Identifying airline cost economies: An econometric analysis of the factors affecting aircraft operating costs

This paper provides the results of an econometric analysis of the influences of airline characteristics on the average operating costs per aircraft movement. The analysis combines a comprehensive selection of airline-output variables, airline-fleet variables, and airline-market variables. The results confirm the existence of economies of density, economies of load factor, economies of aircraft utilisation and economies of aircraft size. The paper does not provide evidence of economies of scale, economies of stage length or economies of fleet commonality. Furthermore, airlines that additionally operate full freighters, airlines that are members of a worldwide alliance and airlines that operate a multi-hub system face higher average operating costs per aircraft movement. Surprisingly, the regression results demonstrate that airlines that use newer aircraft have higher average operating costs per aircraft movement, suggesting that ownership costs (depreciation and leasing costs) of new aircraft outweigh the increasing maintenance costs of old aircraft. Finally, the results show that airlines that have a dominant position at their hubs or bases have higher operating costs per aircraft movement, implying that the absence of serious competitive pressure enables airlines to charge higher ticket prices and, with that, leads to a limited focus on cost savings.     

“暴力征地”现象的产权经济学解释

文章认为国内出现的大量的"暴力征地"现象是由两个原因造成的:一个是中国土地产权的残缺,尤其是土地使用权和转让权的限制,另一个是交易费用,包括量度费用和信息费用,在此基础上推出的两个含义都得到了事实的验证。     

Linking customisation of ERP systems to support effort: an empirical study

The amount of customisation to an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system has always been a major concern in the context of the implementation. This article focuses on the phase of maintenance and presents an empirical study about the relationship between the amount of customising and the resulting support effort. We establish a structural equation modelling model that explains support effort using customisation effort, organisational characteristics and scope of implementation. The findings using data from an ERP provider show that there is a statistically significant effect: with an increasing amount of customisation, the quantity of telephone calls to support increases, as well as the duration of each call.     

IT cost benchmarking: Drawing the right conclusions

The use of managerial control ratios for benchmarking IT costs is widely accepted. This installment of Accounting Matters informs CIOs about IT managerial control ratios and the assumptions underlying the use of these ratios in IT cost benchmarking. Incorrect use of these ratios and violation of the assumptions can lead to faulty inferences and costly mistakes. This article proposes a technique for benchmarking IT costs to draw the right conclusions from the data.     

The effects of resolution methods and industry stress on the loss on assets from bank failures

In this paper, we examine how the value of failed bank assets differs between two types of FDIC resolution methods: liquidation and private-sector reorganization. Our findings show that private-sector reorganizations do not deliver the expected cost-savings from 1986 to 1991, a period of industry distress. On a univariate basis, the net loss on assets is lower for a private-sector reorganization than for a liquidation in both a period of industry distress and of industry health. However, institutions with higher quality assets and higher franchise values are more likely to be resolved using a private-sector resolution. Once we control for this selection bias, we find that institutions that are resolved during periods of industry distress result in higher resolution costs than liquidation. During periods of industry health, private-sector resolutions are less costly than liquidations. We show that if a bank that failed during the post-crisis period instead failed during the crisis period, its net loss as a percent of assets would have been 3.232 percentage points higher. Given that the average net loss on assets ratio is 21.42 percent during our sample period from 1986 to 2007, the increase in costs is economically significant.     

Market maker competition and price efficiency: Evidence from China

We test the relationship between market maker competition and stock price efficiency. Using the number of market makers as a proxy for competition, the results show a strong positive correlation between competition and stock price efficiency. Moreover, price efficiency is higher when competing market makers have higher research ability. We suggest that market maker competition increases price efficiency through two channels: 1) Competition decreases transaction costs, and 2) Uninformed market makers learn from orders submitted by informed market makers through competition. The latter happens only in the group of market makers with higher experiences. The results imply that the price efficiency can be improved by enhancing the competition of market makers with high research ability and experiences.     

THE CASE FOR A COMMUNITY TRANSACTION ENGINE: GETTING COASE FOR THE TWENTY‐FIRST CENTURY

New types of marketplace are now becoming viable. They can slash transaction costs, bring new resources into the economy and expand economic opportunity. These markets can be grown by the private sector. But, to deliver their full potential, they need a change in the mindset of government.     

Lumpy Investment and Corporate Tax Policy

In the presence of both convex and nonconvex capital adjustment costs in a dynamic general equilibrium model, corporate tax policy generates both intensive and extensive margin effects via the channel of marginal Q. Its impact is determined largely by the strength of the extensive margin effect, which, in turn, depends on the cross‐sectional distribution of firms. Depending on the initial distribution of firms, the economy displays asymmetric responses to tax changes. Moreover, an anticipated increase in the future investment tax credit reduces investment and adjustment rate initially.     

Real options and contingent convertibles with regime switching

We consider a firm with no assets in place but an option to invest in a project. The investment is irreversible but delayable in a regime-switching economy. The firm issues equity, straight bonds (SBs) and contingent convertibles (CoCos). We provide the closed-form prices for the firm׳s securities and the pricing and timing of the option. Our numerical analyses discover that issuing CoCos instead of SBs induces much less agency cost of debt. The agency cost is higher in a boom economy than in recession but the difference is small. There is a unique CoCos׳ conversion ratio such that the agency cost arrives at the minimum value zero. The inefficiencies arising from asset substitution and debt overhang are much more significant in recession than in boom. Only if the conversion ratio is not too small, the two inefficiencies disappear during boom periods. While the effects of the conversion rate on optimal capital structure and firm value and those of supervision and jump intensity on optimal CoCos׳ coupon are ambiguous and weak, the stricter the supervision or the longer the economy remains in recession, the less the option value and the optimal SBs׳ coupon.     

REAL OPTIONS WITH COMPETITION AND REGIME SWITCHING

In this paper, we examine irreversible investment decisions in duopoly games with a variable economic climate. Integrating timing flexibility, competition, and changes in the economic environment in the form of a cash flow process with regime switching, the problem is formulated as a stopping‐time game under Stackelberg leader‐follower competition, in which both players determine their respective optimal market entry time. By extending the variational inequality approach, we solve for the free boundaries and obtain optimal investment strategies for each player. Despite the lack of regularity in the leader's obstacle and the cash flow regime uncertainty, the regime‐dependent optimal policies for both the leader and the follower are obtained. In addition, we perform comprehensive numerical experiments to demonstrate the properties of solutions and to gain insights into the implications of regime switching.