New Frontiers in Tourist Behavior Research: Steps toward Causal Inference from Non-experimental Data

Over the last two decades the range of methods for analyzing causal relationships has been significantly extended. New approaches to the theory of causality rely on the concept of “intervention” instead of “association”. Under an axiomatic framework they elaborate the conditions for safe causal inference from non-experimental data. Inferred Causation (IC) Theory combines elements of graph theory, statistics, logic and artificial intelligence research in computer science. It is not limited to parametric models in need of quantitative (ratio or interval scaled) data, but also operates much more generally on the observed conditional independence relationships among a set of qualitative (categorical) observations. Causal inferences do not appear to be restricted to experimental data. This is particularly promising for research domains such as consumer or tourist behavior where data from controlled experiments on real markets are rare. A case example highlights the potential use of Inferred Causation methodology in tourism research. It aims at measuring the direct and indirect influences of destination loyalty, perceived service quality and satisfaction on the tourist's intention to repeat visit.     

On Combining Partial and Incompatible Information in E-negotiation and E-arbitration

The complexity of the problems to be addressed in an e-democracy framework and the variety of involved stakeholders, with different backgrounds, views and access to information sources, lead us to consider the case in which an e-negotiation should be performed among subjects who have partial, sometimes incompatible, information and can hardly gather to discuss issues together, under the supervision of a facilitator. We propose a statistical method which addresses the issue of partial and incompatible information, merging it and then using it to get a final decision, possibly in an automatic way, through processes of e-negotiation and e-arbitration.      

G2P – Governmental e-Solutions for the Public: Citizen vs Corporation Aspects

International Advances in Economic Research -     

The microallocative impact of the Hungarian economic reform of 1968: Some evidence from the export sector

Summary We have investigated the allocative efficiency of the Hungarian export sector in both pre-reform and post-reform years. The results indicate that, although misallocation due to bilateral currency constraints was reduced by the reform, the overall efficiency of the export sector declined significantly. While the failure of the reform in a single, although from the Hungarian viewpoint, critical sector of the economy is not direct evidence of the failure of the entire reform, it does indicate that successful reforms may be more difficult to achieve than either western or socialist economists have anticipated.     

Sophisticated imitation in cyclic games

Individuals belonging to two large populations are repeatedly randomly matched to play a cyclic game such as Matching Pennies. Between matching rounds, individuals sometimes change their strategy after observing a finite sample of other outcomes within their population. Individuals from the same population follow the same behavioral rule. In the resulting discrete time dynamics the unique Nash equilibrium is unstable. However, for sample sizes greater than one, we present an imitation rule where long run play cycles closely around the equilibrium.     

On Some alternative estimates of the adjustment coefficient in risk theory

Abstract

Recently, Csörgö and Steinebach proposed to estimate the adjustment coefficient in risk theory via a quantile type estimate based upon a sequence of intermediate order statistics. In the present paper, further alternative estimators are discussed which may be viewed as convex combinations of a Hill type and a quantile type estimate. Consistency is proved and rates of convergence are studied. Some simulation results are presented to illustrate the finite sample behavior of the proposed estimators.