The influence of internet customer reviews on the online sales and prices in hotel industry

In this paper, the impact of two service quality metrics (star rating and customer rating) on hotel room sales and prices is investigated. Two of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, Paris and London, are chosen. It is found that a higher customer rating significantly increases the online sales of hotels. The study results show that a 1% increase in online customer rating increases Sales per Room up to 2.68% in Paris and up to 2.62% in London. Contrary to expectations, higher stars do not increase the sales. It is also shown that higher customer ratings result in higher prices of the hotel and the prices of high star hotels are more sensitive to online customer ratings.     

Distribution of stock ratings and analyst recommendation revision

With the implementation of NASD Rule 2711 in 2002, each brokerage firm is now required to publicly disseminate the distribution of stock ratings in each research report. Hence, this paper investigates the relationship between the percentage of buy recommendations and probability of deciding to downgrade or drop coverage of stocks. Our findings suggest that the percentage of buy recommendations can enhance the probability of deciding to downgrade stock ratings and drop coverage of stocks. Furthermore, we find that analysts tend to revise their recommendations downward to hold instead of an unfavorable level. In addition, we find the market tends to heed downgrade decisions of analysts with a higher percentage of buy ratings. This finding is consistent with Barber, Lehavy, McNichols, and Trueman (2006) by applying data at the broker level.This study further investigates the changing dynamic in buy ratio of analysts by partitioning pre and post regulatory reform period. We show that analysts are more likely to revise their ratings to hold and less likely to revise their ratings to sell; in particular after post regulatory reform. Moreover, we observe one key coefficient in the post-Rule period with superior performance in contrast to the pre-Rule period. Compared to the results in the pre-Rule period, the results show that analysts are more likely to revise their ratings to hold and less likely to revise ratings to sell, and more likely to drop coverage of stocks in the post-Rule period. Overall, our findings suggest that the implementation of Rule 2711 will contribute to reduce analysts’ optimistic stock ratings.     

自动站与人工站降水量差异分析

利用陕西省8个气象站平行观测期间的自动站与人工站降水量资料,对日降水量差异、造成差异原因以及差异对气候预测评分的影响进行分析。结果表明:日降水量差值基本在正常范围之内,只有3个样本超出了误差范围;采集原理不同、采集时间不同步是造成差异的主要原因;自动站与人工站降水量观测记录的差异,导致个别月份气候预测分级评分出现错级现象,产生了两种不同的评分结果,给正确衡量预测水平带来误差。     

The role of interpersonal affect in performance appraisal: evidence from two samples – the US and India

The interpersonal affect, a li ke–dislike relationship between a supervisor and his/her subordinate, has traditionally been conceptualized as a source of bias in performance appraisals. However, some researchers have argued that the interpersonal affect may not be a bias, especially where it develops as a result of past performance. In this field study, using data from 190 supervisors in the US, and 113 supervisors in India, we delineate the relationship between interpersonal affect and performance ratings. In both samples, interpersonal affect and performance level were found to have significant effects on performance ratings. Results from the US sample indicated that raters are able to separate their liking for a subordinate from actual performance when a ssigning performance ratings, suggesting that the interpersonal affect does not operate as a bias in the appraisal process. Results from the Indian sample, however, suggest that supervisors inflate ratings of low performers, suggesting that local cultural norms may be operating as a moderator.     

Codes of Ethics as Signals for Ethical Behavior

This study investigated effects of codes of ethics on perceptions of ethical behavior. Respondents from companies with codes of ethics (n = 465) rated role set members (top management, supervisors, peers, subordinates, self) as more ethical and felt more encouraged and supported for ethical behavior than respondents from companies without codes (n = 301). Key aspects of the organizational climate, such as supportiveness for ethical behavior, freedom to act ethically, and satisfaction with the outcome of ethical problems were impacted by the presence of an ethics code. The mere presence of a code of ethics appears to have a positive impact on perceptions of ethical behavior in organizations, even when respondents cannot recall specific content of the code.     

Competition in shared markets and Major League Baseball broadcast viewership

This work evaluates the cross-quality elasticity of related products in the context of local market Nielsen Local People Meter ratings of Major League Baseball (MLB) regular season broadcasts from 2010 through 2013 from six teams in three shared markets. We employ a fixed effects panel regression with multi-way error clustering, finding that fans exhibit nuanced behaviour related to the absolute quality and relative quality of the two local teams. Our estimates imply quality-related competition for viewership between teams in the face of large disparities in quality. However, when both teams are of high quality, viewership increased beyond what own-team success would predict alone for the competing team. The competitive effects are largely dominated by the spillover effects. These findings point to complementary effects of team success beyond own-team interest, and bring about an important nuance in the literature on market definition, competition and substitution in sport.     

东周时期管子的经济思想

东周时期一向被认为是我国古代历史文明的光辉时代。由于当时社会大变革, 在政治思想领域出现了许多学派, 各自著书立说, 互相进行激烈争辨, 历史上称为百家争鸣。许多政治家的经济思想是很卓越的, 对后世影响很大。本文重点评述管子的经济思想     

Analysing customers' reviews and ratings for online food deliveries: A text mining approach

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between online reviews and ratings through text mining and empirical techniques. An Indian food delivery portal ( Zomato.com ) was used, where 50 restaurants on Presence Across Nation (PAN) basis were selected through stratified random sampling. A total of 2530 reviews were collected, scrutinized, and analysed. Using the NVivo software for qualitative analysis, seven themes were identified from collected reviews, out of which, the ‘delivery’ theme was explored further for identifying sub-themes. Linear regression modelling was used to identify the variables affecting delivery ratings and sentiment analysis was also performed on the identified sub-themes. Regression results revealed that hygiene and pricing (delivery subthemes) demonstrated lower delivery ratings. These variables can be established as indicators for restaurants and related online food delivery services to build their business model around them. Similarly, negative sentiments were observed in pricing and hygiene sub-themes. Restaurants and online food services can enhance hygiene levels of their food delivery process in order to receive higher delivery ratings. Similarly, pricing of food items can be modified such that customers are not deterred from ordering the items—food and ordering service do not become cost-prohibitive. This study devised a standardized methodology for analysing vast amounts of online user-generated content (UGC). Findings from this study can be extrapolated to other sectors and service industries such as, tourism, cleaning, transportation, hospitals and engineering especially during the pandemic.     

Does local political support influence financial markets? A study on the impact of job approval ratings of political representatives on local stock returns

Using data on job approval ratings of governors, U.S. senators, and the president, we find that firms located in states with high approval ratings outperform firms located in states with low approval ratings by .64% per month. Furthermore, this relationship is stronger when investors are actively involved in politics, when local politicians are closer to the center of political power, for small firms that have a larger proportion of local investors, and for financially strong areas where investors are ready to execute investments in local stocks. Overall, our study shows that investors’ political sentiment is important in determining stock returns.     

Explaining credit rating differences between Japanese and U.S. agencies

We compare credit ratings assigned to Japanese firms by the two leading U.S. rating agencies and the two leading Japanese agencies. Our goal is to investigate the complaint that the U.S. agencies Moody's and Standard and Poor's (S&P) ignore special corporate governance features of Japanese firms, i.e., keiretsu affiliation. We find that it is true that ratings of Japanese firms by the U.S. agencies are systematically lower than those assigned by Japanese raters. However, the reasons for the differences are not found to be related to keiretsu affiliation. Thus, we reject one of the prominent reasons for rating differences put forth by managers of Japanese firms. This leaves open the question of what drives the difference. The phenomenon is clearly consistent with more general home bias documented in previous work.