信報龍虎山下專欄

In light of the critical role of price information in consumers’ decision making, this study investigates the effect of price rank on consumers’ responses to product list advertising (PLA) throughout the purchase funnel, as well as the moderating effects of two keyword attributes. A hierarchical Bayesian model, using a unique data set from a leading electronic shopping platform and a simulated experiment, reveals that in the early phases of the purchase funnel, consumers are more likely to click on extremely priced options (i.e., the highest or lowest), which consumers use as anchors to evaluate the broad range of options. Later in the purchase funnel, when clicks tend to convert to purchases, consumers instead are more likely to click on moderately priced options, which usually offer a compromise between price and quality. The effects of price rank diminish among advertisements that sponsor more specific keywords and increase among those that sponsor more popular keywords. These findings provide new insights into the role of price information in the PLA context, as well as managerial implications for devising effective PLA strategies.

One important benefit of teamwork is the exchange and integration of diverse knowledge, experience, and opinions group members bring to the table. However, demographic attributes, such as race, gender, and functional background, may create asymmetric influence patterns between group members in diverse groups, because these demographic characteristics are often associated with status differences. In the current research, we examine how to attenuate this disparity in member influence in diverse groups by focusing on the role of a leader’s gazing behavior. Across two studies, we found that asymmetric influence patterns in which high-status members tend to wield greater influence in group decision-making processes were attenuated when a leader increased visual attention toward low-status members in the group. This reduced disparity in member influence in turn improved group information elaboration and group performance in a collective decision-making task. Theoretical and practical implications for leaders’ visual attention, diversity, group decision-making processes, and group performance are discussed.

Using comprehensive administrative data from the UK, we examine trading by different investor types in government bond markets. Our sample covers virtually all secondary market trading in gilts and contains detailed information on each transaction, including the identities of both counterparties. We find that hedge funds’ daily trading positively forecasts gilt returns in the following one to five days, which is then fully reversed in the following month. A part of this short-term return predictability is due to hedge funds’ ability to predict other investors’ future demand. Mutual fund trading also positively predicts gilt returns, but over a longer horizon of one to two months. This return pattern does not revert in the following year and is partly due to mutual funds’ ability to forecast changes in short-term interest rates.

This study assesses a new mechanism, the deposit channel, in the transmission of interest rate shock to household consumption using an administrative panel data set of financial transactions for Turkey. Our empirical strategy exploits variation in consumers' adherence to the Islamic laws that forbid earning interest and employs a standard difference-in-difference design. Following an unanticipated announcement of interest rate hike, rate-sensitive consumers significantly reduce their overall spending, and the response persists throughout the post-announcement period. The response of debt payment, disparate exposure to inflation, exchange rate, and the demographic difference can hardly fully account for the documented consumption response heterogeneity.

From 1580, the Jesuits introduced European sciences to China--an autarkic civilization whose intelligentsia was dominated by Confucian literati. Drawing upon prefectural distributions of the Jesuits and Chinese scientific works, this paper demonstrates that the Jesuits stimulated Confucian literati to study science. On average, the literati’s scientific works increased four times in prefectures with Jesuit scientists after 1580. But this effect shrank after the Jesuits were expelled by the emperor of China in 1723. Since China’s scholar-official system remained unchanged, the literati’s scientific research aimed to serve the needs of statecraft rather than translating into economic progress.

After peaking around the mid-eighteenth century, grain market integration in China declined by a colossal 80 percent amid a twofold increase in population and remained at low levels for well over a century. Markets only resumed their growth momentum after the largest peasant revolt—the Taiping Rebellion—wiped out roughly one-sixth of the Chinese population starting 1851. This U-shaped pattern of grain market integration distinguished China from Europe in their trajectories of market development. Using grain prices to divide China into grain-deficit and grain-surplus regions, we find that the negative relationship between population growth and market integration originated from the grain-surplus-cum-exporting regions.

環境保護一直普遍被視為國家的責任，但在金融業界，其實早已出現如綠色投資等以市場為基礎的解決方案。目前鮮有研究去分析綠色投資會否影響企業環境績效，以及國家政策如何調節這個影響。 我們以制度邏輯的角度，透過探索促使邏輯和實踐相容的因素，來拓展制度複雜性的研究。我們的理論是, 作為一種以金融為手段和以環境保護為目標的新型混合實踐模式，綠色投資的成功取決於這種混合能否被合理化。綠色投資的合理性，很可能會被其他混合實踐模式所影響。 是次研究分析了來自20個國家，共3,706間企業在2002年至2013年間的面板數據。研究發現每個國家的綠色投資規模會促進企業層面的環境績效。然而，若這個國家有強而有力的環保政策，會削弱綠色投資與企業環境績效之間的正向關係。這個國家若有強大的股東保護政策，則會加強這種關係。我們致力研究制度的複雜性、邏輯相容和公私營合作，以達至最佳社會利益。

我們通過跨國企業，研究性別文化在全球傳播的現象。研究利用中國製造企業於2004年至2007年的數據，發現較認同性別平等國家的外國企業分支機構，相對傾向僱用較多女性，並任命更多女性管理人員。這些企業也產生了文化溢出效應。研究發現國內企業的女性勞動力份額，會隨著其他在同一行業或城市中的外國企業分支機構普及而有所增加。透過一個解釋企業異質性在生產力、性別偏見和學習方面的多部門模式，我們進行了反事實的分析。假設公司能夠消除性別偏見，中國的總全要素生產率可提高5%，當中19%是來自外國企業分支機構產生的溢出效應。

有見近年的健康科學研究發現空氣污染影響心理健康和認知，我們亦嘗試加以探討空氣污染會否加劇金融市場中的認知偏差。此研究是根據一間中國大型證券投資基金的專有數據，當中包括於247 個城市、超過 773,198 個賬戶的完整交易資訊。我們發現空氣污染顯著增加了投資者賣盈持虧的處置效應。同時我們探究了兩項影響空氣質素的外生變化，即強風導致空氣污染大幅度消散及淮河政策，證明以上發現存在因果解釋。研究亦指出調適心情可成為一項潛在的應對機制。