The Small Business Capital Market Behavior in Athens Stock Exchange

Financing small and medium enterprises (SMEs), especially business investments and growth, is a composite and particular complicated affair in the Greek entrepreneurial reality. This paper examines the significance of secondary capital markets, as an alternative source of financing small-medium enterprises’ new entrepreneurial plans. Cointegration technique is applied to test the relationship between the secondary capital market and the dominant sectors in Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). Causality tests are also used to provide evidence on the existence of interdependence between the cointegrated series. The results indicate that there is significant uni-directional causality between primary and secondary capital market in Greece, enhancing us to suggest valuable policy implications.      

New classes of improved confidence intervals for the variance of a normal distribution

Two new classes of improved confidence intervals for the variance of a normal distribution with unknown mean are constructed. The first one is a class of smooth intervals. Within this class, a subclass of generalized Bayes intervals is found which contains, in particular, the Brewster and Zidek-type interval as a member. The intervals of the second class, though non-smooth, have a very simple and explicit functional form. The Stein-type interval is a member of this class and is shown to be empirical Bayes. The construction extends Maruyama’s (Metrika 48:209–214, 1998) point estimation technique to the interval estimation problem.     

Beyond Brenner's investment overhang hypothesis: the case of the steel industry

This article challenges the way liberal economic governance has come to be theorised as a passive and depoliticised form of governance. Using the classic case of the gold standard, it shows how state intervention came to be shaped by considerations of state power and diverged considerably from the traditional emphasis on free markets and stable conditions of investments. As I argue, the gold standard was constructed through political struggles over monetary governance which involved significant constraints for capitalist investors. Its institutions helped establish a new structure for exerting control over finance. By resituating the gold standard in a broader historical perspective, I show how nineteenth-century monetary governance, far from leading to a retreat of the state, established in fact the foundations of a new form of state intervention: modern central banking.     

Greening the lodging industry: Current status,trends and perspectives for green value

The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical review of extant knowledge on green lodging integration and a compilation of empirical studies that examine the greening of the lodging industry, published between 2003 and 2014. Empirical academic studies are grouped in three pillars: (a) studies that focus on corporate perspective, (b) studies that examine the role of governmental and trade organizations and (c) studies that focus on consumers’ perceptions in regard to hotels’ green integration. Accumulated knowledge is further presented in a structured way, through a Summary Table. Finally, the paper aims at setting the future research agenda in the area of green lodging by highlighting areas where results are equivocal, areas with evolving research attention and research issues that would enhance our understanding towards a greener lodging industry.     

The demand for eurozone stocks and bonds in a time-varying asset allocation framework

This paper analyzes the short and long-run demand for traditional financial asset classes in eleven founding eurozone members. Our sample period starts from the introduction of euro till 2017. We calculate the welfare losses stemming from ignoring the demand for domestic and eurozone equities and bonds, for various levels of risk aversion. Our results show that the bonds of eurozone countries are, in general, desirable for short-run only. However, in Ireland, Portugal and Spain the bonds are desirable for both short-run and long-run investment horizons. Stocks exhibit both short-run and long-run desirability for all countries except Greece. The Greek stocks are desirable for short- run only.     

Regulating the Platform Economy: How to Protect Workers While Promoting Innovation

The rise of the platform economy has made it a topic of great interest among European policymakers, as evidenced by the European Commission’s 2016 Communication “A European agenda for the collaborative economy”. The regulatory challenges facing policymakers are manifold, ranging from taxation to competition policy to worker protection. Furthermore, many basic aspects of the platform economy are unclear, such as its size, the number of workers who take part in it and, indeed, its very definition. What types of regulation are necessary to ensure that the benefits of the platform economy are maximised for all Europeans? How can the productivity gains associated with the platform economy be distributed throughout society? Perhaps most importantly, how can policymakers support innovation while also protecting consumers, workers and communities?     

Collaborative Economy: Market Design and Basic Regulatory Principles

The rise of the collaborative economy platforms reveals that policymakers need to start thinking about how to introduce flexibility in the provision of services in these formal relationships with adequate protection for all of the involved parties.     

Improved estimation of extreme quantiles in the multivariate Lomax (Pareto II) distribution

Estimation of a quantile of the common marginal distribution in a multivariate Lomax (Pareto II) distribution with unknown location and scale parameters is considered. For quadratic loss and specified extreme quantiles, it is established that the best affine equivariant procedure is inadmissible by constructing a better estimator.     

Effects of Expiration Date-Based Pricing on Brand Image Perceptions

Expiration date-based pricing (EDBP) occurs when a grocery retailer reduces the price of a perishable product according to its remaining shelf life. While, conventional wisdom suggests that this practice leads to negative consumer evaluations of brand quality, a series of field experiments reveal negative effects on brand quality perceptions only among loyal consumers and those who perceive low risk associated with perishables. The effect is also mediated by consumer distrust (Study 1). In addition, EDBP has no effect on brand quality image if consumers are already familiar with this pricing practice (Study 2), and it may even generate positive consumer evaluations when framed as a cause-related marketing activity to reduce waste (Study 3). Additional evidence indicates that psychological contract violation perceptions provide the underlying mechanism for explaining consumer responses to EDBP (Study 4). This article ends with an agenda for further research and implications for retail practice.