Consumer Brand Hate: Steam rolling whatever I see

This study aims to investigate negative consumer‐brand relationships by developing a “Brand Hate” concept. A hierarchical Brand Hate model is theoretically discussed in light of the psychology and consumer behavior literatures. In Study‐I the Brand Hate concept was tested with two different types of consumer brand haters, true haters, and regular haters. The study found that in the study's proposed multidimensional Brand Hate hierarchy true haters display “Boiling Brand Hate” while regular haters reveal “Seething Brand Hate.” Two additional studies were developed to examine the relationship between consumer personality traits and Brand Hate, exploring which types of consumers are more prone to feel hatred toward targeted brands. Study‐II's findings revealed a relationship between consumers who are high in personality traits of “conscientiousness” and those who Brand Hate. Study‐III's findings indicated that “self‐confident” and “competitive” consumers might also be more prone to feel hatred toward those brands that perform poorly and unethically.     

Sustainable consumption in China: New trends and research interests

China is currently the largest CO₂ emitter in the world and demonstrates one of the highest levels of energy consumption. The sustainable consumption behavior has increased in China, especially in urban cities. Some clear evidence of this includes food purchasing behavior. Recent studies have also suggested that considering full product information transparency, consumers are willing to pay premium prices for products. With this in mind, sustainable consumption must still be facilitated by related policies, regulations, and tools. This study focuses on sustainable consumption behavior in China and collects and analyzes the literature from the last decade (2007–2017) on the topic. In so doing, it highlights new trends and research topics against the background of circular economy development. The method of systematic review is applied. The review is categorized into several main groups: national policies and regulations, the green awareness of consumers, the definition of related concepts, the barriers between sustainable consumption and the circular economy, and the indicators for circular economy assessment in China. Future research directions are discussed. Furthermore, future challenges are addressed from three perspectives: sustainable consumption facilitating the circular economy, “cradle‐to‐cradle” practices, and the link between the European Union and China. This is a fundamental study in the research domain of sustainable consumption behavior. It provides added value that benefits both academic researchers and decision makers. It also sheds light on the further study of sustainable consumption behavior in China from a macroeconomic perspective.     

专题微课生物化学教学新模式的探索与实践

专题微课教学是基于一门学科或课程的某个重要专题设计开发的教学模式。课题组在生物化学的课程中设计了专题微课。生物化学的专题微课教学包括确立教学目标、教学方法、微课录制与编辑加工等环节，应注意建立全新的网络教学平台、互动式教学、抓好指导小组资料整理等教学策略，其成功需要教师有较高的综合素质和教学技能。实践证明，生物化学的专题微课教学取得了良好的教学效果，学生的成绩有了一定提高。     

TEN YEARS OF GENERAL OLIGOPOLISTIC EQUILIBRIUM: A SURVEY

In this paper, I survey the recent and rapidly increasing theoretical literature using the brand‐new approach in embedding oligopolistic competition in general equilibrium, as designed by J. Peter Neary. First, I introduce the reader to Neary's approach, by describing the main ingredients. Then, I present a comprehensive set of studies that, over the last decade, apply this approach in different contexts, most of which are in open economy, and I examine the relevant outcomes. Although the theoretical literature has generously advanced, there is a lack of research on the empirical side, which would be an important area for future research besides theoretical extensions, some of which I highlight in the conclusions.     

Retaining a diverse workforce: the impact of gender‐focused human resource management

Demography theory suggests that high gender diversity leads to high turnover. As turnover is costly, we tested the following: a main effect prediction derived from demography theory, and a moderating effect prediction derived from the relational framework. Data on 198 publicly listed organisations were collected through a human resources decision‐maker survey and archival databases. The results indicate that higher gender diversity leads to lower turnover in organisations with many gender‐focused policies and practices. Findings suggest that organisations can lower their turnover rates by increasing their gender diversity and by implementing gender‐focused policies and practices.     

Who should sell stocks?

Never selling stocks is optimal for investors with a long horizon and a realistic range of preference and market parameters, if relative risk aversion, investment opportunities, proportional transaction costs, and dividend yields are constant. Such investors should buy stocks when their portfolio weight is too low and otherwise hold them, letting dividends rebalance to cash over time rather than selling. With capital gains taxes, this policy outperforms both static buy‐and‐hold and dynamic rebalancing strategies that account for transaction costs. Selling stocks becomes optimal if either their target weight is low or intermediate consumption is substantial.     

Optimal insurance under rank‐dependent utility and incentive compatibility

Bernard, He, Yan, and Zhou (Mathematical Finance, 25(1), 154–186) studied an optimal insurance design problem where an individual's preference is of the rank‐dependent utility (RDU) type, and show that in general an optimal contract covers both large and small losses. However, their results suffer from the unrealistic assumption that the random loss has no atom, as well as a problem of moral hazard that provides incentives for the insured to falsely report the actual loss. This paper addresses these setbacks by removing the nonatomic assumption, and by exogenously imposing the “incentive compatibility” constraint that both indemnity function and insured's retention function are increasing with respect to the loss. We characterize the optimal solutions via calculus of variations, and then apply the result to obtain explicitly expressed contracts for problems with Yaari's dual criterion and general RDU. Finally, we use numerical examples to compare the results between ours and Bernard et al.     

Corporate Stock and Bond Return Correlations and Dynamic Adjustments of Capital Structure

This paper analyses the effects of dynamic correlations between stock and bond returns issued by the same firm on the speed of adjustment towards target leverage. The results show that the estimated correlations are time varying, show persistence and differ among firms. Analysis of the potential explanatory variables reveals that the correlations decrease with negative expectations about future aggregate risks, but only for firms with a low default probability. In contrast, correlations are positively associated with specific risk measures, especially idiosyncratic stock risk and financial leverage. The positive relationship between the correlations and the leverage ratio suggests that target leverage can be achieved faster when the stock–bond correlation is high. Our results show that this is the case.     

中国商业银行整体效率研究* ——基于具有中间投入和中间产出的综合网络DEA模型

本文基于对银行业务结构和特征的分析，将银行看做具有中间投入和中间产出的串联两阶段网络生产结构。第一阶段为负债业务和中间业务，第二阶段为资产业务。基于这一网络结构，本文首先建立具有中间投入和中间产出的综合网络DEA模型，并证明在此模型下整体网络DEA有效等价于每个子阶段DEA有效，即此模型是打开黑箱的网络DEA模型，并定义网络决策单元的投影。本文以中国16家上市商业银行为样本，测算了2006-2010年各商业银行的整体效率、子阶段效率、关联指数和每家银行的投影。分析结果显示，大型国有商业银行在负债业务和中间业务阶段具有明显的竞争优势，股份制商业银行在资产业务阶段具有效率优势，城市商业银行的两阶段业务关联性最差。本文计算的投影，给出了银行提高整体效率的改进方向。     

THE FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH NEXUS: A META‐ANALYSIS

We conduct a meta‐analysis of the literature of financial development and economic growth. We cover a large number of empirical studies and estimations that have been published in journal articles. We measure the degree of heterogeneity and identify the causes of the observed differentiation. Among the most significant factors behind this heterogeneity is the choice of financial‐variable proxies, the kind of data used as well as whether a study takes into account the issue of endogeneity. Our results suggest that the empirical literature on the finance–growth nexus is not free from publication bias. Also, a genuine positive effect exists between financial development and economic growth.