The main paths of eTourism: trends of managing tourism through Internet

Drawing from the tourism and hospitality literature, this paper highlights the main research trajectories and themes in the context of eTourism. We use main path analysis to investigate the development trend of the synergistic relationship between innovative tourism applications and the new technologies. Further, the literature is classified into six groups through discovering the coherence structure in a citation network. The analyses show that research on websites, blogs, and social media on tourism is experiencing accelerated growth, which hints that there is a pendulum shift whereby the information and negotiation power asymmetry between the supply and demand sides are moving from provider-centric to consumer-centric. This study also elucidates the associated market disintermediation phenomenon and long tail effects on the distribution of destinations.     

Pricing dynamics of index options and index futures in Hong Kong before and during the Asian financial crisis

This article studies the impact of the Asian financial crisis on index options and index futures markets in Hong Kong. We employed a time‐stamped transaction data set of the Hang Seng Index options and futures contracts that were traded on the Hong Kong Futures Exchange. The results show that during the crisis period, the arbitrage profits, and the standard deviations of these profits increased in both ex‐post and ex‐ante analyses. In a market turbulent time, market volatility brings a higher arbitrage profit level. However, despite the increased market volatility, the profitability of the arbitrage trades declined substantially with longer execution time lags in the ex‐ante analysis. This suggests that the HSI futures and options markets are mature and resilient. A multiple regression analysis on the ex‐post arbitrage profit also suggests that there were structural changes during the Asian financial crisis and the Hong Kong government intervention periods. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 20: 145–166, 2000     

Recent weather fluctuations and agricultural yields: implications for climate change

We summarize recent statistical analyses that link agricultural yields to weather fluctuations. Similar to other sectors, high temperatures play a crucial role in predicting outcomes. Climate change is predicted to significantly increase high temperatures and thereby reduce yields. How good are such models at predicting future outcomes? We show that a statistical model estimated using historic US data on corn and soybean yields from 1950 to 2011 is very capable of predicting aggregate US yields for the years 2012–2015, where 2012 was much hotter than normal and is expected to become the new normal under climate change. We conclude by discussing recent studies on the implication of predicted yield declines with a special focus on adaptation and commodity prices.     

Dividend preference of tradable‐share and non‐tradable‐share holders in Mainland China

Comprehensive data on corporate announcements of Chinese firms allows us to examine the preference for, and determinants of, cash and stock dividends. The results indicate that Chinese public investors prefer stock dividends over cash dividends, which are preferred by large state and legal person shareholders generally. Stock dividends, which do not require an explicit cash outflow from a firm, are found to be positively related to higher earnings, supporting the signalling hypothesis of dividend policy. In an imperfect market, these results have some implications for government regulation of financial markets.     

Delayed risks and risk premiums

In this paper, two possible premiums for delayed risks are presented and compared. It is shown that one of them possesses some properties usually considered desirable for ‘roulette gambles’ while the other definition does not meet the same requirements. Finally, the response of both premiums to increased wealth is discussed. The analysis of this problem sheds some light on the basic difference between delayed risks and roulette gambles.