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AbstractWe formulate an international oligopoly model in the presence of global common ownership. We theoretically investigate how common ownership affects the volume of international trade in an oligopoly market and global welfare. We find that welfare decreases (increases) with the degree of common ownership when the international transport costs are low (high), whereas common ownership reduces international trade. This conclusion remains valid in the presence of import tariffs and asymmetric common ownership share.

AbstractSince the mid‐1980s, there has been a boom in world heritage site (WHS) inscriptions in China. Nevertheless, incumbent studies have not sufficiently explained why cities are enthusiastic about and capable of joining the boom. They tend to attribute such enthusiasm to the WHS values in heritage protection and tourism development. However, why stakeholders have motivations and opportunities to create the boom and what institutional environments support the craze are still yet to be answered. This paper investigates the boom through the concept of embeddedness to display how multi‐scalar institutional contexts in China stimulate and sustain WHS nomination. This study argues that the enthusiasm for WHS inscription is embedded in the political‐economic interests of stakeholders on different scales. At international and national levels, WHS nomination is regarded as a political tool to address diplomatic agendas, shape national honor, and balance regional development. On a local scale, WHS inscriptions can serve as a solid pretext for local states in China to fulfill their strong developmental imperatives and break financial constraints. These imperatives are embedded in China's transitional institutional environment, associated with power decentralization, central‐local fiscal rearrangements, and the top‐down system of cadre evaluation. In this context, local states are ambitious of initiating large‐scale development projects to boost local development. WHS nomination has become a pretext for local states to fulfill extraordinary development in tourism and other industries, such as the real estate industry. This study discloses the hidden political economy behind the WHS inscription boom using the cases of Wulingyuan and the South China Karst.

PurposeAs mobile apps request permissions from users, protecting mobile users' personal information from being unnecessarily collected and misused becomes critical. Privacy regulations, such as General Data Protection Regulation in the European Union (EU), aim to protect users' online information privacy. However, one's understanding of whether these regulations effectively make mobile users less concerned about their privacy is still limited. This work aims to study mobile users' privacy concerns towards mobile apps by examining the effects of general and specific privacy assurance statements in China and the EU.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on ecological rationality and heuristics theory, an online experiment and a follow-up validation experiment were conducted in the EU and China to examine the effects of privacy assurance statements on mobile users' privacy concerns.FindingsWhen privacy regulation is presented, the privacy concerns of Chinese mobile users are significantly lowered compared with EU mobile users. This indicates that individuals in the two regions react differently to privacy assurances. However, when a general regulation statement is used, no effect is observed. EU and Chinese respondents remain unaffected by general assurance statements.Originality/valueThis study incorporates notions from fast and frugal heuristics end ecological rationality – where seemingly irrational decisions may make sense in different societal contexts.

Purpose
As mobile augmented reality (AR) games enter the maturity stage, understanding how to improve players' continuance use intention with mobile AR games is critical. Drawing upon the uses and gratifications (U&G) theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of four major gratifications – content, process, social and technology – and other factors on continuance intention to play mobile AR games.


Design/methodology/approach
Data collected from 280 Pokémon Go players were used to address research questions. Partial least squares method was employed to assess the relationships in the model and multigroup analysis was conducted based on survey participants' demographics and their gaming experience.


Findings
Content gratification (i.e. catching Pokémon), process gratification (i.e. entertainment), game knowledge and achievement drive players' continuance use intention. However, social and technology gratifications do not influence players' continuance use intention. Multigroup analysis suggests that mobile AR game developers should capitalize on the fact that different types of gratifications prompt continuance use intention of different user segments in terms of demographics and experience in general mobile games and Pokémon Go.


Originality/value
The user behavior of mobile AR games has been studied at the early stage of the games, with less attention to variable continuance use intentions across different user segments. This paper attempts to fill the gap by extending the U&G theory to continuance use intention of mobile AR games at the maturity stage and further investigating the importance of player heterogeneity in continuance use intention with mobile AR games. The findings of this study contribute to the literature on U&G, continuance use intention and mobile AR games.

AbstractThe ancient Chinese people believed that they existed at the center of the world. With the arrival of Buddhism in China came a new cosmic worldview rooted in Indian culture that destabilized the Han [huaxia 華夏] people's long-held notions of China as the Middle Kingdom [Zhongguo 中國] and had a profound influence on medieval Daoism. Under the influence of Buddhist cosmology, Daoists reformed their idea of Middle Kingdom, for a time relinquishing its signification of China as the center of the world. Daoists had to acknowledge the existence of multiple kingdoms outside China and non-Han peoples [manyi 蠻夷] who resided on the outskirts of the so-called Middle Kingdom as potential followers of Daoism. However, during the Tang dynasty, this capacious attitude ceased to be maintained or passed on. Instead, Tang Daoists returned to a notion of Middle Kingdom that reinstated the traditional divide between Han and non-Han peoples.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to extend the current literature on trust-building mechanisms in e-commerce and provide a comprehensive view of how the perceived usefulness of three types of online trust-building mechanisms affects trust in the e-seller and trust in the e-marketplace, which, in turn, shape the customer repurchase intentions.


Design/methodology/approach
Survey data were collected from 193 eBay customers to test the proposed research model.


Findings
The study found that the perceived usefulness of seller-based mechanism affects both trust in the e-marketplace and trust in the e-seller. Meanwhile, the perceived usefulness of experience-based mechanism only influences trust in the e-seller and the perceived usefulness of institution-based mechanism (IBM) only affects trust in the e-marketplace. Furthermore, this study found that trust in the e-marketplace can substitute for the effect of trust in the e-seller on customer repurchase intentions.


Practical implications
In an e-marketplace like eBay that does not involve much in the transaction process, e-sellers should invest more resources in building attractive and informative websites about their products and organizations. Moreover, e-marketplace owners should provide guidelines and enforce policies to improve the perceived usefulness of an IBM to increase an e-marketplace's credibility. While such e-marketplace credibility does not affect customer repurchase intentions directly, it reduces customer concerns about individual e-sellers, which makes it easier for e-sellers to retain customers.


Originality/value
This study delineates how the perceived usefulness of three types of online trust-building mechanisms imposes different effects on trust in the e-marketplace and trust in the e-seller. Moreover, this study reveals the intertwined relationship between trust in the e-marketplace and trust in the e-seller that is different from extant studies conducted in marketplaces like Amazon.