Auction fever: Rising revenue in second-price auction formats

The prevalent term “auction fever” visualizes that ascending auctions – inconsistent with theory – are likely to provoke higher bids than one-shot auctions. To explore and isolate causes of auction fever experimentally, we design four different strategy-proof auction formats and order these according to expected rising bids based on pseudo-endowment effect arguments (psychological ownership and disparity between willingness to pay and willingness to accept). Observed revenues in the experiment in the four formats rank as expected if bidders have private uncertain values (the private information of a bidder is the distribution of her value). A control treatment supports our view that the traditional private certain values approach prevents auction fever in the laboratory. Another control treatment with a procurement auction relates the auction fever bids to bids in a one-shot auction with real endowments. We conclude that, when bidders are uncertain about their valuations, auctions that foster pseudo-endowment may raise bids and revenues.     

Reciprocal effect of tourist destinations on the strength of national tourism brands

The assignment of a brand to a product affects consumer's perceptions not only about the product, but also about the brand itself. The reciprocal effect of the product on its brand can be either positive or negative. Extending the concept of reciprocal effect to a new context, this study analyzed how consumer's perceptions about tourist destinations can affect the national tourism brand. An experiment showed that destinations leading to attitudes that are more positive than the average can strengthen the national tourism brand, while destinations leading to attitudes below the average can weaken it. Brand dilution can happen even when the outcome is effective from the destination's perspective. Because of the reciprocal effect, the determination of public policies in the destination level is usually inefficient from the country's perspective. These results reinforce the need for national brand governance.     

#br# 药交所试点背景下人均医疗费用的影响因素研究

本文采用固定效应模型建立人均医疗费用影响因素的一般模型，并通过引入药交所虚拟变量和考察医生收入的中介效应进一步阐释该模型。研究结果表明，诱导需求与医院规模对人均医疗费用均有显著影响；药交所政策降低了人均医疗费用，但医生收入中介效应的存在使得部分医疗资源被浪费。本文提出了控制人均医疗费用的政策建议：增加医院与卫生院的数量；合理调整医务工作者内部结构；倡导医生自由执业并提供保障；合理增加医生收入。     

Trends in stock-bond correlations

Previous studies document the existence of long-run trends in comovements in the stock and bond markets. Following these findings, this article examines possible trends in stock-bond return correlations. To this end, we introduce a trend component into a smooth transition regression (STR) model including the multiple transition variables of Aslanidis and Christiansen (2012). The results indicate the existence of significant decreasing trends in stock-bond correlations for many advanced safer countries. In addition, although stock market volatility continues to be an important factor in stock-bond correlations, the short rate and yield spread become only marginally significant once we introduce the trend component. Our out-of-sample analysis also demonstrates that the STR model, including the volatility index and time trend as the transition variables, dominates other models. Furthermore, we find a significant increase in stock-bond correlations for riskier euro countries around the beginning of the euro crisis. Our findings of decreasing and increasing trends in stock-bond correlations can be considered a consequence of the decreasing effects of diversification and more intensive flight-to-quality behaviour that have taken place in recent years and after the euro crisis.     

Good practices on cost – effective road infrastructure safety investments

The paper presents the findings of a research project aiming to quantify and subsequently classify several infrastructure-related road safety measures, based on the international experience attained through extensive and selected literature review and additionally on a full consultation process including questionnaire surveys addressed to experts and relevant workshops. Initially, a review of selected research reports was carried out and an exhaustive list of road safety infrastructure investments covering all types of infrastructure was compiled. Individual investments were classified according to the infrastructure investment area and the type of investment and were thereafter analysed on the basis of key safety components. These investments were subsequently ranked in relation to their safety effects and implementation costs and on the basis of this ranking, a set of five most promising investments was selected for an in-depth analysis. The results suggest that the overall cost effectiveness of a road safety infrastructure investment is not always in direct correlation with the safety effect and is recommended that cost–benefit ratios and safety effects are always examined in conjunction with each other in order to identify the optimum solution for a specific road safety problem in specific conditions and with specific objectives.     

Currency intervention and the global portfolio balance effect: Japanese lessons

This paper extends the analysis of Bernanke et al. (2004) to show that the official Japanese purchases of foreign exchange in 2003–04 seem to have lowered long-term interest rates not only in the United States, but in a wide range of countries, including Japan. It seems that this decline was triggered by the investment of the intervention proceeds in US bonds and that global portfolio rebalancing spread the resulting decline in US dollar yields to bond markets in other currencies, thus easing global monetary conditions. We also show that the global portfolio balance effect is detectable in the response of yields to large Japanese intervention in data before and after 2003/04, though the effect is weaker. While our findings contribute to a growing body of work that points to common responses across bond markets to official portfolio shifts in the form of large-scale bond purchases (“quantitative easing”), our analysis has the advantage of focusing on a pure portfolio shock.     

Building a better literature review: Looking at the nomological network of the country‐of‐origin effect

Due to a rising pace of knowledge production, reviewing extant knowledge on mature topics has become increasingly challenging. Researchers often need to account for hundreds of references with little guidance on how to proceed. Taking the phenomenon of the country‐of‐origin effect (COE) as an example, this paper proposes a solution to tackle this challenge. By adopting the principles of integrative literature reviews and using online databases, bibliography management software, and literature‐mapping techniques, I organize 355 papers about the COE. As a result, the nomological network of the COE is drawn while establishing links between the phenomenon, its antecedents, and its outcomes. This methodological article contributes to building better literature reviews. Copyright © 2015 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Wealth effect from real estate and outbound travel demand: the Malaysian case

This study uses quarterly data from Malaysia (2000–2011) to examine the relationship between the wealth effect from real estate (WERE) and outbound tourism while controlling for other relevant outbound tourism determinants. By applying time-series cointegration regressions, the results show that WERE has a positive and significant impact on Malaysian outbound travel demand. Then, we exclude the departures for business purposes from the total departures in order to have a better understanding of the impact of WERE on the consumption of a luxury good like international travel for leisure purposes. Similarly, we find that WERE increases Malaysian international travels for leisure purposes. The findings provide some implications for Malaysian policy-makers as well as tourism and travel agents.     

如何有效降低银行对小微企业抵押物要求——基于贷款技术的视角

在理论分析抵押物作用机制的基础上，实证研究能够有效替代抵押物的贷款技术，并进一步分析某些贷款技术难以发挥替代作用的可能原因，以降低银行对小微企业抵押物要求，从而缓解小微企业信贷配给。研究结论表明：抵押率与借款企业违约风险显著负相关，抵押物作用机制中客户选择效应占主导地位；关系型和担保型贷款技术可以显著降低银行对抵押物要求，而财务报表型和信用评级型贷款技术对抵押物的替代效应十分微弱；随着金融基础设施的完善，信用评级型贷款技术对抵押物的替代效应逐渐显现，但财务报表即使经过审计亦难以对抵押物形成有效替代。在此基础上，提出了完善金融基础设施、提高贷款技术事前甄别能力的政策建议。