Measuring Serious Leisure in Chess: Model Confirmation and Method Bias

The serious leisure inventory and measure (SLIM) was tested with 348 chess players to confirm the factors, assess the effects of method bias, and propose a set of the best-performing items for the 18 factor SLIM. The 54-item SLIM demonstrated acceptable fit and reliability values. The effect of method bias was evidenced in the sample and explained one-third of the variance. Inspection of factor loadings, when controlling for method bias, yielded one best-performing item per factor. Findings indicate method bias continues to be problematic for self-report measures such as the SLIM.     

Investment allocation decisions,home bias and the mandatory IFRS adoption

We examine the familiarity hypothesis of home bias by studying how foreign ownership of Swedish firms is affected by the mandatory adoption of IFRS. We decompose foreign investors into institutional and non-institutional investors. Foreign investors are further decomposed into EU (IFRS adopting countries) and non-EU residents (non-IFRS adopting countries). We analyse the equity investments of these foreign investor groups in Sweden during the period of 2001–2007. We find that after the mandatory adoption of IFRS, foreign ownership/owners from countries that adopted IFRS and particularly those from the EU increased. These effects are particularly strong in small firms. Foreign institutional investors increased their ownership stake after the mandatory IFRS adoption, whereas foreign non-institutional investments were not affected significantly by the IFRS adoption. In contrast to ownership from non-adopting countries, ownership from the EU increased in firms with both more and less tangible assets. Similarly, foreign ownership from the EU increased in firms with both concentrated ownership and dispersed ownership after the adoption. Because Sweden has already had strict legal enforcement and a low level of earnings management prior to the adoption, our results suggest that increased foreign ownership is due to better abilities to compare firms rather than an improved quality.     

A reference-dependent representation with subjective tastes

Experimental and empirical evidence documents instances where the presence of an inferior option in a menu increases the attractiveness of the better options from that menu and thus distorts the normative ranking across menus. We analyze the case when in addition to this so called context-effects bias there is also a concern for flexibility, in the spirit of the literature initiated by Kreps (1979) and Dekel et al. (2001). Since the context-effects bias and the desire for flexibility both increase the inclination of a decision maker to choose larger menus, our analysis allows the disentangling of the effect of the behavioral bias from the effect of the rational desire from flexibility. We find a weak condition on the set of ex post preferences under which the two effects are identifiable. We show that our representation is essentially unique. From a methodological viewpoint, our paper provides a novel technique of identifying probabilities on the state space of subjective uncertainty introduced by Dekel et al. (2001) when this state space is infinite. This method renders the infinite state space essentially finite with respect to a certain salient property.     

论《物权法》中非依法律行为引起的物权变动

法定非依法律行为可以引起物权消极变动的效力,但出于交易安全考虑,事后进行备案宣示登记是必要的,整体结构安排要和积极变动的登记程序相协调.我国物权法实施过程中应明确规定对因非依法律行为引起的物权变动应该进行登记,考虑对类似强制执行、遗赠扶养协议的受遗赠等特殊情况,在立法上作出一些例外规定.同时,对基于非依法律行为引起的物权变动程序应作出一些具体的规定.     

HEDONIC PRICE INDEXES FOR RESIDENTIAL HOUSING: A SURVEY,EVALUATION AND TAXONOMY

Every house is different. It is important that house price indexes take account of these quality differences. Hedonic methods which express house prices as a function of a vector of characteristics (such as number of bedrooms and bathrooms, land area and location) are particularly useful for this purpose. I consider here some developments in the hedonic methodology, as it is applied in a housing context, that have occurred in the last three decades. A number of hedonic house price indexes are now available. However, it is often difficult to see how these indexes relate to each other. For this reason I attempt to impose some structure on the literature by developing a taxonomy of hedonic indexes, and then show how existing indexes fit into this taxonomy. Also discussed are some promising areas for future research in the hedonic field. In particular, greater use needs to be made of spatial econometric and nonparametric methods to exploit the increased availability of geospatial data. The main criticisms of the hedonic approach are evaluated and compared with those of the repeat‐sales and stratified median methods. The overall conclusion is that the advantages of the hedonic approach outweigh its disadvantages.     

Broadband speed and unemployment rates: Data and measurement issues

We examine the effects of broadband speed on county unemployment rates in the U.S. state of Tennessee. We merge the older National Broadband Map dataset and the newer FCC dataset in lengthening our broadband access data over the period 2011–2015. Extending the dataset improves the precision of the estimates. Our panel regressions control for potential selection bias and reverse causality and show that broadband speed matters: unemployment rates are about 0.26 percentage points lower in counties with high speeds compared to counties with low speeds. Ultra-high speed broadband also appears to reduce unemployment rates; however, we are unable to distinguish between the effects of high and ultra-high speed broadband. We document beneficial effects of the early adoption of high speed broadband on unemployment rates. Better quality broadband appears to have a disproportionately greater effect in rural areas.     

HANDLING NONRESPONSE IN LOGISTICS RESEARCH

Assessing and controlling for nonresponse bias is critical for the validity and reliability of survey‐based logistics research. In order to gain a better understanding of how researchers assess and report nonresponse bias in their studies, we analyzed articles published from 1998 through 2007 in three top logistics journals (International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management, Journal of Business Logistics, Transportation Journal). We describe and explore how nonresponse has been handled in these articles. Our findings show that first, survey response rates have declined over time; this influences the generalizability of survey results in case of nonresponse. Second, an average of 44% of published mail survey articles does not mention tests for detecting nonresponse bias.     

Social Desirability Bias in Survey Research on Sustainable Development in Small Firms: an Exploratory Analysis of Survey Mode Effect

Survey methodology has become an increasingly popular weapon of choice in conducting research on the topic of environmental sustainability in the small firm context. However, conventional application of survey research in many empirical studies tends to ignore the inherent issues associated with the mode of administration of survey questionnaires. One of these issues is social desirability bias (SDB) arising from survey modes such as face to face, the assisted type of survey questionnaire administration and mailed or purely self‐administered survey. This study is an analysis of survey data generated by two modes: purely self‐administered and survey enumerator assisted. The paper argues that the presence of an enumerator in the workplace or actual site of the business to administer the survey will motivate the respondents to provide more accurate information about the firms' environmental sustainability knowledge and practices. The article offers suggestions to address SDB in carrying out surveys about environmental sustainability in small firms. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

What you are is what you like—similarity biases in venture capitalists' evaluations of start-up teams

This paper extends recent research studying biases in venture capitalist's decision making. We contribute to this literature by analyzing biases arising from similarities between a venture capitalist and members of a venture team. We summarize the psychological foundations of such similarity effects and derive a set of hypotheses regarding the impact of similarity on the assessment of team quality. Using data from a conjoint experiment with 51 respondents, we find that venture capitalists tend to favor teams that are similar to themselves in type of training and professional experience. Our results have important implications for academics and practitioners alike.     

Sales channel integration after mergers and acquisitions: A methodological approach for avoiding common pitfalls

This article addresses the integration of sales channels after mergers and acquisitions (M&A) by appraising the strengths, weaknesses, and biases associated with the four most common frameworks for evaluating sales channels (sales management, historical performance, strategic fit, and customer choice) for their appropriateness in a post-M&A context. The authors develop a methodological approach that uses a balanced-scorecard framework to guide managers through the sales channel integration process, and then apply this approach to the merger of two industrial firms' sales organizations across 21 territories. In so doing, they reveal various pitfalls and propose and test some analytical corrections. Longitudinal performance data support comparisons across the different evaluative frameworks; in particular, the sales management and customer choice frameworks provide the most insight into channel partners' post-integration performance. The results support the premise that channel integration can be improved by accounting for factors unique to the M&A context and using an approach that triangulates multiple perspectives.