia and across the globe. We adopt a comparative multi‐scalar approach, and develop the concept of ‘livelihood pathways’ as a means of understanding agrarian change associated with crop booms. The study reveals sharply divergent patterns of social change resulting from the pangasius boom, as experienced in two different village settings, despite underlying similarities in the processes of commodification evident in both. In addition to drawing attention to domestic crop booms and the diversity of transitions in which they result, the paper demonstrates the value of comparative multi‐scalar analytical approaches and the importance of livelihood pathways in processes of agrarian change.     

一种新的包含可变时间效应的内生时空权重矩阵构建方法

研究目标：引入一种基于年度全局Moran指数比的内生时空权重矩阵构建方法,并评估其合理性。研究方法：基于标准化的空间权重矩阵和以年度全局Moran指数比为基础的时间权重矩阵,经过克罗内克积组合形成内生时空权重矩阵;并以两江新区辐射带动力影响因素分解问题为例,评估了内生时空权重矩阵的引入合理性。研究发现：相对于传统的外生时空权重矩阵而言,内生时空权重矩阵能够模拟空间溢出效应在时间上的动态转移和传导效应,却不会导致模型估计结果变异性质发生明显改变。研究创新：构建了一种新的内生性的、包含可变时间效应的时空权重矩阵。研究价值：为面板数据空间计量模型建模实践构建了一种更为精准的时空权重矩阵设计方式。     

An International Comparison of Employment Adjustment to Exchange Rate Fluctuations

This paper evaluates the response of employment to exchange rate shocks at the industry level for G-7 countries. Using an empirical framework that places little structure on the data, it is found that European industries, at least France and Germany, are much less influenced by exchange rate shocks and much slower to adjust to long-run steady states. The United States, Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom and Italy all appear to adjust more quickly. German and Japanese employment are quite insensitive to exchange rate fluctuations, consistent with previous research on output and markup responses to exchange rates.     

Waterfall attractions in coastal tourist areas: the Yorkshire coast and Queensland's Gold Coast compared

A comparative study of tourism development on the Yorkshire coast and Queensland's Gold Coast illustrates the importance of waterfalls as attractions, even in beach orientated tourist areas catering mainly for seaside holidaymakers. A relative decline in the importance of the Yorkshire coast waterfall attractions whereas those of the Gold Coast hinterland continue to play a major role is attributed to differences in quantity and quality of these scenic resources, problems of access and the availability of other, and, for many, superior, waterfall attractions within easy reach. Appropriate levels of development at and access to waterfall sites are discussed. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley &Sons, Ltd.     

Collaborator or competitor: assessing the evidence supporting the role of social enterprise in health and social care

In many countries, social enterprise has been introduced into a competitive market-oriented environment as a substitute for publicly owned services, particularly in healthcare. In the United Kingdom, evidence for this move seems to derive from case studies where social enterprise operates in collaboration – as opposed to competition – with publicly owned services. Our systematic review demonstrates that there is no evidence to support the role of social enterprise as a substitute for publicly owned services. However, there is evidence to show that where social enterprise operates in a collaborative environment, enhanced outcomes can be achieved, such as connectedness, well-being and self-confidence.     

Customer behavioural intentions towards mobile money services adoption in Ghana

This study examined the determinants of mobile money service usage intentions and assessed the effect of social influence (SI) on mobile money services adoption and behavioural intentions (BIs). The sample of the study comprised 300 mobile money service users in Ghana. Guided by the conceptual framework and two theories identified to have an effect on technology adoption and consumer behaviour, eight hypotheses were developed and tested using Structural Equation Modelling Techniques. It is discovered that perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived trust and perceived cost of use have a strong influence on mobile money service usage. The study found SI to have a significant effect on the adoption and BI. Providers ensure that their mobile application services are simple to operate, fulfil specific consumers’ needs, protect consumers’ accounts to ensure trust and are affordable, hence positively influencing consumers’ adoption of services.     

Managing whale-watching as a non-lethal consumptive activity

Marine tourism is a new frontier of late-capitalist transformation, generating more global revenue than aquaculture and fisheries combined. This transformation created whale-watching, a commercial tourism form that, despite recent critiques, has been accepted as non-consumptive activity. This paper uses four academic discourses to critique whale-watching as a form of capitalist exploitation: (1) commercial whale-watching and global capitalist transformation, (2) global capitalist politics and the promoted belief that whale-watching is non-consumptive, (3) the inherent contradictions of non-consumptive capitalist exploitation, and (4) whale-watching as a common-pool resource. These discourses lead us to critique whale-watching practices in relation to the common capitalist sequence of resource diversification, exploitation, depletion and collapse. Using specific impact studies, we conclude that a sustainability paradigm shift is required, whereby whale-watching (and other forms of wildlife tourism) is recognized as a form of non-lethal consumptive exploitation, understood in terms of sub-lethal anthropogenic stress and energetic impacts. We argue the need for a paradigm shift in the regulation and management of commercial whale-watching, and present the case for a unified, international framework for managing the negative externalities of whale-watching. The relevance of the issues raised about neoliberal policy-making extends beyond whale-watching to all forms of wildlife and nature-based tourism.