Search results

This study compared persuasive strategies of the governments of the U.S. and China during a public health crisis using social media messages. Collecting data with R and Python from two national public health sectors' official accounts on Twitter (N = 1,630) and Sina Weibo (N = 3,554), the researcher investigated how the organizations' messages reflected Cialdini's seven principles of persuasion and whether other emergent messaging patterns occurred. According to the different phases that the two countries had gone through during the pandemic, the researcher also conducted a pooled times series analysis to investigate the relationship between the frequency of daily posts and the number of daily COVID-19 positive new cases in the two countries. The study found that the principle of authority was the most often used rule by the two countries, and a combination of directive and non-directive messages was detected. The research discussed the effectiveness of Cialdini's principles in an online context and provided recommendations regarding timely responses towards the development of the disease on social media, which may also help build up the organizations' credibility in public health crises.

This dissertation consists of two essays that are organized as chapters. In the first chapter, I examine the effect of presidential elections on the timing of turning points of stock market cycles in the United States. The empirical results from duration analysis show that compared to at other times, a market trough, the end of a bear market, is more likely in the period before an election when the incumbent is a Republican; meanwhile a market peak, the end of a bull market, occurs sooner following a Republican election victory. There is also evidence suggesting that bear markets are less likely to end after an election of a Republican president than in other periods. Results from further examination reveal that political control, the political alignment between the president and Congress, has a vital role in the timing of the turning points relative to the elections. In particular, political control found to reduce the probability of a market trough in the pre-election period and this reduction in the hazards for a bear market prior to an election is more significant for a Democratic president. Alternatively, political control boots the prospect of the completion of a bull market in the post-election period, especially when a Democrat was elected. Finally, political control in Congress can substantially shorten the duration of a bear market in the post-election period when the Republicans control both the White House and Capitol Hill. In the second chapter, I develop a dynamic factor model to examine the relations among presidential elections, investor sentiment, and stock market returns simultaneously. Results in the study uncover that there is a sizeable improvement of investor sentiment prior to an election, and this pre-election upsurge in sentiment can explain a substantial portion of the presidential election cycle effect in the stock returns. However, data in the study fail to provide significant evidence that Democratic presidents can install more optimism in the stock market. My result does confirm ...

This article discusses various aspects of the current status of the humanities in Taiwan. First, the "indicator frenzy" that has prevailed in East Asia over the past twenty years has caused a major problem in humanities in Taiwan's academia. Second, in the past twenty years, the alienation of humanities scholars has arisen in Taiwan's academia. Third, Taiwan's lay culture is encountering challenges in the globalization trend.

AbstractLocal emergency cooperation agreements (LECA) led by local governments have increasingly become an important measure to address public crisis. In China, local governments have also launched such LECA to deal with occupational accidents and diseases. In this study, a quasi‐experimental design was used to evaluate the effects and spatial spillover of LECA on work safety performance improvements. Several econometric models were applied based on provincial panel data (2001–2019). The results show that: (1) LECA reduce both the number and mortality rate of workplace accidents in signatory provinces. (2) LECA can also induce a scale effect, which means that signatories can induce positive spillover effects on work safety performance in neighboring signatory provinces. (3) The analysis also identified negative spillover effects for neighboring non‐signatory provinces, indicating that LECA may lead to spatial spillover of industrial risks. (4) Further analysis indicated that the comprehensive effect of LECA is positive but not significant. (5) The spatial spillover of industrial risks due to LECA mainly occurs in the midwestern region, and positive spillover effect exists between the eastern and western regions due to the economic correlation factors. In addition, general recommendations for regional crisis cooperation among subnational governments are provided.