Perceptions of the media in three different cultures: the US,Australia & Taiwan

This paper examines business students' perceptions of the media in the United States, Australia, and Taiwan across four attributes—informative, entertaining, boring and irritating. Management implications of the findings are also discussed. Newspapers, radio, billboards, television, direct mail and magazines were selected for analysis. The findings revealed that 16 different paired comparisons out of a possible 72 tests show statistical significance. Media perception patterns describing respondents' ratings of different media classes for given attributes were examined. The perception patterns in Australia and the United States were similar with respect to the informative, entertaining and boring attributes, and significant differences in perception patterns were found between Taiwan and the other two countries.     

Safety Products, Inc.: A case in financial analysis of a failing company

Safety Products, Inc. was a small, private corporation that manufactured acrylic sheet plastic. After a massive fire, the company filed a claim against its business interruption insurance for lost income. The policy covered profits that would have been earned, based on Safety’s financial records, had the disaster not occurred. The insurance company denied the claim on the grounds that Safety Products was not a going concern, and, therefore, there were no lost earnings.The basic learning objective of the case is to develop the students’ abilities to use and analyze a company history, along with its financial statements and ratios, to evaluate the going-concern assumption. The AICPA Core Competency Framework identifies a set of skills-based competencies needed to enter the accounting profession. The case provides a means to develop student skills in the Functional, Personal, and Broad Business Competencies, which are core skills relevant to long-term career opportunities. [American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) (2001). AICPA core competency framework for entry into the accounting profession (the framework). Retrieved from < http://www.aicpa.org/edu/corecomp.htm > on April 3, 2006]The case is directed to an upper-division undergraduate or graduate course in Financial Statement Analysis. However, the case could be used in any accounting course that examines the going-concern or continuity assumption among the traditional assumptions of the accounting model.     

Solving the incomplete market model with aggregate uncertainty using a perturbation method

We use a perturbation method to solve the incomplete markets model with aggregate uncertainty described in den Haan et al. [Computational suite of models with heterogeneous agents: incomplete markets and model uncertainty. Journal of Economic Dynamics & Control, this issue]. To apply that method, we use a “barrier method” to replace the original problem with occasionally binding inequality constraints by one with only equality constraints. We replace the structure with a continuum of agents by a setting in which a single infinitesimal agent faces prices generated by a representative-agent economy. We also solve a model variant with a large (but finite) number of agents. Our perturbation-based method is much simpler and faster than other methods.     

Investigating aggregation bias in the case of the interest rate pass-through

This analysis examines aggregation bias in the case of the interest rate pass-through in the Republic of Macedonia. By using bank-level data, the authors investigate whether there are heterogeneities and asymmetries in the size and speed of the adjustment of lending rates to changes in the cost of the funds rate. The findings in general suggest the presence of aggregation bias in the literature, implying that the empirical studies based on aggregated data may provide biased results.     

Business processes inter-operation for supply network co-ordination

In a global supply network, the overall improvement of operational efficiency and customer satisfaction can only be achieved through greater co-ordination and collaboration of all the network members. However, full benefits of close co-operation within a global supply network can only be achieved when the business processes of the individual companies can inter-operate. Currently available commercial solutions are inadequate in supporting full network co-ordination in terms of business process changes and technical arrangements. This paper proposes a system that aims to improve the co-ordination of production planning and control activities across the supply network. To achieve this, it is important to develop new business processes and principles for company collaboration and corresponding information systems. This process starts from the identification of business and system requirements, which underlie the general business solutions for network co-ordination, developing the guiding design principles and subsequent process design and system implementation.     

Amenity‐Based Housing Affordability Indexes

The recent slump notwithstanding, substantial increases in house prices in many parts of the United States have served to highlight housing affordability for moderate‐income households, especially in high‐cost, supply‐constrained coastal cities such as Boston. In this article, we develop a new measure of area affordability that characterizes the supply of housing that is affordable to different households in different locations of a metropolitan region. Key to our approach is the explicit recognition that the price/rent of a dwelling is affected by its location. Hence, we develop an affordability methodology that accounts for job accessibility, school quality and safety. This allows us to produce a menu of town‐level indexes of adjusted housing affordability. The adjustments are based on obtaining implicit prices of these amenities from a hedonic price equation. We thus use data from a wide variety of sources to rank 141 towns in the greater Boston metropolitan area based on their adjusted affordability. Taking households earning 80% of area median income as an example, we find that consideration of town‐level amenities leads to major changes relative to a typical assessment of affordability.     

Agency Problems and Reputation in Expert Services: Evidence from Auto Repair

Using a field experiment involving undercover visits to auto repair garages with a test vehicle, I first examine how asymmetric information between mechanics and motorists over auto repair service quality affects outcomes. I then examine whether reputation mitigates these problems via a matched‐pair treatment in which undercover researchers appeared as either one‐time or repeat‐business customers. The results indicate that under and overtreatment are widespread, and that reputation via a repeat business mechanism does not improve outcomes significantly.     

Set coverage and robust policy

We show that confidence regions covering the identified set may be preferable to confidence regions covering each of its points in robust control applications.     

The market for lawyers and quality layers in legal services

We study the functioning of the market for lawyers, considering the strategic interaction among litigants, lawyers, and judges. We investigate the value of legal representation and of systems of quality certification, such as the Queen’s Counsel system. In our setting, higher quality lawyers obtain better‐quality evidence and are better able to interpret it. Judges receive information from the lawyers and have reputational concerns. We show that reputational concerns generate a decision bias in favor of certified lawyers and that this causes misallocation of lawyers at the market equilibrium. As a result, whereas a higher quality of lawyers increases welfare, public information over quality may be welfare reducing.     

A Discrete‐Time Duration Analysis of Technology Disadoption: The Case of rbST in California

Technology choice is an inherently dynamic process that is best modeled as a repeated decision conditional on past decisions and the current/expected economic environment. Duration analysis recognizes this dynamic nature and focuses on the timing of economic decisions. Most duration studies assume that events occur continuously but in many cases, this is an unrealistic assumption; many events of interest occur at discrete intervals. We demonstrate the use of a discrete‐time duration model with an empirical example: the decision to use recombinant bovine Somatotropin (rbST) by California dairy producers. The results of the discrete‐time duration analysis suggest that a temporary shortage of rbST had a negligible effect on rbST use, while an rbST ban had a significant and negative effect on rbST use. Le choix d’une technologie est un processus intrinsèquement dynamique qui est le mieux modélisé en tant que décision répétée conditionnelle aux décisions antérieures et à l’environnement économique actuel ou prévu. L’analyse de durée reconnaît cette nature dynamique et est principalement axée sur le choix du moment des décisions économiques. La plupart des analyses de durée supposent que les événements surviennent de façon continue mais dans de nombreux cas, il s’agit d’une hypothèse irréaliste; bon nombre d’événements d’intérêt surviennent à intervalles discrets. Dans la présente étude, nous avons fait la démonstration d’un modèle de durée à temps discret à l’aide d’un exemple empirique: la décision d’utiliser ou non la somatotropine bovine recombinante (STbr) chez les producteurs de lait en Californie. Les résultats de notre analyse de durée à temps discret montrent qu’une pénurie temporaire de STbr a eu un effet négligeable sur l’utilisation de cette hormone, tandis qu’une interdiction a eu un effet négatif considérable.