The public bond offering of Petróleos de Venezuela S.A.

In April 2007, Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA) issued debt for USD 7.5 billion, the largest debt offering to date by a Latin American company. The conditions surrounding this issue, which was denominated and tradable in dollars, but payable in bolivars, were quite special, particularly when considering the strict foreign exchange control system put into place by the Venezuelan government in 2003. The fact that the bond issue attempted to fulfill the dual purpose of offering dollars to local companies and investors in the midst of prevailing exchange rate controls, while helping to finance PDVSA as a company, creates a unique dilemma that is ideal for class discussion. This teaching case provides the information necessary for estimating and proposing a price for PDVSA's bond offer.     

人民币新汇制改革的贸易效应之谜——基于我国对外经济贸易特征视角的协整研究和脉冲分解

关于人民币汇制改革在我国贸易均衡方面的表现,文章运用Johansen模型揭示出:人民币升值是近两年贸易顺差形成的主要推动因素,马歇尔-勒纳条件在我国并不适用;依托于我国现行的经济贸易特征,未来一段时间我国仍将唱响贸易顺差的主旋律;在人民币加速升值的今天注重升值节奏对于保持我国贸易收支的稳定不容忽视,这一观点通过脉冲响应函数与方差分解得到了有效印证.     

Achieving low-cost UMTS networks via pricing

One of the main concerns of mobile operators towards deployment of Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) networks is the investment cost. The costly radio access network, based on the network equipment required in a service area, prevents incumbents and new entrants from upgrading or building a new UMTS network. In this article, a novel, low-cost approach to the UMTS radio access network design is proposed. The approach employs the use of pricing incentives. This approach is based on the assumption that a pricing mechanism is in place to control excessive traffic load during peak periods. By incorporating this assumption into the network design, the network designer is able to relax certain design parameters, which may contribute to significant savings in equipment cost. Investigation is focused on the UMTS coverage and capacity planning, using the Net Present Value (NPV) financial analysis. For certain price-sensitivity levels, the analysis indicates that this approach provides a suitable strategy for mobile operators to comfortably move forward with UMTS upgrade and gain competitive edge in the wireless market.     

Pricing of mall services in the presence of sales leakage

For a shopping mall, sales leakage occurs when consumer purchases facilitated by the mall are finalized outside it. These sales include, for example, catalog orders filled at the leased premises in a physical mall; For an Internet mall, they include the ones consumers make on an on-line store’s website after learning about the store from an Internet mall website. While these sales are difficult to track in the physical mall, Internet malls like Yahoo can track them by placing cookies on consumers when they visit the mall. The challenge for a mall owner then is to design an appropriate pricing model which takes sales leakage into account. In fact, Yahoo currently uses an All-Revenue-Share Fee with Yahoo collecting from on-line stores a share of all sales revenue, regardless of whether the purchase was made through the mall or directly from the store’s own URL. We explore this new All-Revenue-Share Fee model, compare it with the commonly used Fixed Fee model and the two-part tariff model, and identify the model with the highest profits for the mall under different conditions. We suggest that although an All-Revenue-Share Fee is appealing for Internet malls due to its ability to capture sales leakage directly, it may cause the stores to refrain from joining the mall in certain circumstances. Thus, in certain situations charging a fixed monthly fee can actually be more profitable for the mall versus the All-Revenue-Share Fee model. We also examine how mall and product category characteristics as well as market expansion affect the optimal pricing strategy. We show that a mall should price discriminate across product categories, not just by charging different amounts of fees, but by using different pricing models. Our research provides many managerial implications on how to price over time.     

Regime switching models for the Mexican peso

The Mexican peso has shown long periods of tranquility that suddenly give rise to short volatile periods. We characterize this exchange rate process by estimating a series of regime switching regressions and comparing the different specifications as pioneered by Meese and Rogoff [J. Int. Econ. 14 (1983) 3]. We find evidence for two clearly identified regimes: one with an appreciating trend and low volatility, and another with large depreciations and high volatility. We use the estimated model to explain the bias implied in the peso forward market. Finally, we show that duration dependence or fundamentally driven transition probabilities do not improve the model's forecasting power.     

Effects of pricing and promotion on consumer perceptions: it depends on how you frame it

This research examined the extent to which different promotional frames increased perceptions of deal value. Price discounts dominate the sales promotions employed by marketers. The framing literature suggests discounts have robust positive effects on consumer perceptions of deal value. However, the current research showed that negative quality inferences moderated discount framing effects and undermined deal value, particularly when no assurance of product quality was provided. Every-day-low-price offers were also vulnerable to negative quality inferences, while free gift frames maintained quality perceptions and increased deal value. Product trial acted to further magnify promotional framing effects, according to a confirmation bias. These findings were consistent with an attribute framing mechanism.     

入世后中国利率环境的变化及利率趋势

利率 ,作为资金或资本的“价格” ,与一国的储蓄投资、宏观经济调控紧密关联。随着中国市场经济不断完善发展 ,利率的价格调节功能对中国深化经济改革和优化经济发展日益重要。加入WTO后 ,中国经济的市场化、国际化程度将进一步加深 ,利率环境即决定和影响中国利率的诸多因素将发生变化。通过实证分析入世后中国利率环境的变化 ,在对影响利率各因素详尽分析的基础上给出入世后中国利率趋势 ,具有重要的现实意义。     

The Effect of Pricing and Advertising on Customer Retention in a Liberalizing Market

This study investigates the drivers of customer retention in a liberalizing market. The authors address key retention issues that allow them to contribute to existing retention research in several critical ways. They (1) examine the effects of pricing and mass advertising, (2) account for (new entrants) competitors' actions, (3) investigate the dynamic impact of marketing tactics, and (4) study the proposed relationships in a market recently opened to competition. Using longitudinal data for a sample of 650 mobile phone consumers and a split-population hazard model that accounts for the notion that some customers are never at risk of defection, the authors show that both the focal firm's (incumbent) and the competitors' price and mass advertising exert a significant influence on the probability of terminating an existing incumbent relationship. They find that the relationships between marketing variables and retention are not static but vary over time. Price is generally less effective in the early stages of market liberalization, which suggests that customers become more price sensitive in later stages. Finally, the study findings can have important strategic implications on designing customer management and marketing resource allocation strategies, as well as on providing a competitive regulatory framework in liberalizing markets.     

涉外农业企业应对汇率风险的策略选择

基于有关文献的梳理,本文提出了一个汇率风险反应行为概念性模型,并通过对130家中国农业企业的调查发现,模型基本刻画了涉外企业应对汇率风险的一般行为模式,运营策略、财务策略、签约策略和贸易融资是涉外农业企业规避汇率风险的主要手段。同时,对农业企业应对汇率风险的效果进行了简要评价,总结了农业企业汇率风险反应行为的特点和趋势。在此基础上,对进一步的研究提出了展望。     

通货膨胀、劳动力市场与工资率走势

当前的通货膨胀,属内外结合的复合型通胀。本文提出劳动年龄人口供给变动的三个阶段：第一阶段是2010年以前的总体过剩阶段,表现为劳动力买方市场,工资率被人为压低;第二阶段是劳动年龄人口占比越过峰值,但尚未达到绝对数量峰值,劳动力市场由供大于求向供求平衡转变,工资率处于劳资博弈状态;第三阶段是2017年以后,即占比和绝对数量总体短缺阶段,工资率将呈持续上涨趋势。当前处于第二阶段,由于劳动年龄人口供大于求的逐步结束和工资欠账较多,工资率理应有一个较大幅度的提升;不过要适度,因为总体上还处于劳动力由供大于求向供求平衡转变;更要着眼于实际工资的提升,因为仅仅名义工资的提升是有害的,对通胀治理不利。