Involvement and opinion leadership in tourism

Nature-based tourism, science tourism, and ecotourism are some of the emerging and growing trends in special-interest tourism. This study utilized a southeastern sample of the United States who had an interest in travel and the environment. A modified Dillman total design method survey was used to collect the data. The study demonstrated that widely used concepts of marketing are applicable for nature-based tourism. Results indicate that highly involved nature-oriented travelers tend to be more receptive to information concerning the travel product or destination and spread that information willingly. Findings of this study suggest that opinion leaders take more trips and use slightly more information sources.     

Geographic factors affecting tourism in Zambia

This paper discusses several geographical factors critical to tourism planning and development in Zambia. The paper focuses on the size, seasonality of climate, and population distribution of the country as well as the location of tourism resources and distances between tourist attractions. Individually and collectively, these factors have a major influence on the levels of occupancy in hotels and game lodges, and air and land transportation. The infrastructural development and its utilization for tourism are evaluated, and a number of constraints to tourism development are also examined. A discussion of appropriate tourism policies highlights the delicate relationship between economic and environmental factors. This study concludes that Tourism Master Plans should be more cognizant of geographic as well as economic factors when developing destinations such as Zambia.     

Market shares analysis: The Case of French Tourism Demand

This paper examines the magnitudes and determinants of changes in destinations’ shares of a major tourist origin market. The Almost Ideal Demand System model is used to quantify the responsiveness of French tourism demand in Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom to changes in relative prices, exchange rates, tourists’ expenditure budget, and external events. The results indicate that effective price competitiveness is a key variable driving changes in market shares. Policymakers who wish to maintain their shares of the French market should pay particular attention to tourism pricing policies, as well as to improving the tourism offer.     

HIGH‐ORDER SHORT‐TIME EXPANSIONS FOR ATM OPTION PRICES OF EXPONENTIAL LÉVY MODELS

The short‐time asymptotic behavior of option prices for a variety of models with jumps has received much attention in recent years. In this work, a novel second‐order approximation for at‐the‐money (ATM) option prices is derived for a large class of exponential Lévy models with or without Brownian component. The results hereafter shed new light on the connection between both the volatility of the continuous component and the jump parameters and the behavior of ATM option prices near expiration. In the presence of a Brownian component, the second‐order term, in time‐t, is of the form , with d₂ only depending on Y, the degree of jump activity, on σ, the volatility of the continuous component, and on an additional parameter controlling the intensity of the “small” jumps (regardless of their signs). This extends the well‐known result that the leading first‐order term is . In contrast, under a pure‐jump model, the dependence on Y and on the separate intensities of negative and positive small jumps are already reflected in the leading term, which is of the form . The second‐order term is shown to be of the form and, therefore, its order of decay turns out to be independent of Y. The asymptotic behavior of the corresponding Black–Scholes implied volatilities is also addressed. Our method of proof is based on an integral representation of the option price involving the tail probability of the log‐return process under the share measure and a suitable change of probability measure under which the pure‐jump component of the log‐return process becomes a Y‐stable process. Our approach is sufficiently general to cover a wide class of Lévy processes, which satisfy the latter property and whose Lévy density can be closely approximated by a stable density near the origin. Our numerical results show that the first‐order term typically exhibits rather poor performance and that the second‐order term can significantly improve the approximation's accuracy, particularly in the absence of a Brownian component.     

Destructive behavior in a Fragile Public Good game

Socially destructive behavior in a public good environment–like damaging public goods–is an underexposed phenomenon in economics. In an experiment we investigate whether such behavior can be influenced by the very nature of an environment. To that purpose we use a Fragile Public Good (FPG) game which puts the opportunity for destructive behavior (taking) on a level playing field with constructive behavior (contributing). We find substantial evidence of destructive decisions, sometimes leading to sour relationships characterized by persistent hurtful behavior. While positive framing induces fewer destructive decisions, shifting the selfish Nash towards minimal taking doubles its share to more than 20%.     

Property taxes and dynamic efficiency: A correction

According to Kim and Lee (1997), property taxes as opposed to capital gain taxes and taxes on rent endanger dynamic efficiency. The present paper shows that the choice of the tax base is immaterial. What counts is whether the taxes eliminate the after-tax rent. Empirical evidence suggests that this is not the case.     

Transparency and empowerment in an investment environment

In a laboratory-controlled environment we provide experimental evidence on the effects of transparency (complete over incomplete information) and empowerment on trust and trustworthiness. We implement a simple version of the standard two-person investment game in a repeated game context with multiple treatments under two information environments. We find that when principals are empowered by being able to penalize agents who may not act in a way the principal believes is in the principal's best interest, the level of trust and investment increases over that which is realized in the absence of empowerment regardless of the degree of transparency. In transparent environments the effect of empowerment is about the same regardless of whether empowerment is introduced or removed. However, in opaque environments, the loss of empowerment has a substantially greater negative effect on trust than the positive effect associated with the introduction of empowerment.     

Common Institutional Ownership and Earnings Management*

This study examines the relation between earnings management and block ownership of same‐industry peer firms by a common set of institutional investors (common institutional ownership). This relation is important given the tremendous growth of common institutional ownership and the significant influence of blockholders on financial reporting. We hypothesize that common institutional ownership mitigates earnings management by enhancing institutions' monitoring efficiency and by encouraging institutions to internalize the negative externality of a firm's earnings management on peer firms' investments. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find that higher common institutional ownership is related to less earnings management. Analyses of a quasi‐natural experiment based on financial institution mergers show that this negative relation is unlikely to be driven by the endogeneity of common institutional ownership. Cross‐sectional tests provide evidence that the negative relation is stronger among firms for which common institutional ownership is likely to generate a greater reduction in institutions' information acquisition and processing costs, and among firms whose severe financial misstatements are more likely to distort co‐owned peer firms' investments, supporting both mechanisms underlying our hypothesis. Our findings inform the ongoing debate on the costs and benefits of common institutional ownership by highlighting an important benefit: the enhanced monitoring of financial reporting.     

Auditors' Fee Premiums and Low‐Quality Internal Controls*

We examine the relation between low‐quality internal controls and audit fee premiums. Using a novel data set of audit hours and audit fees we find, consistent with the audit risk model, that auditors increase their effort (hours) owing to low internal control quality. We find that auditors also charge a significant fee premium to clients with internal control weaknesses. This premium is observed for severe internal control weaknesses and companies with low‐quality alternative governance mechanisms. The results are robust to multiple methods to address endogeneity, including company fixed effects, difference‐in‐differences design, and a propensity score‐matched sample. Taken as a whole, low internal control quality leads to fee premiums, which are a deadweight loss to client companies.     

语音编辑播放系统的应用研究

该文对语音编辑播放系统的目前应用状况和未来的发展趋势进行了详细的分析,并对文语转换系统的结构组成和工作原理作了明确的说明,最后通过一个具体的案例:在VB调用TTS技术实现语音的编辑和播放,说明TTS技术的开发过程.