The Effectiveness of Brand- and Customer-Centric Content Strategies at Generating Shares, ‘Likes’, and Comments

Brands are constantly competing for user attention on Facebook and are trying to encourage fans to share, click ‘like’, and comment their posts. Yet, it remains unclear what content strategies are successful at encouraging those behaviors. Noting that the effectiveness of brand content strategies still remains an uncharted research area, this study adopts a discovery-oriented approach and employs workshops, quantitative content analysis, and episodic interviews, to link desired user responses (namely clicks share, ‘like’, and comment) to brand content strategies. This study reveals that customer-centric content strategies are the most effective at encouraging user responses. Managers can use provided recommendations to engage their customers by adopting content strategies that result in desired behavioral reactions.     

Dynamic and asymmetric impacts of macroeconomic fundamentals on an integrated stock market

A large body of evidence indicates that macroeconomic and financial variables are dynamically interrelated. In an international setup, we analyze the transmission mechanisms of macroeconomic shocks on the stock market of a small open economy in an increasingly integrated world. We use a time-varying vector error correction model (VECM) that allows analysis of asymmetric impacts that depend on the state of the business cycle. A special focus is directed on monetary policy surprises, where we find that foreign shocks exert a strong influence on an integrated stock market, and that the stage of the business cycle heavily affects the signals of the shocks.     

The Effect of Protest Votes on the Estimates of WTP for Use Values of Recreational Sites

Contingent valuation studies are often characterized by a considerable number of protest responses, which may cause selectivity bias on the final estimates for WTP. Sample selection models can detect and – if necessary – correct selectivity bias. In economic applications where the relevant dependent variable is continuous, sample selection models are generally estimated using Heckman's 2-step method rather than the FIML estimator. Either method has its own drawback: computational complexity for the FIML method, susceptibility to collinearity problems for the 2-step method. Using data on valuation of forest resources for recreational use, we analyse the performance of the two estimators. In this application, given the presence of some collinearity, the FIML is preferred to the 2-step method. A procedure is outlined to deal with selectivity problems in similar settings.     

Impact of Shari’ah on Consumers’ Behavior Toward Sales Promotion Tools: Focus on Egyptian Convenience Products

This study measures to what extent compliance with Shari’ah moderates the relationship between different sales promotion tools—namely, price discount, product demonstration and sampling, buy one get one free (bonus pack), sweepstakes/lucky draws, scratch and win offers, and free samples—and three consumer behavioral responses (product trial, stockpiling, and spending more) for buying convenience products from supermarkets in Egypt. A total of 381 selected Muslim consumers/shoppers were surveyed via face-to-face interviews using a structured questionnaire. Overall correlation analysis between the six proposed sales promotion tools and consumers’ response behavior in general demonstrated a significant relationship. However, some specific tools did not indicate a significant relationship with specific response behaviors. Furthermore, correlation analysis initially indicated that there is a positive significant relationship between all sales promotion tools and compliance with Shari’ah, with the exception of sweepstakes and scratch and win offers, which demonstrated a significant negative relationship. Furthermore, after running linear stepwise regression, the model was fit (62%), indicating the moderating role of compliance with Shari’ah in the relationship between specific sales promotion tools—namely, sweepstakes/games and scratch and win offers—and Muslim consumers’ behavioral responses. Generally speaking, marketers should consider Shari’ah and ethical principles in Islam before creatively crafting promotional tools to attract Muslim consumers, and new tools could be developed with an Islamic orientation to attract Muslim consumers.     

云南旅游电子商务现状及发展对策分析

旅游电子商务在云南省得到了快速的发展。本文对云南旅游电子商务发展的现状进行了初步的探讨,摸清了云南发展旅游电子商务的基础条件和存在的主要问题,并结合实际,提出云南加快旅游电子商务的对策建议。     

Distress rentals and the land rental market as a safety net: contract choice evidence from Tigray,Ethiopia

Rural households in the semiarid Northern Ethiopian highlands are net buyers of food. Crop failure due to erratic and unpredictable rainfall occurs frequently and leads to food shortages and income shocks. The renting out of land may be one of the coping responses of households exposed to shocks. We developed a theoretical household model for poor landlord households capturing their contract choice response to downside production shocks. We tested econometrically whether contract choice may depend on poverty, capital constraints, production risk and random shocks. The multinomial logit model estimates show that poor households experiencing random shocks are more likely to choose fixed‐rent contracts as a distress response to shocks, suggesting that fixed‐rent contracts may be used to meet immediate needs, but at the expense of future incomes. We also found that fixed‐rent contracts are preferred when ex ante production risk is low, while sharecropping is more likely where production risk is high. Finally, we found an indication that the choice of a fixed‐rent contract as a coping response to shocks comes as a last resort after all other means of coping are exhausted.     

国内外黄金市场的关联研究

本文利用Johansen协整检验、误差修正模型、Granger因果检验以及冲击反应分析对国内、国际市场黄金现货价格的动态联系进行了实证研究,研究结果显示:上海黄金交易所与伦敦黄金市场的黄金价格之间存在长期均衡关系,两个市场上的黄金价格相互影响、相互作用,且伦敦市场对上海市场的影响力大于上海市场对伦敦市场的影响力。     

旅游业的环境影响研究

随着大众旅游时代的到来,旅游业的环境影响日渐强烈,并成为公众关注与研究的重要问题。文章从旅游业的自然环境影响、社会环境影响以及旅游地居民的心理响应三个方面综合论述了近年旅游业环境影响研究的新成果。旅游业环境影响量化评价指标体系、旅游业影响下旅游地的未来环境变迁以及自然环境、社会环境和旅游地居民的心理响应之间的交互作用机理将是未来旅游业的环境影响研究的关键内容。     

中国黄金市场期货与现货价格关系实证研究

根据向量自回归模型的脉冲响应函数和方差分解方法,借助协整关系和格兰杰因果关系,构建双变量EC-EGARCH模型,对我国黄金期货市场与现货市场的价格关系实证.结果显示,黄金期货与现货之间不存在相互影响关系;协整残差是好的解释变量;杠杆效应和溢出效应不明显;期货市场价格发现功能有待进一步完善.