Has the Internet Eliminated Regional Price Differences? Evidence from the Used Car Market

We study the effects of the Internet on regional price differences. Comparing two Dutch regions, we find that before the rise of the Internet, price differences of used cars between those regions amounted to some 11–15%, controlling for mileage, age, fuel type and engine volume. These price differences have completely disappeared after the rise of the Internet, in particular a website that allows consumers to make detailed comparisons between almost all used cars for sale in the Netherlands.     

How social and human capital influence opportunity recognition and resource mobilization in India's handloom industry

Small-scale firms in rural areas play an extremely important role in the development of any country, and especially in developing countries. To understand entrepreneurs who operate in a low-technology industry, we rely on the network perspective on entrepreneurship. In this paper, we investigate how the social and human capital of entrepreneurs (in this case master weavers in the handloom industry) influence their ability to recognize opportunities and mobilize resources. In addition to examining the direct effects, we also explore the possibilities of social capital mediating between human capital, on the one hand, and opportunity recognition and resource mobilization on the other. This paper adds to existing literature in two ways: firstly, we expand the social capital paradigm by including different cultural settings and links to existing studies regarding small enterprises. Secondly, we provide additional evidence to the ongoing debate as to what constitutes a ‘good network’.     

Economic consequences of intifada

In 2003 the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) published estimates of macro-economic indicators for 2002 of the economy of Palestine. The WB used a micro-founded recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, calibrated on the 1998 Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) of Palestine, to which shocks were applied, whereas the IMF based its estimates on a macro-founded income-expenditure model relying on more recent data. It turned out that there were substantial differences: the estimate by the WB of the real gross national income (at 1998 prices) was 25% less than the corresponding figure calculated by the IMF. This huge difference is not only relevant for a full understanding of the economic consequences of the intifada, but also for the size of the international community intervention. In this paper we propose our own evaluation with the help of a static CGE model, based on the 1998 SAM and the so-called intifada shock derived from data of the WB that we constructed for the analysis of some forms of emergency assistance in a previous article. It turns out that our estimates, based on an entirely different methodology, are remarkably close to those of the IMF.     

Predicting Corporate Failure Using a Neural Network Approach

This paper investigates the performance of Artificial Neural Networks for the classification and subsequent prediction of business entities into failed and non-failed classes. Two techniques, back-propagation and Optimal Estimation Theory (OET), are used to train the neural networks to predict bankruptcy filings. The data are drawn from Compustat data tapes representing a cross-section of industries. The results obtained with the neural networks are compared with other well-known bankruptcy prediction techniques such as discriminant analysis, probit and logit, as well as against benchmarks provided by directly applying the bankruptcy prediction models developed by Altman (1968) and Ohlson (1980) to our data set. We control the degree of ‘disproportionate sampling’ by creating ‘training’ and ‘testing’ populations with proportions of bankrupt firms ranging from 1% to 50%. For each population, we apply each technique 50 times to determine stable accuracy rates in terms of Type I, Type II and Total Error. We show that the performance of various classification techniques, in terms of their classification errors, depends on the proportions of bankrupt firms in the training and testing data sets, the variables used in the models, and assumptions about the relative costs of Type I and Type II errors. The neural network solutions do not achieve the ‘magical’ results that literature in this field often promises, although there are notable 'pockets' of superior performance by the neural networks, depending on particular combinations of proportions of bankrupt firms in training and testing data sets and assumptions about the relative costs of Type I and Type II errors. However, since we tested only one architecture for the neural network, it will be necessary to investigate potential improvements in neural network performance through systematic changes in neural network architecture.     

Qualitätserwartungen,Qualitätswahrnehmungen und die Nutzung von Fernsehserien

Ziel des Beitrags ist die Beantwortung der Frage, welche Faktoren die Nutzung von Fernsehserien erkl?ren k?nnen. Kann sie im Wesentlichen auf Habitualisierung und strukturelle Rahmenbedingungen zurückgeführt werden, oder l?sst sie sich dadurch erkl?ren, dass die Erwartungen an die Qualit?t von Fernsehserien und die Wahrnehmung von Qualit?tseigenschaften der verschiedenen Serien zwischen den Rezipienten variieren? Zun?chst werden die theoretisch relevanten Faktoren für ein Modell der subjektiven Qualit?tsauswahl identifiziert und operationalisiert. Anschlie?end wird in einer empirischen Studie geprüft, ob diese Faktoren einen Einfluss auf die Nutzung der Fernsehserien haben. Die Untersuchungsergebnisse zeigen, dass die drei Elemente des theoretischen Ansatzes — Qualit?tserwartungen, Qualit?tswahrnehmungen und Qualit?tsurteile — die Seriennutzung zu einem betr?chtlichen Teil erkl?ren k?nnen. Der Vorteil dieses Ansatzes gegenüber dem Uses and Gratifications Approach besteht darin, dass die Eigenschaften des Angebots im Mittelpunkt stehen. Damit wird es m?glich, Aussagen darüber zu machen, welche wahrgenommenen Merkmale des Angebots für die Nutzungsentscheidungen der Rezipienten relevant sind.     

Efficient rank tests for semiparametric competing risk models

We consider a semiparametric competing risk model given by k independent survival times. The paper offers an asymptotic treatment of tests for the semiparametric null hypothesis of equality of the underlying risks. It turns out that modified rank tests are asymptotically efficient for certain semiparametric submodels, where the baseline hazard is a nuisance parameter. In addition, the asymptotic relative efficiency of the present tests is derived. A comparison of asymptotic power functions can then be used to classify various tests proposed earlier in the literature. For instance a chi-square type test is efficient for proportional hazards. Data driven tests of likelihood ratio type are proposed for cones of alternatives. We will consider certain stochastically increasing alternatives as a special example. The paper shows how the concept of local asymptotic normality of Le Cam works for hazard oriented models.