The decline of the traditional travel agent model

This article analyzes the struggle between traditional travel agencies and airlines to gain control of the Spanish airline services market. Also analyzed is the strong emergence of a third player, online travel portals that act as online travel agencies. We use a multinomial logit model to study the influence of 27 socio-economic factors and trip attributes on passenger purchase channel choice. The results show that the profile of a passenger who has a greater likelihood of making his/her bookings online is that of a young person, a student or educated to a high level, a habitual traveler, booking a simple journey and using an LCC. The factors linked to an increased likelihood of making purchases by phone include: being male, middle-aged, on a business or short trip, and the passengers usually use a travel agency. Finally, passengers who are over 65 years of age, with a lower academic level, who use a travel agency and are going to make a more complicated journey, are more likely to purchase their tickets in-store.     

The evaluation of a surveillance system for violent and non-intentional injury mortality in Colombian cities

Since 2002, the Institute for Peace Promotion and Injury/Violence Prevention (CISALVA) at the Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia and the Colombia Program at Georgetown University have developed and implemented 21 epidemiologically based municipal crime observatories in intermediate-sized municipalities in Colombia. These crime observatories serve as monitoring centres that provide low cost, geo-referenced methods of data collection and analysis, which allow cities to develop more responsive policies and prevention programmes and enhance governance. This article focuses on the methodology employed and lessons learned that may be applicable to similar settings. Worth noting within the results was a significant decrease in homicides after the first year of the programme. Whether or not such results could be attributed to the method or to the nature of the interventions and policy initiatives stemming from it remains open to conjecture.     

Understanding the microenterprise sector to design a tailor-made microfinance policy for Cape Verde

Two of the central challenges faced by Cape Verde at the present are the high level of unemployment and the increasing proportion of the population living in (relative) poverty. Microenterprise development can be an effective means of addressing both problems in a developing country like Cape Verde, where microenterprises account for about 50% of employment. In this paper we provide a detailed profile of Cape Verdean microenterprises and microentrepreneurs and investigate the relationship between their characteristics and the resort to outside seed capital. We find a cluster of factors—the microentrepreneur’s age, gender, level of education and reason for being self-employed—which influence significantly the probability of being in need for external start-up capital. The policy implications of these findings for the design of a specific microfinance program for Cape Verde are discussed.

How Companies Can Use Hedging to Create Shareholder Value

This article provides a framework for designing and evaluating corporate risk management and hedging programs. Corporate risk management has the potential to create substantial shareholder wealth by protecting companies from unexpected events that could force them to put their strategic investment plans on hold or even endanger their existence. However, assessing the performance of risk management, and how it is expected to increase the value of the enterprise, is a difficult undertaking because the costs of risk management tend to be much easier to quantify—indeed, they often appear directly on the firm's bottom line—than the benefits. The author begins by discussing how to evaluate the benefits and costs of a risk management program in general terms, and then focuses more directly on the assessment of corporate hedging programs, which are generally conducted with derivatives. In practice, there are many obstacles to designing and carrying out a successful hedging program. But one of the most common has been the tendency of top managements to insist that hedging programs be “costless.” The author argues that just as the purchase of fire insurance is not viewed as waste of funds or a bad investment if the insured house does not burn down, the use of derivatives in a well‐designed hedge should not be viewed as a mistake if the derivative position produces losses. To guard against this mistake, the people who design and implement risk management strategies must ensure that their CEOs and boards understand the possible outcomes of the strategy—including losses on derivatives position—and how the strategy itself increases the (expected) value of the firm. Further, management should attempt to communicate the principles underlying its risk management program and the value created by its hedging strategy to the investment community.