How Do Debit Cards Affect Cash Demand? Survey Data Evidence

This paper analyzes how EFT-POS payments and ATM withdrawals affect cash demand. In particular, survey data about Austrian individuals are employed to estimate a purse cash demand equation, which takes account of sample selection effects. The results reveal that purse cash demand is significantly and sizably affected by debit card usage and that there are significant differences in cash demand for individuals with different debit card usage frequencies. In addition, the effect of EFT-POS payments on cash use at the point-of-sale is discussed on the basis of data from a consumer transaction survey.     

矿井人员指纹识别定位系统设计方案及应用

通过计算机技术对人员定位系统和指纹验证系统进行联网合并,利用指纹验证系统做到人卡合一,核实下井人员真实身份,最大限度的减少不经培训人员或弄虚作假的人员违规下井,确保矿井安全生产。     

垄断行业高管薪酬的个税调控探讨

合理的收入分配制度是社会公平正义的最重要体现。针对收益不合理收入的垄断行业高管加强个税调控,是促进形成合理的收入分配制度的当务之需。而具体可通过选定合适的税基模式,针对垄断行业高管的薪酬加成征收个人所得税,以实现收入分配结果相对公平,同时彰显个人所得税法的实质正义,促进社会的和谐发展。     

Facilitating and restricting a challenger: Patents and standards in the development of the Bull-Knutsen punched card system, 1919–1938

This paper discusses the various ways that patents and standards framed a challenger's opportunities. It recounts the history of the Bull punched card system, both in Norway in the 1920s and France in the 1930s, as it developed and became a challenger to IBM's monopoly. Bull faced the first mover's patents and standards differently. Standards paved the way for the challenger's actions, while patents hampered certain facilities for their duration.     

“Surprise Gift” Purchases: Customer Insights from the Small Electrical Appliances Market

Surprise gifts offer more business opportunities than gifts suggested by recipients, because a larger part of the selection and purchase processes can be molded, and such gifts are especially valued by recipients. Yet the extant gift-giving literature explicitly takes into account neither the giver's intention to surprise nor the consequences for the gift selection and purchase processes. The present study investigates surprise gifts from the giver's point of view and disentangles the selection and purchase processes of surprise gifts and gifts that are not meant as surprises. The hypotheses emerge as a consequence of the enhanced pleasure and experiential motivation underlying surprise gifts, as well as their greater inherent perceived risk. According to panel data, design and money-back guarantees are more important for the purchase of surprise gifts (compared with non-surprise gifts), whereas good deals appear less important, and brand name does not seem to matter any more than it does for gifts not intended as a surprise. Also, surprise gifts more often are bought on the spot than non-surprise gifts, without extended information search (similar to impulse purchases), by women alone, and for someone within the household. Finally, the giver usually has a poorer idea of what he or she wants to buy before entering the shop and visits fewer stores to purchase surprise gifts. However, the last three results apply only to appliances which often serve as gifts. These insights lead to significant managerial implications for retailers and manufacturers.     

中国西部地区生态贫困问题与生态重建

“生态贫困”是由于环境先天脆弱和资源的不合理利用、环境污染、破坏性的工程建设等人类活动引致生态环境恶化,最终导致的贫困;分析了西部先天脆弱环境对西部生态贫困区域的形成、分布、人类生存和经济文化发展等方面的影响;总结出三大生态贫困地区环境退化的主要原因、脆弱的环境因素,其成因机制包括生态环境的脆弱、人类生存环境恶劣、自然禀赋较差;提出了西北黄土地区实施植被的生态恢复;西南石山地区适宜配合生态经济林的植被恢复、合理利用水土资源以及加快城市化步伐;青藏高寒区重点优化资源开发模式、控制人口增长和强化生态文化意识等生态恢复与重建的建议。     

Analysis of free gift card program effectiveness

Retailers use various promotions, such as gift cards, to increase profits. When retailers give gift cards “free” to consumers who spend above specified thresholds in a single purchase, some consumers may buy more goods. We develop a model to derive the optimal purchase amount thresholds and gift card values. The model is developed for consumers without and then with a spending constraint. We find that the retailer's profit margin, the degree of forward buying and stockpiling, and use of gift cards in future purchases that would have been made with cash, are the most important factors in determining the profitability of gift cards. Gift cards may be very profitable for high-margin retailers who can limit the degree of forward buying and stockpiling, particularly when consumers use gift cards to buy goods they would not have bought from the retailer without gift cards. If this is how consumers use the gift cards, then consumers spending above the cards’ value at redemption can significantly increase their profitability. Without a consumer spending constraint, it is best for the retailer to offer at most one gift card at a large purchase amount. With a consumer spending constraint, it may be profitable to give gift cards at multiple purchase amount thresholds. We also show that the commonly observed policy of giving gift cards at equally spaced purchase amounts may be profitable when forward buying and stockpiling can be controlled. Moreover, we show that gift cards become more profitable when consumers are inconsistent, that is, they overestimate their probability of redeeming the gift card at purchase time. Finally, gift cards may have only a slight profit advantage over discounts if consumers are consistent. Consumer inconsistency and spending above the cards’ value increase this advantage.     

EDITORIAL

This article explores the role of the internet in the processes of organisation and mobilisation of a sporting subculture in asserting rights to enjoy the countryside for recreational purposes. It reports upon findings from a qualitative survey of chat room posts surrounding claims made by canoeists for better access to inland waterways in England and Wales. Informed by a reworking of the gift relationship, the findings question claims about the power of the internet to shape and realise democratic participation, indicating instead that it supports wider hegemonic relationships that constrain sporting activity and provides a mechanism for discipline within the subculture that is counter‐intuitive to a broader politics of access for recreational purposes.     

Weighing what’s practical: proxy means tests for targeting food subsidies in Egypt

Despite achieving a significant cost reduction over the past two decades, the absolute cost of food subsidies in Egypt is still high relative to the benefits received by the poor. There is scope for better targeting these food subsidies, in particular for targeting cooking oil and sugar ration cards, both because reforms in this area are perceived to be far less politically sensitive than adjusting subsidy policy for bread and wheat flour and because higher income groups presently receive a significant percentage of the benefits. Targeting the high-subsidy green ration cards to the poor and the low-subsidy red ration cards to the nonpoor will require identification of both poor and nonpoor households. An International Food Policy Research Institute research team in Egypt, in collaboration with the Egyptian Ministry of Trade and Supply, developed a proxy means test for targeting ration cards. The paper describes the process of moving from the optimal income-predicting model to the final model that was both administratively and politically feasible. An ex-ante evaluation of the levels of accuracy of the proxy means testing model indicates that the model performs quite well in predicting the needy and nonneedy households. An effective and full implementation of this targeting method would increase the equity in the ration card food subsidy system, and, at the same time, the total budgetary costs of rationed food subsidies would decline. Moreover, the experience gained under this reform would facilitate targeting future social interventions to reduce and prevent poverty in Egypt.