Beyond point forecasting: Evaluation of alternative prediction intervals for tourist arrivals

This paper evaluates the performances of prediction intervals generated from alternative time series models, in the context of tourism forecasting. The forecasting methods considered include the autoregressive (AR) model, the AR model using the bias-corrected bootstrap, seasonal ARIMA models, innovations state space models for exponential smoothing, and Harvey’s structural time series models. We use thirteen monthly time series for the number of tourist arrivals to Hong Kong and Australia. The mean coverage rates and widths of the alternative prediction intervals are evaluated in an empirical setting. It is found that all models produce satisfactory prediction intervals, except for the autoregressive model. In particular, those based on the bias-corrected bootstrap perform best in general, providing tight intervals with accurate coverage rates, especially when the forecast horizon is long.     

An asymptotic variance inequality for instrumental variable estimators signaling proportional bias increases

An asymptotic variance inequality for instrumental variable (IV) estimators is proposed, which suggests a critical variance that signals proportional increases in the bias of IV estimators through the augmentation of a set of instruments.     

Responsible Leadership for Multinational Enterprises in Bottom of Pyramid Countries: The Knowledge of Local Managers

The gulf between multinational enterprises’ focus on high income countries and the reality of 80% of the world living in developing, bottom of pyramid (Hahn, J Bus Ethics 84:313–324, 2009) economies could magnify the anti-globalisation movement and political backlashes in the twenty-first century. The global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 has increased such social tensions throughout the world and creates greater challenges for, responsible leadership. In this conceptual article, the authors analyse the value and identity of local managers, and the liability of foreignness caused by over-reliance on expatriate managers and under-reliance on local managers in bottom of pyramid countries (Hahn, 2009). It is argued that multinational enterprises need to assess local managers’ knowledge and contributions as having not only operational and market value, but also institutional value, such as access to local knowledge and local social capital; such a holistic approach will ensure fairer, equal treatment of all managers in the multinational enterprise. Responsible leadership in the twenty-first century requires a greater appreciation of local managers’ institutional value and the overcoming of any psychological distance towards local managers of bottom of pyramid countries.     

A hospital-initiated multisectoral road safety campaign with speed-adapted coconut drop test in Northern Laos

We investigate the efficacy of a multisectoral road safety campaign initiated at Luang Namtha Provincial Hospital (LNPH), North-Laos. Road safety days (RSD) with helmet promotion were organised prior to the Lao and International New Year 2007. Motorbike helmet protectiveness was demonstrated by dropping peeled versus unpeeled coconuts from 6-m high sticks simulating city speed-limit (40?km/h). The primary outcome was the number of road traffic injuries (RTI) needing admission (severe RTI) before and after the first RSD. Secondary outcomes were helmet usage, total RTI, hospital staff's behavioural changes and law enforcement. Neighbouring Bokeo Provincial Hospital (BPH) had no intervention. Severe RTI dropped by 34.7% within 12 months (from 449 to 293, p?≤?0.0001, BPH +123% [from 88 to 196]). Total RTI increased by 10.8% (from 772 to 855, p?=?0.0396, BPH +260.8% [from 186 to 671]). Police started the law enforcement right after the RSD. Helmet use increased from 11.2 to 42.5% (p?相似文献   

Building capabilities to manage strategic alliances

Recently, academics have attributed a large part of alliance success to a firm's ability to successfully manage its alliances, also called its level of alliance management capability. We contribute to this growing body of literature by (1) verifying the impact of alliance management capability on alliance performance and (2) analyzing the drivers of alliance management capability. We measure this capability through four types of alliance learning processes and study how each of these processes affects alliance outcome. Furthermore, we take into account several possible drivers of alliance management capability such as organizational culture, commitment of the top team, alliance experience and the alliance function. We refine the results by examining how these factors affect each of the four learning processes underpinning alliance management capability. Our research model will be tested on a sample of 189 Belgian companies using PLS. We find that the commitment of the top management team is the most critical factor in explaining success with alliances.     

CFOs versus CEOs: Equity incentives and crashes

Using a large sample of U.S. firms for the period 1993-2009, we provide evidence that the sensitivity of a chief financial officer's (CFO) option portfolio value to stock price is significantly and positively related to the firm's future stock price crash risk. In contrast, we find only weak evidence of the positive impact of chief executive officer option sensitivity on crash risk. Finally, we find that the link between CFO option sensitivity and crash risk is more pronounced for firms in non-competitive industries and those with a high level of financial leverage.     

IFRS and the regulatory environment: The case of U.S. investor allocation choice

This paper investigates whether a country’s use of international financial reporting standards (IFRS) is associated with increased US investment in foreign equities. The recent global trend towards the use of IFRS may signal attempts by policy makers to reduce information asymmetries for international investors. However, a concern is that these standards must be accompanied by a stronger regulatory environment in order for them to gain legitimacy. Investor allocation choice is based on US holdings of foreign equities and the regulatory environment is interpreted using two distinct factors: the legal standards system and the enforcement regime. We document that US investment is associated with IFRS only when it is combined with a strong regulatory environment, specifically a strong enforcement regime. We also find that mandating IFRS is attractive to US investors only when combined with a strong regulatory environment.     

Stock return predictability and the adaptive markets hypothesis: Evidence from century-long U.S. data

This paper provides strong evidence of time-varying return predictability of the Dow Jones Industrial Average index from 1900 to 2009. Return predictability is found to be driven by changing market conditions, consistent with the implication of the adaptive markets hypothesis. During market crashes, no statistically significant return predictability is observed, but return predictability is associated with a high degree of uncertainty. In times of economic or political crises, stock returns have been highly predictable with a moderate degree of uncertainty in predictability. We find that return predictability has been smaller during economic bubbles than in normal times. We also find evidence that return predictability is associated with stock market volatility and economic fundamentals.     

Solving the multi-country Real Business Cycle model using a perturbation method

This paper solves the multi-country RBC model described in den Haan et al. (this issue) and Juillard and Villemot (this issue), using a perturbation method. We explain how to apply first- and second-order versions of the gensys2.m algorithm to this model. The perturbation method is computationally cheap and can easily be applied to large models with possibly hundreds of state variables.     

Spatial Correlation in Household Choices in Rural Indonesia*

Many household choices in developing economies are correlated with choices of nearby households, because nearby locations have unobserved factors in common and households and their neighbors interact. However, models recognizing these spatial correlations are rarely used because few surveys give exact household locations. In the present paper, we use unusual data from rural Indonesia, where distances between households can be measured, to examine spatial effects in equations for non‐farm enterprises' share of household incomes and food's share of total household budgets. Our results indicate that ignoring spatial correlations in household choices might cause bias and inferential errors and could distort recommended policy interventions aiming to raise living standards in rural Asia.