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With the marked increase in the awareness of earthquake risks following the Canterbury earthquakes, the purpose of this paper is to assess if the reassessment of risk has influenced rents for office accommodation in commercial buildings. Two contrasting office markets are examined: New Zealand’s largest market within a high-risk earthquake zone – Wellington, and the country’s largest market within a low-risk zone – Auckland.

A sample of 252 leasing transactions were collected from a proprietary database of Colliers International, one of the largest commercial brokerage firms in New Zealand. Hedonic pricing models were developed to isolate the effects of building seismic strength on office rents.

Wellington office market rents tend to increase with higher earthquake strength (New Building Standard) ratings, all other factors held equal. In contrast, rents in Auckland, a low-risk earthquake area, do not exhibit such price effects.

The study provides estimates of the economic value associated with seismic retrofits which are vital for building owners’ decision making who must weigh retrofit costs against the economic benefits of doing so.

This study provides the first empirical analysis of office rents in New Zealand and the first quantitative analysis, internationally, of the impact of earthquake risk on commercial rents.

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of interaction-based features of social media reviewing channels and vloggers’ self-disclosure in consumers’ parasocial interaction with vloggers.

The study was conducted using an online survey, and data was collected using Amazon MTurk. The respondents were asked to think of an online reviewing channel that they watch regularly and subsequently responded to a series of questions. The analysis was conducted using structural equation modeling via AMOS.

Both channel interactivity and vloggers’ self-disclosure displayed a positive impact on consumers’ parasocial interaction with vloggers, which eventually led to perceived trustworthiness, brand identification, communal–brand connection with the channel, purchase intention toward the recommended products and willingness to pay a premium price for extra services.

Future research can examine the robustness of the findings by using a sample of internet users who are similar in terms of frequency, enthusiasm and duration of active usage.

Marketing managers can benefit from the findings of this study by understanding the dynamics of how influencers shape consumer perception and behavior. Owners of reviewing channels can gain insight on how to strengthen their bond with their viewers.