Consequences of a green image of drone food delivery services: The moderating role of gender and age

Drone food delivery services play a significant role in protecting the environment, because the services are operated by batteries that can be charged with electricity. Therefore, this study tried to examine a green image in the context of drone food delivery services. More specifically, this study proposed that a green image of drone food delivery services plays an important role in the formation of attitude toward using the services. In addition, it was hypothesized that the attitude has a positive influence on behavioral intentions including intentions to use, word‐of‐mouth intentions, and willingness to pay more. Lastly, the moderating role of gender and age was proposed during the theory‐building process. A theoretical model, which included 12 hypotheses, was developed and tested using a total of 427 samples collected in Korea. The data analysis results showed that a green image of drone food delivery services has a positive influence on attitude toward using the services, which in turn positively affects three subdimensions of behavioral intentions. Furthermore, gender and age played partly as a moderator. The current paper was the first to study the green image of drone food delivery services, so the findings of this study mean a lot to the theoretical aspect.     

Twenty-Five Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall: An Empirical Revisit of West German Consumers' Attitudes Toward Products and Brands from Former East Germany

More than 25 years after the German reunification, data show that products/brands from the eastern regions of Germany (“Neue Länder”) still do not have significant shares in the country's western part (“Alte Länder”). To analyze potential reasons for this phenomenon, our current study replicates a previous study that investigated selected attitudes of Alte Länder consumers toward products/brands from the Neue Länder. It is shown that factors such as consumer ethnocentrism, product judgment, willingness to buy, and economic animosity continue to influence consumer behavior and as such our study offers potential explanation for the failure of Neue Länder products/brands in the western regions of Germany.     

Information and Knowledge as Antecedents of Consumer Attitudes and Intentions to Buy and Recommend Fair-Trade Products

The authors propose and empirically test a causal model to understand how the availability of fair-trade information and consumer knowledge about this issue affect consumers’ attitudes and intentions toward fair-trade products. The model is built upon the attitude-behavior paradigm and the premises of agency theory. It is tested through structural equation modeling with a sample of 292 Spanish consumers. The findings are that consumers do not have good knowledge about fair trade and that this is significantly determined by the lack of information about this in the market. It is also observed that consumers’ perceptions about the availability of fair-trade information have negative effects on their concern about this issue and that such information as is available is not effective in reducing consumer skepticism. The research represents an extension of previous fair-trade literature because the role of information and communication in improving consumer attitudes and buying intentions has rarely been explored in the case of ethical products.     

Effects of aid for trade on extensive and intensive margins of greenfield FDI

Using a panel dataset of 105 developing countries for the period 2003–15, this paper assesses the effects of Aid for Trade (AfT) on greenfield FDI flows to the aid‐recipient countries. Particularly, this paper classifies the total dollar value of greenfield FDI flows to each recipient country in terms of four different layers: the extensive and intensive margins of projects as well as the extensive and intensive margins of source countries. Applying the system GMM estimator, this paper finds that AfT not only increases the dollar value of FDI flows to the recipient countries but also helps diversify the greenfield projects and source countries. In addition, this paper finds that AfT has a greater effect for greenfield FDI from donor (developed) countries than from non‐donor (developing) countries. Among the three components of AfT, aid for trade‐related infrastructure and aid for trade policy regulations are found to have positive links with greenfield FDI, irrespective of source‐country groups, yet their effects are larger for developed source countries. In contrast, aid for building productive capacity hinders greenfield FDI flows from non‐donor countries, while it promotes greenfield FDI from donor countries. We offer some explanations for this finding.     

Rent, risk, and replication: Preference adaptation in winner-take-all markets

We study the evolution of an economy where agents who are heterogeneous with respect to risk attitudes can either earn a certain income or enter a risky rent-seeking contest. We assume that agents behave rationally given their preferences, but that the population distribution of preferences evolves over time in response to material payoffs. We show that, in particular, initial distributions with full support converge to stationary states where all types are still present. Although rents are perfectly dissipated in material terms at a steady state, efficiency is greater than if everybody had been risk neutral, since risk lovers specialize in rent seeking.     

我国商品物流配送中心发展战略的探讨

论述了建设配送中心的重要意义，介绍了我国配送中心发展的现状及存在问题，对我国今后配送中心的建设与发展提出了建设性意见。     

科学发展观视野中的生态旅游资源开发研究——以大连为例

目前，生态旅游越来越受到各国的普遍关注，并正在迅速发展成为一种新兴的旅游形式。我国的生态旅游在近十年的发展也十分迅速，大连的生态旅游业也呈现出良好的发展态势。本论文从开发生态旅游资源的原则谈起，在全面列举大连生态旅游资源现状的基础上，从科学发展观发展的视角，提出大连开发生态旅游资源的策略选择，并对大连生态旅游产品的设计进行了探讨。     

Environmental uncertainty and environmental scanning activities of nigerian manufacturing executives: A comparative analysis

This study investigated the relationship between perception of environmental uncertainty (PEU) and environmental scanning behavior of Chief Executive Officers of 47 manufacturing firms in Nigeria. The results indicated that perceived uncertainty in the environment was significantly higher for the task environment sectors than for the remote environment sectors; and as perceived uncertainty increased in a sector of the environment, scanning frequency and scanning interests also increased. The results were compared with those of prior research in the area of environmental scanning. The results show both the economic and political legal sectors of the environment to be more salient for Nigerian manufacturing executives than for their American counterparts.     

Information–driven trading at the Prague Stock Exchange: Evidence from Intra–Day Data

Many observers argue that informed and insider trading is widespread in the emerging financial markets of transition countries, yet rigorous treatment of this issue has been virtually non–existent. The current paper estimates the extent of informed trading on the Prague Stock Exchange (PSE) using intra–day transaction data. Our estimates confirm that the average share of informed trading is equal to 0.32, which is high relative to developed markets and varies considerably among stocks. Using the Easley et al. (1996) approach on the very best segment of the PSE we obtained a high average probability of informed trading. Since data used in this study cover the period after the major attempts to improve market regulations, our results indicate that the PSE needs further strengthening to recover credibility and to become a real source of corporate financing. JEL classification: G14, G15.     

中国当代消费形态下的广告理论述评

中国用几十年走完了西方发达国家一个世纪的经济发展历程，各种理论在中国广告市场得到广泛实践。这些广告理论与消费形态是否契舍，决定了广告理论能否正确地指导实践、引导消费。中国当代消费形态是以消费者为中心，并呈现出许多中国特色，因此，必须进一步完善和发展广告理论以适应新消费形态。