Static replications with traffic light options

It is well known that sufficiently regular, one-dimensional payoff functions have an explicit static hedge by bonds, forward contracts, and options in a continuum of strikes. An easy and natural extension of the corresponding representation leads to static hedges based on the same instruments along with traffic light options, which have recently been introduced in the market. It is well known that the second strike derivative of non-discounted prices of vanilla options is related to the risk-neutral density of the underlying asset price in the corresponding absolutely continuous settings. Similar statements hold for traffic light options in sufficiently regular, bivariate settings.

Validierung einer deutschsprachigen Version des Career Futures Inventory (CFI): Berufliche Anpassungsfähigkeit, beruflicher Optimismus, Arbeitsmarktwissen und Berufserfolg

Das Career Futures Inventory (CFI; Rottingaus, Day & Borgen, 2005) erfasst die drei laufbahnbezogenen Zukunftsfaktoren career adaptability (Berufliche Anpassungsfähigkeit), career optimism (Beruflicher Optimismus) und knowledge of job market (Arbeitsmarktwissen). Die Ziele dieser Studie waren (a) eine deutschsprachige Version des CFIs zu konstruieren und (b) an zwei Stichproben mit Erwerbstätigen mittels (c) unterschiedlicher Indikatoren des Berufserfolgs und anhand von Persönlichkeitseigenschaften zu validieren. Es konnte in beiden Stichproben (N1 = 153; N2 = 110) die 3-faktorielle Struktur des CFIs nachgewiesen werden. Zudem konnten Annahmen zur konvergenten und diskriminanten Validität in beiden Stichproben bestätigt werden, da die CFI-Faktoren in erwarteter Richtung mit Berufserfolg (z. B. Beförderungen, Karrierezufriedenheit) bzw. Persönlichkeitseigenschaften (d. h. Big Five) korrelierten bzw. nicht korrelierten. Eine Analyse der inkrementellen Validität zeigte, dass Arbeitsmarktwissen zusätzliche Varianz beim Gehalt über Kontrollvariablen und Persönlichkeit hinaus erklärte. Hinsichtlich Karrierezufriedenheit war dies für beruflichen Optimismus der Fall. Diese Validierungsstudie ermöglicht den Einsatz des CFIs im deutschsprachigen Raum.

Dangers of ‘Facebook Login’ for Mobile Apps: Is There a Price Tag for Social Information?

Social networks offer horizontal integration for any mobile platform providing app users with a convenient single sign-on point. Nonetheless, there are growing privacy concerns regarding its use. These vulnerabilities trigger alarm among app developers who fight for their user base: While they are happy to act on users’ information collected via social networks, they are not always willing to sacrifice their adoption rate for this goal. So far, understanding of this trade-off has remained ambiguous. To fill this gap, we employ a discrete choice experiment to explore the role of Facebook Login and investigate the impact of accompanying requests for different information items / actions in the mobile app adoption process. We quantify users’ concerns regarding these items in monetary terms. Beyond hands-on insights for providers, our study contributes to the theoretical discourse on the value of privacy in the growing world of Social Media and mobile web.

Contrasting futures for ocean and society from different anthropogenic CO2 emissions scenarios

The ocean moderates anthropogenic climate change at the cost of profound alterations of its physics, chemistry, ecology, and services. Here, we evaluate and compare the risks of impacts on marine and coastal ecosystems—and the goods and services they provide—for growing cumulative carbon emissions under two contrasting emissions scenarios. The current emissions trajectory would rapidly and significantly alter many ecosystems and the associated services on which humans heavily depend. A reduced emissions scenario—consistent with the Copenhagen Accord’s goal of a global temperature increase of less than 2°C—is much more favorable to the ocean but still substantially alters important marine ecosystems and associated goods and services. The management options to address ocean impacts narrow as the ocean warms and acidifies. Consequently, any new climate regime that fails to minimize ocean impacts would be incomplete and inadequate.

Forecasting Intraday Stock Price Trends with Text Mining Techniques

In this paper, we describe NewsCATS (news categorization and trading system), a system implemented to predict stock price trends for the time immediately after the publication of press releases. NewsCATS consists mainly of three components. The first component retrieves relevant information from press releases through the application of text preprocessing techniques. The second component sorts the press releases into predefined categories. Finally, appropriate trading strategies are derived by the third component by means of the earlier categorization. The findings indicate that a categorization of press releases is able to provide additional information that can be used to forecast stock price trends, but that an adequate trading strategy is essential for the results of the categorization to be fully exploited.

Do Information, Price, or Morals Influence Ethical Consumption? A Natural Field Experiment and Customer Survey on the Purchase of Fair Trade Coffee

We address ethical consumption using a natural field experiment on the actual purchase of Fair Trade (FT) coffee in three supermarkets in Germany. Based on a quasi-experimental before-and-after design the effects of three different treatments – information, 20% price reduction, and a moral appeal – are analyzed. Sales data cover actual ethical purchase behavior and avoid problems of social desirability. But they offer only limited insights into the motivations of individual consumers. We therefore complemented the field experiment with a customer survey that allows us to contrast observed (ethical) buying behavior with self-reported FT consumption. Results from the experiment suggest that only the price reduction had the expected positive and statistically significant effect on FT consumption.