Are 1-endings the new 9-endings? An alternative for generating price discount perceptions

Although extant literature confirms the efficacy of 9-endings, how consumers perceive multi-digit prices with repeating identical ending digits such as $1999 is less clear. Research indicates that consumers tend to truncate 9-ending prices and associate them with discounts. Five experiments demonstrate, however, that consumers are likely to perceive multi-digit prices with 1-endings (e.g., $2111) as being more on a discount than prices with 9-endings (e.g., $1999). Moreover, a year-long field study shows that 1-ending (vs. 9-ending) prices receive more click-through rates when presented in online ads. These novel findings inform retailers on how they can generate higher discount perceptions by using 1-endings rather than 9-endings in multi-digit prices.     

Clockwise versus counterclockwise turning bias: Moderation effects of foot traffic and cognitive experience on visual attention

The current research aims to examine how turning bias can affect the attention-capturing of bottom-up factors in endcap displays. In three experimental studies using eye-tracking, this paper contributes to the literature by proposing moderators that shape turning bias effects on retail endcap displays. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that consumers' counterclockwise (vs. clockwise) rotation reduces visual attention on endcap displays. Furthermore, Study 3 indicates that longer trips and higher loop diversion increase the number of fixations for clockwise (vs. counterclockwise) turning shoppers. In addition, higher cognitive anchors and shorter shopping lists boost fixation rates when shoppers rotate in a clockwise (vs. counterclockwise) direction. This research has important theoretical and practical implications for understanding shoppers’ visual attention and cognitive experience in retail settings.     

Urban bias and multinational firms

This paper explores how urban bias in the host country affects the movement of multinational capital owned by multinational firms in the source country and the production in the invested sector. If the degree of urban bias in one of the urban sectors in the host country increases, then the amount of multinational capital flowing into the host country will increase, but the production in the invested sector will have different changes in different situations.     

Sub-Saharan Africa's rising public debt stock: Is there a cause for concern?

The study investigated public debt sustainability in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) by testing the reaction of the primary balance to positive and negative shocks in public debts in a panel of 45 SSA countries. The study adopts the innovative nonlinear fiscal reaction function and the dynamic panel threshold model to account for the potential asymmetric phenomenon in the public debt series. In line with extant studies, the study found that public debts in SSA are weakly sustainable and there is a highly procyclical fiscal policy bias in SSA countries, particularly in resource-rich countries, indicating that governments' fiscal policy responses are expansionary during economic upturns and contractionary during recessions, which may aggravate recessions and worsen debt situations across SSA. For robustness, the study compares the results with emerging and developed economies. The results indicate that in advanced economies, public debt is sustainable and that fiscal policy response is countercyclical. The research and policy implications are discussed.     

Is wealth found in the soil or in the brain? Investing in farm people in Malawi

Should a typical developing country invest more in agriculture or education? At what stage of development is it optimal to invest more in each of these sectors? These are important questions that governments of developing countries grapple with when designing investment plans. In this paper, I propose a soil–human capital conceptual framework of development and use it to explain estimates of agricultural returns to schooling in Malawi. I use panel survey data for Malawi and rely on the exogenous education policy changes and spatial variation in access to schooling to identify effects of schooling on agricultural incomes. In addition, I correct for selection into income activities within a panel data and instrumental variables estimation framework. I find annual agricultural returns to schooling in Malawi of 3%–4% after correcting for selection and unobserved heterogeneity and 7% in the uncorrected specifications. I also find consistently higher returns to schooling in the nonagricultural sector for those not living in the village of birth and higher returns in the agricultural sector for those living in the village of birth. Given the size of the farm sector, wealth in Malawi is still in the soil, but that future growth in wealth depends on human capital investments.     

The Formation of Inflation Expectations: Microdata Evidence from Japan

We propose a novel approach for measuring inflation expectations, which can alleviate the rounding number problem. Furthermore, we examine how consumers form inflation expectations. We find that consumers heterogeneously update their information sets on prices; 46% of the consumers collect information about the consumer price index at least once a quarter, while the remaining consumers less frequently or never obtain this information. We also find that forecast revisions are sensitive to a change in food prices. More than half of consumers are attentive only to a change in food prices and may form their inflation expectations using food price changes as a signal of fluctuations in the overall inflation rates. The existence of consumers who are inattentive to aggregate inflation casts doubt on the transmission of monetary policy through the management of expectations.     

Restatement costs and reporting bias

Financial restatements are costly, but frequent, events and many firms restate several times. We explore why rational managers engage in misreporting despite the costly consequences. To guide our analysis, we build a parsimonious model of reporting bias and the cost of restating. In our model, the observed cost of a restatement conveys information about the true cost of biasing financial statements, which the manager incorporates into the optimal choice of bias. A restatement hence offers managers an opportunity to learn about the true cost of reporting bias, which allows them to update their biasing strategy if the observed cost differs from the expected. We test the model's predictions by analyzing how firms' accruals quality changes after observing the costs attached to restating, which we measure as the market loss following a restatement scaled by the restatement's net income effect. We find that future accruals quality is increasing in the cost of restating and the change in the cost of restating. Consistent with our stylized model, our results indicate that rational managers use the insights from prior restatements to improve their future bias strategy.     

FDI forward spillover effects in emerging markets: A comparative meta-analysis of China and Eastern Europe

Using two unique datasets of 530 forward estimates from 19 studies on China and 942 forward estimates from 28 studies on Eastern European transition economies, this study quantitatively analyzes foreign direct investment forward spillover effects, accounting for various biases and firm attributes in existing empirical results using a meta-regression analysis. We find that aggregation bias, misspecification bias, endogeneity bias (including simultaneity bias and omitted-variable bias), and publication bias, as well as firm attributes, contribute to the heterogeneity in forward spillover estimates; and that the preferred forward spillover effects are positive but nonsignificant. Interestingly, the preferred forward spillover effect is likely to be much larger in Eastern European transition economies than in China.     

认知偏差对农户宅基地退出意愿的影响——基于广东省880个样本农户的实证研究

研究目的：基于前景理论分析认知偏差对农户宅基地退出意愿的影响机理，利用广东省880份调查数据进行实证检验，以期引导农户自愿有偿退出，提升政策实施成效，推进宅基地制度改革。研究方法：问卷调查法、二元Logistic回归模型。研究结果：（1）信息认知偏差以1%的统计水平显著影响退出意愿，回归系数为-1.830，其中负面经验锚定和高价格锚定显著抑制农户退出意愿；（2）群体认知偏差以1%的统计水平显著影响退出意愿，回归系数为-1.336，农户正面从众程度越高，退出意愿越强；（3）功能认知偏差以1%的统计水平显著负向影响退出意愿，回归系数为-0.782，高程度的保障、经济、心理功能感知显著降低农户退出意愿。研究结论：由于存在锚定、从众、禀赋效应，农户在宅基地退出行为决策中易形成信息、群体、功能认知偏差，最终影响其退出意愿。据此，增强农户宅基地退出意愿重点要从削弱负面经验锚定的抑制作用、发挥正面从众心理的促进作用、减轻禀赋效应和高价格锚定的负面影响三方面着手，加强信息化的基层动员宣传力度，发挥正向化的群体规范引导效用，制定多元化的退出补偿标准体系。     

衍生品交易盈亏披露会影响瞬时股价吗？——基于2020年A股上市公司的分析

对2020年A股上市公司披露信息中含衍生品交易盈亏信息的数据进行多期双重差分分析，发现衍生品信息无论利好还是利空，皆存在显著负面的公告溢价。衍生品披露当日瞬时股价、3～5个交易日窗口期的累计异常收益率显著下跌，且衍生品信息不会显著影响该股票长期价值。细分披露类型发现，定期披露的衍生品信息导致的瞬时股价波动较小，且具有更显著的公告盈余漂移。