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The aim of this study was to determine if there are asymmetries in the pass-through of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil prices to its derivatives (diesel and gasoline) in the Brazilian market.

Initially, the future WTI oil price series was analyzed using the self-exciting threshold autoregressive (SETAR) and logistic smooth transition autoregressive (LSTAR) non-linear models. Subsequently, the threshold autoregressive error-correction model (TAR-ECM) and Markov-switching model were used.

The findings indicated high prices throughout 2008 due to the subprime crisis. The findings indicated high prices throughout 2008 due to the subprime crisis. The results indicated that there is long-term pass-through of oil prices in both methods, suggesting an equilibrium adjustment in the prices of diesel and gasoline in the analyzed period. Regarding the short term, the variations in contemporary crude oil prices have positive effects on the variations in fuel prices. Lastly, this behavior can partly be explained by the internal price management structure adopted during almost all of the analyzed period.

This paper contributes to the literature at some points. The first contribution is the modeling of the oil price series through non-linear models, further enriching the literature on the recent behavior of this time series. The second is the simultaneous use of the TAR-ECM and Markov-switching model to capture possible short- and long-term asymmetries in the pass-through of prices, as few studies have applied these methods to the future price of oil. The third and main contribution is the investigation of whether there are asymmetries in the transfer of oil prices to the price of derivatives in Brazil. So far, no work has investigated this issue, which is very relevant to the country.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate for symmetries – in sign and size – between spot and futures prices in the markets of energy commodities.

The aforementioned objective is pursued using daily observations of spot and futures prices for the commodities of crude oil, Brent, heating oil, gasoline and natural gas, along with local nonlinear regression.

Symmetry in sign and size cannot be rejected. This means that, shocks of the same absolute magnitude, but of different sign, are transmitted from futures prices to spot prices with the same intensity. In addition, larger absolute value price shocks in the futures are transmitted to the spot markets with the same intensity compared with smaller ones. The findings of symmetry in the comovements among prices reveal a lack of those commodities on diversifying the investors’ investment risk.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to use local nonlinear regression to test for sign and size symmetry between futures and spot prices in the energy commodities markets.

In this paper, we aim to provide an extensive analysis to understand how various factors influence electricity prices in competitive markets, focusing on the day-ahead electricity market in Romania.

Our study period began in January 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, and continued for several months after the onset of the war in Ukraine. During this time, we also consider other challenges like reduced market competitiveness, droughts and water scarcity. Our initial dataset comprises diverse variables: prices of essential energy sources (like gas and oil), Danube River water levels (indicating hydrological conditions), economic indicators (such as inflation and interest rates), total energy consumption and production in Romania and a breakdown of energy generation by source (coal, gas, hydro, oil, nuclear and renewable energy sources) from various data sources. Additionally, we included carbon certificate prices and data on electricity import, export and other related variables. This dataset was collected via application programming interface (API) and web scraping, and then synchronized by date and hour.

We discover that the competitiveness significantly affected electricity prices in Romania. Furthermore, our study of electricity price trends and their determinants revealed indicators of economic health in 2019 and 2020. However, from 2021 onwards, signs of a potential economic crisis began to emerge, characterized by changes in the normal relationships between prices and quantities, among other factors. Thus, our analysis suggests that electricity prices could serve as a predictive index for economic crises. Overall, the Granger causality findings from 2019 to 2022 offer valuable insights into the factors driving energy market dynamics in Romania, highlighting the importance of economic policies, fuel costs and environmental regulations in shaping these dynamics.

We combine principal component analysis (PCA) to reduce the dataset’s dimensionality. Following this, we use continuous wavelet transform (CWT) to explore frequency-domain relationships between electricity price and quantity in the day-ahead market (DAM) and the components derived from PCA. Our research also delves into the competitiveness level in the DAM from January 2019 to August 2022, analyzing the Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI).

This study explores the direct relationship between social media user-generated content (UGC), online search traffic and offline light vehicle sales of different models.

The long-run equilibrium relationship and short-run dynamic effects between the valence and volume of UGC, online search traffic and offline car sales are analyzed by applying the autoregressive distribution lag (ARDL) model.

The study found the following. (1) In the long-run relationship, the valence of online reviews on social media platforms is significantly negatively correlated with the sales of all models. However, in the short-run, the valence of online reviews has a significant positive correlation with all models in different lag periods. (2) The volume of online reviews is significantly positively correlated with the sales of all models in the long run. However, in the short run, the relationship between the volume of online reviews and the sales of lower-sales-volume cars is uncertain. There is a significant positive correlation between the volume of reviews and the sales of higher-sales-volume cars. (3) Online search traffic has a significantly negative correlation with the sales of all models in the long run. However, in the short run, there is no consistent conclusion on the relationship between online search traffic and car sales.

This study provides a reference for managers to use in their efforts to improve offline high-involvement product sales using online information.

Few cases allow the student to understand the relationship between brand strategy, marketing strategy, implementation, and analysis. While some conceive of the process as being sequential, this case demonstrates that in fact, this process is more fluid, and that implementation and analysis impact subsequent strategy.

This field-based case provides a rare glimpse into the turnaround of a brand that was all but dead. After Buick suffered more than five decades of declining business results and an inferior brand image versus all rivals, few thought that the brand could be resuscitated. This case provides a valuable under-the-hood look at how the Buick team, over time, progresses through a series of marketing improvements all anchored on an evolved strategy. Specifically, Buick introduced a shift in brand strategy behind an evolved brand essence statement (i.e., brand positioning), improved product lineup, new-to-the-world innovation, enhanced dealership service, and more compelling advertising. The results led to a record number of product awards, significantly improved advertising measures, improved service ratings, and better business results.

Despite significant improvement across multiple dimensions of the business, Buick still trailed key competitors on one of the most important measures Buick tracked—the brand momentum rating—suggesting that there was still more work needed to complete the brand turnaround. The case introduces Molly Peck, the new marketing director on Buick, who is wondering what more, if anything, Buick should do. The material allows for instruction around marketing strategy and the process of converting it into implementation through the use of a creative brief.

This study aims to present the cost and revenue efficiency evaluation models in data envelopment analysis in the presence of fuzzy inputs, outputs and their prices that the prices are also fuzzy. This study applies the proposed approach in the energy sector of the oil industry.

This study proposes a value-based technology according to fuzzy input-cost and revenue-output data, and based on this technology, the authors propose an approach to calculate fuzzy cost and revenue efficiency based on a directional distance function approach. These papers incorporated a decision-maker’s (DM) a priori knowledge into the fuzzy cost (revenue) efficiency analysis.

This study shows that the proposed approach obtains the components of fuzzy numbers corresponding to fuzzy cost efficiency scores in the interval [0, 1] corresponding to each of the decision-making units (DMUs). The models presented in this paper satisfies the most important properties: translation invariance, translation invariance, handle with negative data. The proposed approach obtains the fuzzy efficient targets corresponding to each DMU.

In the proposed approach, by selecting the appropriate direction vector in the model, we can incorporate preference information of the DM in the process of evaluating fuzzy cost or revenue efficiency and this shows the efficiency of the method and the advantages of the proposed model in a fully fuzzy environment.

There is a lot of talk about the electric car today, but these vehicles are not new. Indeed, thebeginning of the 20th century saw electricity and the automobile take hold in North American society, so that by 1910, the electric car was everywhere. Until the turn of the 1920s, a new era dawned for transportation in the USA, but without the electric car. The purpose of this study is to question Why did it happen.

This paper develops such a comparison, not of the cars themselves, through a detailed engineering analysis, but rather of the marketing of electric vehicles in the USA in 1910 and 2010, as it appeared in the marketing strategies of the manufacturers.

There are many technical and economic reasons for this, but not only; there are also commercial strategy reasons. The position of manufacturers, especially through advertising and the press, can tell us about this golden age of the electric car, what precipitated its fall, and its reappearance a century later.

It is a comparison of images, of how electric vehicles had been and are proposed to the public, through the exploration of mainly promotional material and newspaper articles.

This study aims to assess how real income, oil prices and gold prices affect housing prices in China from 2010 to 2021.

This study uses a novel bootstrap autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) testing to empirically analyze the short and long links among the tested variables.

The ARDL estimations demonstrate a positive impact of oil price shocks and real income on housing market prices in both the phrases of the short and long run. Furthermore, the results reveal that gold price shocks negatively affect housing prices both in the short and long run. The result can be attributed to China’s housing market and advanced infrastructure, resulting in a drop in housing prices as gold prices increase. Additionally, the prediction of housing market prices will provide a base and direction for housing market investors to forecast housing prices and avoid losses.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to analyze the effect of gold price shocks on housing market prices in China.

This research investigates how subsidy programs in Vietnam's residential electricity market affect consumers' well-being.

Two perspectives are employed: cash transfer and quantity-based subsidy. The effectiveness of cash transfer is measured in three ways: benefit incidence, beneficiary incidence and materiality. The quantity-based subsidy is established under the increasing block rate pricing, with the first two block rates being lower than the marginal cost. To improve the quantity-based subsidy, the research examines the consumer surplus under four proposals.

The results show that both types of subsidies are ineffective in supporting the poor.

In order to achieve a more equal distribution among households, the subsidy program should remove all subsidized blocks and reflect the full marginal cost. Changes should be made to the price structure regarding both marginal price and intervals.

To mitigate the impact of the quantity-based subsidy, the government should improve the cash transfer by reducing extortion and improving targeting efficiency, especially for poor households living in rented houses.

This paper is the first to discuss the welfare effect of the electricity subsidy in Vietnam. First, it comprehensively evaluates the cash transfer subsidy in Vietnam. Second, it suggests a modification in the residential electricity tariff.

Urbanization is driving the growth of China’s carbon footprint. It’s important to investigate what factors, how and to what extent, affect carbon footprints embedded in various categories of rural and urban households’ consumption.

We employ an environmental extended input-output model to assess and compare the rural-urban household carbon footprints and perform a multivariant regression analysis to identify the varying relationships of the determinants on rural and urban household carbon footprints based on the panel data of Chinese households from 2012 to 2018.

The results show evidence of urbanity density effect on direct carbon footprints and countervailing effect on indirect carbon footprints. The old dependency ratio has no significant effect on rural family emissions but has a significantly negative effect on urban direct and indirect carbon footprints. A higher child dependency ratio is associated with less rural household carbon emissions while the opposite is true for urban households. Taking advantage of recycled fuel saves direct carbon emissions and this green lifestyle benefits urban households more by saving more carbon emissions. There is a positive relationship between consumption structure ratio and direct carbon footprints while a negative relationship with indirect carbon footprints and this impact is less significant for urban households. The higher the price level of water, electricity and fuel, the lower the rural household’s direct carbon footprints. Private car ownership consistently augments household carbon footprints across rural and urban areas.

This paper provides comprehensive findings to understand the relationships between an array of determinants and China’s rural-urban carbon emissions, empowering China’s contribution to the global effort on climate mitigation.