Determining factors and impacts of the intention to adopt mobile banking app in Cameroon: Case of SARA by afriland First Bank

This study aims to know what are the factors determining the adoption of M-Banking app among customers in Cameroon. In other words, what are the factors that influence users in their decisions to adopt and use a system or technology such as the MBanking app, and indirectly, what is the impact of this use on both the customers and financial inclusion? The research model developed relying on a combination of Technology Acceptance Model (TAM ), Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology ( UTAUT2 ), Information System Success Model ( ISSM ), and Protection Motivation Theory ( PMT ) and other constructs; it was then tested with a sample of 223 users of the “ SARA” M-Banking app of the financial institution called “ Afriland First Bank” . Findings revealed that: (1) utilitarian expectation, hedonic motivation, and status gain, habit, and perceived privacy concern have a significant influence on the intention to adopt M-Banking apps; and (2) the exploitative/explorative use of this technology has an impact on user’s loyalty and satisfaction but also contributes strongly to fostering financial inclusion in Cameroon. Also, the Multi-group analysis was performed on the sample using 2 gender-based groups (males, n=121; females, n=102).     

Are voters rational?

We test whether a voter's decision to cast a vote depends on its probability of affecting the election outcome. Using exogenous variation arising at population cutoffs determining council sizes in Finnish municipal elections, we show that larger council size increases both pivotal probabilities and turnout. These effects are statistically significant, fairly large and robust. Finally, we use a novel instrumental variables design to show that the jumps in the pivotal probabilities are the likely candidate for explaining the increase in turnout, rather than the other observed simultaneous jumps at the council size cutoffs. Moreover, our results indicate that turnout responds only to within-party pivotal probabilities, perhaps because they are more salient to the voters than the between-party ones.     

Portfolio constraints,differences in beliefs and bubbles

I propose an arbitrage-based theory of bubbles in economies with general portfolio constraints and differences in beliefs. I find that, in general, bubbles cannot exist unless the constraints restrict the demand for credit sufficiently to induce low interest rates. Speculation due to heterogeneous beliefs does not cause bubbles. Ruling out bubbles under asymmetric information requires stronger assumptions: the presence of some uninformed agents and mild portfolio restrictions (debt or borrowing constraints), or alternatively, the existence of some impatient and fully informed agents.     

Speculative bubbles in emerging stock markets and macroeconomic factors: A new empirical evidence for Asia and Latin America

The purpose of this study is firstly to test for the existence of periodically collapsing stock price bubbles in Asian and Latin American emerging stock markets for the period 1990–2009. We use the new non-cointegration test developed by Taylor and Peel (1998) with the Residuals-Augmented Least Squares (RALS) method of Im (1996) and Im and Schmidt (2008) for monthly data of price indexes and dividends. The results show that the hypothesis of formation of bubbles cannot be rejected for all of the studied emerging stock markets. This evidence implies that the co-integration relation between the prices and the dividends is not always supported, indicating that the stock prices do not reflect their fundamental values in the emerging stock markets. We then link speculative bubbles with macroeconomic and financial factors, which is an interesting contribution of this study. The degree of equity market openness is found to be the key factor, positively related to the formation of speculative bubbles in these markets.     

企业人员招聘中存在的问题与对策研究

当今社会,人才已经成为企业最宝贵的财富,招聘是企业人力资源配置的前提和首要工作,人才招聘实施的成功与否,事关企业的生存与发展。     

再融资监管促进企业理性投资了吗？——来自中国上市公司的证据

本文以2007-2016年的A股上市公司为样本,实证检验中国再融资监管制度是否促进了企业的理性投资行为。研究发现:上市企业投资决策符合资本成本约束的理性准则,表明中国权益市场中存在普遍的市场约束力量;但企业再融资后投资理性程度明显降低;对监管失效的原因分析表明,企业投资理性程度下降受到事前融资动机和事后募资投向变更的影响:监管规则对事前再融资动机缺乏有效把控,导致再融资资格出现错配;而对事后募资用途的监管不严,则导致部分企业对募集资金的用途进行随意变更,使得企业投资理性程度降低。研究结论为完善企业投资决策自治机制、优化权益再融资监管、促进资本市场改革提供了实证依据和一定的现实启示。     

The house price determination process: Rational expectations with a spatial context

Applying the rational expectations hypothesis, this essay models the current value of a house as the conditional expectation of the discounted stream of housing services accruing to the owner of the house. The value of housing services is determined by neighborhood effects as well as the physical attributes of the property itself. In the existing hedonic literature, future transactions have not been utilized to describe neighborhood effects. The rational expectations asset pricing model in this study accounts for expected future neighborhood effects as well as observed current neighborhood effects. The reduced form of the rational expectations model is a spatial autoregressive (SAR) model with two spatial lags. After employing the generalized method of moments (GMM) in estimating the spatial asset pricing model, I find that both expected future transactions and prior transactions in the neighborhood are significant. The inclusion of expected future transaction prices in the neighborhood takes into account the influence of expected changes in the community and factors these potential changes into the current house price. This is consistent with forward-looking households. The forward-looking model generates superior out-of-sample prediction performance relative to both the conventional hedonic model without considering neighborhood effects or the standard spatial hedonic model including only past transactions.     

Pseudo panel data estimation technique and rational addiction model: an analysis of cigarette,alcohol and coffee demands

We use a pseudo‐panel data approach to analyze the relationship between the consumptions of cigarettes, alcohol, and coffee in a rational addiction framework. We find that while cigarette and coffee demands fit well with the rational addiction model, alcohol demand conforms to a model with inventory effects. The results suggest that alcohol consumption increases the marginal utility derived from consumption of cigarettes. Increasing alcohol prices would decrease not only the consumption of alcohol, but also the consumption of cigarettes. On the other hand, increasing cigarette prices do not have the same effect on consumption of alcohol. The cross‐price elasticity of coffee with respect to cigarette price is positive and significant which suggests that coffee substitutes for cigarettes when cigarette prices increase. The cross‐price elasticity of alcohol with respect to coffee price is found to be negative and significant. On the other hand, Morishima elasticities of substitution indicate that cigarette, alcohol and coffee substitute each other along the indifference curve when relative prices change.     

图书情报学视野中的新约校勘法形成浅析

以图书情报学的角度分析解释了新约圣经古抄本的校勘方法的缘起、古典法和现代通行的各种校勘经文的方法。