Suchergebnisse

Understanding the composition of the bond return is always a popular topic in the financial markets. There are various factors that influence the bond returns. Therefore, a precise prediction of the bond returns is still under discussion. This paper is enlightened by the papers of Ilmanen (1995, 1997) and Ilmanen and Sayood(2002). They proposed six predictors in forecasting the US government bond excess returns. I analyze the rationale of using those predictors and attempt to calibrate the predictability of the German government bond returns. Firstly, a regression model is used for estimation. Then I use an additive model on the same financial market data set to further improve the model predictability.

Purpose In the era of climate change, industrial organizations are under increasing pressure from consumers and regulators to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The paper examines the effectiveness of product mix as a strategy to deliver the low carbon supply chain under the cap-and-trade policy. Design/methodology/approach We incorporate the cap-and-trade policy into the green product mix decision models by using game-theoretic approach and compare these decisions in a decentralized model and a centralized model respectively. The research explores potential behavioural changes under the cap-and-trade in the context of a two-echelon supply chain. Findings Our analysis results show that the channel structure has significant impact on both economic and environmental performances. An integrated supply chain generates more profits. In contrast, a decentralized supply chain has lower carbon emissions. The cap-and-trade policy makes a different impact on the economic and environmental performances of the supply chain. Balancing the trade-offs is critical to ensure the long term sustainability. Originality/value The research offers many interesting observations with respect to the effect of product mix strategy on operational decisions and the trade-offs between costs and carbon emissions under the cap-and-trade policy. The insights derived from our analysis do not only help firms to make important operational and strategic decisions to reduce carbon emissions while maintaining their economic competitiveness, but also make meaningful contribution to governments' policy making for carbon emissions control.

We are witnessing more frequent extreme weather events due to the global warming. There is an urgent need for governments, industries, general public, and academics to take coordinated actions in order to tackle the challenges imposed by the climate change. It is essential to incorporate the environmental objective in the transportation mode selection problem as transportation is a main contributor to carbon emissions. With this in mind, our paper studies the retailer's ordering and transportation mode selection problem using stochastic customer demand and investigates the optimal ordering and transportation mode selection decisions under different carbon emission reduction policies. Our analytical results reveal that there are some important transportation mode shifting thresholds under different carbon emissions reduction policies. These findings do not only help firms to make optimal decisions under different carbon emission reduction policies but also support policy makers to develop effective policies on carbon emissions reduction.

Human reasoning is often biased by heuristic thinking, but the nature of heuristic bias is yet to be exactly explained. As the focus of most relevant experiments on heuristic bias in reasoning has been exclusively on adults, we conducted a study with children aged between 7 and 16 years
(N = 129). Our aim was to identify which element in the reasoning process fails and thus underlies the heuristic bias in children's reasoning in the personal domain. We explored the probability of judging violation among this group of children in reasoning tasks involving personal domain
rules and by measuring their lexical decision times. The results showed that the heuristic bias in children's reasoning in the personal domain was caused by monitoring failure among those who were of junior school age and by inhibition failure among those who were of middle school age. As
most of the children of senior school age were able to complete the inhibition process, they had less heuristic bias.

The Chinese central government proclaimed a mandatory or demonstration waste separation policy in some cities or counties to manage the increasing amounts of generated waste since 2017. Many cities and regions have also begun to build waste separation management systems and institutions, and community managers have created waste management rules and provided separation management services under the guidance of local government. However, little is known about how these policies or services have performed and the degree of residents' satisfaction, especially regarding the central government. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to analyze the consequence of these policies using residents' community and national satisfaction levels with solid waste management services (SWMS) and their determinants. An online survey in 2021 showed that the overall satisfaction levels of communities and national SWMS are similar, but the differences between rural and urban regions are significant. Residents' satisfaction with community SWMS in urban regions was higher than national satisfaction, and the results in rural regions was contrary. The determinants of community and national satisfaction were also different and varied by region. To improve satisfaction, the government need to standardize basic management systems in different types of regions, gradually improve management services and institutions in rural areas and non-pilot cities and provide special services or facilities for less healthy residents.

AbstractThis study investigates an original equipment manufacturer's (OEM's) outsourcing choice between a competing manufacturer (CP) and a non‐competing manufacturer (NP). We develop a benchmark self‐produce strategy and two outsourcing strategies to differentiate two manufacturing service providers, and examine the optimal strategy alongside an analysis of the respective incentives (e.g., a lump‐sum payment) from the two service providers. The optimal strategy depends on the difference in production efficiency, degree of product substitution, and joint effect of the transfer payments. The transfer payments contribute to a greater range of Pareto improvements, increasing the possibility of outsourcing cooperation while highlighting the role of competition intensity on the model and outsourcing cooperation partner. Effect analysis shows that in the absence of transfer payment, the optimal strategy is beneficial to social welfare. With transfer payment, the optimal strategy is changed and the firms will be more profitable, but at the expense of customers' surplus, which may result in worse social welfare. An extended analysis of mixed strategies, in which the OEM produces part of the products and outsources the rest to CP/NP, shows that while the mixed‐CP strategy can be an optimal choice, the mixed‐NP strategy will degenerate to either self‐produce or complete outsourcing to NP under certain conditions.