Forest Conservation in Costa Rica when Nonuse Benefits are Uncertain but Rising

Stochastic dynamic programming is used to investigate optimal holding of primary tropical forest in humid Costa Rica when future nonuse benefits of forest conservation are uncertain and increasing. The quasi-option value of maintaining primary forests is included as a component of investment in natural capital. Although the impact of uncertainty on conservation incentives is substantial, our results indicate that a rising trend in future benefits and compensation by the international community for beneficial spillovers are more important factors in determining optimal holdings of forest stocks. Without compensatory payments, however, further deforestation may be warranted.     

Can you handle failure?

Handling failure and blame is key to managerial success. But roughly 70 % of Americans have a personality type that tends to react inappropriately when things go wrong. Some people are extrapunitive, always pointing a finger at someone else. Others are impunitive, denying there's a problem or that they played any role. And still others are intrapunitive, heaping too much blame on themselves and seeing disasters where none exist. Fortunately, there are ways to fix such flawed responses. The first step is to cultivate self-awareness; several personality tests can help you assess your interaction style. Next, deepen your political awareness to better understand what messages others are receiving. Once you've identified your bad habits, you can move toward more-adaptive responses. Dattner and Hogan describe several strategies that can benefit any of the personality types. You should make sure to listen and communicate well, reflect on the situation and the people involved, think carefully before acting, and look for lessons when mistakes do happen. Using detailed examples, the authors illustrate how people with the various personality types are apt to react to specific failures and explain what they might do differently. They also offer insights to help you recognize when your bosses, peers, or subordinates fit into one of the problematic categories and suggest ways to influence their behavior. The taxonomy and tactics they present will help you approach failure with an open mind and react in a balanced, constructive way.     

Explaining asset pricing puzzles associated with the 1987 market crash

The 1987 market crash was associated with a dramatic and permanent steepening of the implied volatility curve for equity index options, despite minimal changes in aggregate consumption. We explain these events within a general equilibrium framework in which expected endowment growth and economic uncertainty are subject to rare jumps. The arrival of a jump triggers the updating of agents' beliefs about the likelihood of future jumps, which produces a market crash and a permanent shift in option prices. Consumption and dividends remain smooth, and the model is consistent with salient features of individual stock options, equity returns, and interest rates.     

Report data identify risk areas for improper payments

Hospitals should take several steps in using data from the Program for Evaluating Payment Patterns Report (PEPPER) to enhance compliance efforts and identify risk areas for improper payments: Designate one person to monitor PEPPER releases and download the quarterly report. Review the reports and list all areas where the hospital is most at risk for improper payments. Prioritize at-risk areas with the national comparison, followed by jurisdictional and state comparison. Conduct small-sample case reviews in at-risk areas and determine next steps, such as process improvement or rebilling. Include hospital finance, compliance, legal, case management, and coding experts as part of discussion.     

A collective,undifferentiated accounting profession: an Australian study

A study of 386 potential and current members of the accounting profession in Australia and South‐East Asia provides evidence of the importance of three attributes – brand/reputation, international recognition of qualifications and career opportunities – in the decision to join a professional accounting body. While these attributes are important, logit regression models indicate that they are not discriminatory in the choice of professional body and suggest a perception of a collective, undifferentiated accounting profession. The marketing of brand/reputation and membership benefits may be a more efficient and effective strategy in attracting members and differentiating the profession if undertaken by a combined or coordinated professional body.     

An Analysis of Lockups in REIT IPOs

We analyze how the unique characteristics of real estate investment trusts (REITs) affect IPO lockup agreements from 1980 to 2006. The findings show that, unlike industrial IPOs, lockup periods for REIT IPOs do not cluster at 180 days, tend to cover longer periods, and vary over time. Our results support the commitment device hypothesis instead of the signaling hypothesis. That is, REIT managers tend to use lockup agreements to alleviate moral hazard problems and protect post-IPO investors rather than to send signals to investors. Finally, contrary to previous studies, we find no significant negative abnormal returns around the unlock date for the whole sample. The lack of aggressive sales by insiders and the fact that REITs are not backed by venture capitalists can explain our finding.     

An empirical investigation of the relative effect of trust and switching costs on service loyalty in the UK retail banking industry

The crisis in the UK financial services industry has led to retail banking customers treating transactions with growing scepticism. Retail banks are having to work very hard to regain customer trust. Despite recent research in marketing that acknowledges the importance of service loyalty to service firms, studies that have examined the relative effects of trust and the different types of switching costs on attitudinal and behavioural loyalty are scant. Therefore this article aims to build a model to examine the strength of the relationships between these constructs. Using survey data collected from a convenience sample of 290 retail banking customers in the United Kingdom, the article reveals that the main drivers of attitudinal loyalty are trust and relational switching costs. In contrast, the main drivers of behavioural loyalty are trust, relational switching costs and attitudinal loyalty. Interestingly, financial and procedural switching costs exert no significant effect on either attitudinal or behavioural loyalty. Trust and relational switching costs exert a stronger effect on attitudinal than behavioural loyalty.     

Coordinated Effects in the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines

Recent research has highlighted the quantitative contribution to merger analysis from extending unilateral effects models to understand the payoffs to future potential coordinated effects. Some of the emphasis of this research appears to have made its way into the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines. In this paper, we demonstrate the quantification of coordinated effects in an oligopoly and procurement model, and we show that screens that are based on upward pricing pressure are not adequate in mergers where coordinated effects are a potential concern.     

Forecast combinations of computational intelligence and linear models for the NN5 time series forecasting competition

In this work we introduce the forecasting model with which we participated in the NN5 forecasting competition (the forecasting of 111 time series representing daily cash withdrawal amounts at ATM machines). The main idea of this model is to utilize the concept of forecast combination, which has proven to be an effective methodology in the forecasting literature. In the proposed system we attempted to follow a principled approach, and make use of some of the guidelines and concepts that are known in the forecasting literature to lead to superior performance. For example, we considered various previous comparison studies and time series competitions as guidance in determining which individual forecasting models to test (for possible inclusion in the forecast combination system). The final model ended up consisting of neural networks, Gaussian process regression, and linear models, combined by simple average. We also paid extra attention to the seasonality aspect, decomposing the seasonality into weekly (which is the strongest one), day of the month, and month of the year seasonality.