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Article
Publication date: 19 April 2023

Shanaka Herath, Vince Mangioni, Song Shi and Xin Janet Ge

House price fluctuations send vital signals to many parts of the economy, and long-term predictions of house prices are of great interest to governments and property developers…

Abstract

Purpose

House price fluctuations send vital signals to many parts of the economy, and long-term predictions of house prices are of great interest to governments and property developers. Although predictive models based on economic fundamentals are widely used, the common requirement for such studies is that underlying data are stationary. This paper aims to demonstrate the usefulness of alternative filtering methods for forecasting house prices.

Design/methodology/approach

We specifically focus on exponential smoothing with trend adjustment and multiplicative decomposition using median house prices for Sydney from Q3 1994 to Q1 2017. The model performance is evaluated using out-of-sample forecasting techniques and a robustness check against secondary data sources.

Findings

Multiplicative decomposition outperforms exponential smoothing at forecasting accuracy. The superior decomposition model suggests that seasonal and cyclical components provide important additional information for predicting house prices. The forecasts for 2017–2028 suggest that prices will slowly increase, going past 2016 levels by 2020 in the apartment market and by 2022/2023 in the detached housing market.

Research limitations/implications

We demonstrate that filtering models are simple (univariate models that only require historical house prices), easy to implement (with no condition of stationarity) and widely used in financial trading, sports betting and other fields where producing accurate forecasts is more important than explaining the drivers of change. The paper puts forward a case for the inclusion of filtering models within the forecasting toolkit as a useful reference point for comparing forecasts from alternative models.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper undertakes the first systematic comparison of two filtering models for the Sydney housing market.

Details

International Journal of Housing Markets and Analysis, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1753-8270

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 July 2023

Rafael Teixeira, Jorge Junio Moreira Antunes, Peter Wanke, Henrique Luiz Correa and Yong Tan

This paper aims to measure and unveil the relationship between customer satisfaction and efficiency levels in the most relevant Brazilian airports.

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to measure and unveil the relationship between customer satisfaction and efficiency levels in the most relevant Brazilian airports.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors utilize a two-stage network DEA (data envelopment analysis) and AHP (analytic hierarchy process) model as the cornerstones of the study. The first stage of the network productive structure focuses on examining the infrastructure efficiency of the selected airports, while the second stage assesses their business efficiency.

Findings

Although the results indicate that infrastructure and business efficiency levels are heterogeneous and widely dispersed across airports, controlling the regression results with different contextual variables suggests that the impact of efficiency levels on customer satisfaction is mediated by a set of socio-economic and demographic (endogenous) and regulatory (exogenous) variables. Furthermore, encouraging investment in airports is necessary to achieve higher infrastructural efficiency and scale efficiency, thereby improving customer satisfaction.

Originality/value

There is a scarcity of studies examining the relationships among customer satisfaction, privatization and airport efficiency, particularly in developing countries like Brazil.

Details

Benchmarking: An International Journal, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-5771

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 7 February 2023

Riju Bhattacharya, Naresh Kumar Nagwani and Sarsij Tripathi

A community demonstrates the unique qualities and relationships between its members that distinguish it from other communities within a network. Network analysis relies heavily on…

Abstract

Purpose

A community demonstrates the unique qualities and relationships between its members that distinguish it from other communities within a network. Network analysis relies heavily on community detection. Despite the traditional spectral clustering and statistical inference methods, deep learning techniques for community detection have grown in popularity due to their ease of processing high-dimensional network data. Graph convolutional neural networks (GCNNs) have received much attention recently and have developed into a potential and ubiquitous method for directly detecting communities on graphs. Inspired by the promising results of graph convolutional networks (GCNs) in analyzing graph structure data, a novel community graph convolutional network (CommunityGCN) as a semi-supervised node classification model has been proposed and compared with recent baseline methods graph attention network (GAT), GCN-based technique for unsupervised community detection and Markov random fields combined with graph convolutional network (MRFasGCN).

Design/methodology/approach

This work presents the method for identifying communities that combines the notion of node classification via message passing with the architecture of a semi-supervised graph neural network. Six benchmark datasets, namely, Cora, CiteSeer, ACM, Karate, IMDB and Facebook, have been used in the experimentation.

Findings

In the first set of experiments, the scaled normalized average matrix of all neighbor's features including the node itself was obtained, followed by obtaining the weighted average matrix of low-dimensional nodes. In the second set of experiments, the average weighted matrix was forwarded to the GCN with two layers and the activation function for predicting the node class was applied. The results demonstrate that node classification with GCN can improve the performance of identifying communities on graph datasets.

Originality/value

The experiment reveals that the CommunityGCN approach has given better results with accuracy, normalized mutual information, F1 and modularity scores of 91.26, 79.9, 92.58 and 70.5 per cent, respectively, for detecting communities in the graph network, which is much greater than the range of 55.7–87.07 per cent reported in previous literature. Thus, it has been concluded that the GCN with node classification models has improved the accuracy.

Details

Data Technologies and Applications, vol. 57 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2514-9288

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 11 July 2023

Emmanuel Edache Michael, Joy Nankyer Dabel-Moses, Dare John Olateju, Ikoojo David Emmanuel and Vincent Edache Michael

In this chapter, we conduct a metadata analysis of articles published in accounting, business and finance journals ranked by Australian Business Dean Council (ABDC), and…

Abstract

In this chapter, we conduct a metadata analysis of articles published in accounting, business and finance journals ranked by Australian Business Dean Council (ABDC), and benchmarked against the Chartered Association of Business Schools (ABS) ranking, that discuss firm- and country-level greenhouse gas (GHG) emission practices and reporting. Number of publications on GHG research, research methods, number of citations and ratio, across countries and continents are some of the topics we cover. We employ a list of articles on accounting, business and finance journals ranked A* and A in the ABDC journal rankings from 2015 to 2022. The study uses a structured literature review to analyse 74 papers on GHG reporting practices at the firm- and country level. Although this line of enquiry is still nascent and developing, the study found underrepresentation of Africa and the Middle East in GHG literature generally. In addition, majority of the articles examined also concentrate on quantitative methods. Most of the articles on GHG research are A-ranked in the ABDC ranking scheme. It was also found that few studies focus on the countries and companies with the highest emissions. While there has been some progress in interrogating GHG across the globe, there is still much room for further research. A key area of future research is exploring the GHG reporting practices in the African and the Middle Eastern sub-regions. There is also a need to examine countries and companies with high emissions. A further study needs to explore the benefits of other research methods in addition to quantitative methods, as different research methods could yield different insights that would enhance research-based conclusions.

Details

Green House Gas Emissions Reporting and Management in Global Top Emitting Countries and Companies
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80262-883-8

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 27 September 2022

Mohd Azrai Azman, Zulkiflee Abdul-Samad, Boon L. Lee, Martin Skitmore, Darmicka Rajendra and Nor Nazihah Chuweni

Total factor productivity (TFP) change is an important driver of long-run economic growth in the construction sector. However, examining TFP alone is insufficient to identify the…

Abstract

Purpose

Total factor productivity (TFP) change is an important driver of long-run economic growth in the construction sector. However, examining TFP alone is insufficient to identify the cause of TFP changes. Therefore, this paper employs the infrequently used Geometric Young Index (GYI) and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) to measure and decompose the TFP Index (TFPI) at the firm-level from 2009 to 2018 based on Malaysian construction firms' data.

Design/methodology/approach

To improve the TFPI estimation, normally unobserved environmental variables were included in the GYI-TFPI model. These are the physical operation of the firm (inland versus marine operation) and regional locality (West Malaysia versus East Malaysia). Consequently, the complete components of TFPI (i.e. technological, environmental, managerial, and statistical noise) can be accurately decomposed.

Findings

The results reveal that TFP change is affected by technological stagnation and improvements in technical efficiency but a decline in scale-mix efficiency. Moreover, the effect of environmental efficiency on TFP is most profound. In this case, being a marine construction firm and operating in East Malaysia can reduce TFPI by up to 38%. The result, therefore, indicates the need for progressive policies to improve long-term productivity.

Practical implications

Monitoring and evaluating productivity change allows an informed decision to be made by managers/policy makers to improve firms' competitiveness. Incentives and policies to improve innovation, competition, training, removing unnecessary taxes and regulation on outputs (inputs) could enhance the technological, technical and scale-mix of resources. Furthermore, improving public infrastructure, particularly in East Malaysia could improve regionality locality in relation to the environmental index.

Originality/value

This study contributes to knowledge by demonstrating how TFP components can be completely modelled using an aggregator index with good axiomatic properties and SFA. In addition, this paper is the first to apply and include the GYI and environmental variables in modelling construction productivity, which is of crucial importance in formulating appropriate policies.

Details

Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, vol. 31 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0969-9988

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 27 October 2022

Morley Gunderson

The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on intersectionality and ascertain its potential for application to human resources (HR) research and practice. Particular…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on intersectionality and ascertain its potential for application to human resources (HR) research and practice. Particular attention is paid to its methodological issues involving how best to incorporate intersectionality into research designs, and its data issues involving the “curse of dimensionality” where there are too few observations in most datasets to deal with multiple intersecting categories.

Design/methodology/approach

The methodology involves reviewing the literature on intersectionality in its various dimensions: its conceptual underpinnings and meanings; its evolution as a concept; its application in various areas; its relationship to gender-based analysis plus (GBA+); its methodological issues and data requirements; its relationship to theory and qualitative as well as quantitative lines of research; and its potential applicability to research and practice in HR.

Findings

Intersectionality deals with how interdependent categories such as race, gender and disability intersect to affect outcomes. It is not how each of these factors has an independent or additive effect; rather, it is how they combine together in an interlocking fashion to have an interactive effect that is different from the sum of their individual effects. This gives rise to methodological and data complications that are outlined. Ways in which these complications have been dealt with in the literature are outlined, including interaction effects, separate equations for key groups, reducing data requirements, qualitative analysis and machine learning with Big Data.

Research limitations/implications

Intersectionality has not been dealt with in HR research or practice. In other fields, it tends to be dealt with only in a conceptual/theoretical fashion or qualitatively, likely reflecting the difficulties of applying it to quantitative research.

Practical implications

The wide gap between the theoretical concept of intersectionality and its practical application for purposes of prediction as well as causal analysis is outlined. Trade-offs are invariably involved in applying intersectionality to HR issues. Practical steps for dealing with those trade-offs in the quantitative analyses of HR issues are outlined.

Social implications

Intersectionality draws attention to the intersecting nature of multiple disadvantages or vulnerability. It highlights how they interact in a multiplicative and not simply additive fashion to affect various outcomes of individual and social importance.

Originality/value

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first analysis of the potential applicability of the concept of intersectionality to research and practice in HR. It has obvious relevance for ascertaining intersectional categories as predictors and causal determinants of important outcomes in HR, especially given the growing availability of large personnel and digital datasets.

Details

International Journal of Manpower, vol. 44 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0143-7720

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 20 March 2024

Vinod Bhatia and K. Kalaivani

Indian railways (IR) is one of the largest railway networks in the world. As a part of its strategic development initiative, demand forecasting can be one of the indispensable…

Abstract

Purpose

Indian railways (IR) is one of the largest railway networks in the world. As a part of its strategic development initiative, demand forecasting can be one of the indispensable activities, as it may provide basic inputs for planning and control of various activities such as coach production, planning new trains, coach augmentation and quota redistribution. The purpose of this study is to suggest an approach to demand forecasting for IR management.

Design/methodology/approach

A case study is carried out, wherein several models i.e. automated autoregressive integrated moving average (auto-ARIMA), trigonometric regressors (TBATS), Holt–Winters additive model, Holt–Winters multiplicative model, simple exponential smoothing and simple moving average methods have been tested. As per requirements of IR management, the adopted research methodology is predominantly discursive, and the passenger reservation patterns over a five-year period covering a most representative train service for the past five years have been employed. The relative error matrix and the Akaike information criterion have been used to compare the performance of various models. The Diebold–Mariano test was conducted to examine the accuracy of models.

Findings

The coach production strategy has been proposed on the most suitable auto-ARIMA model. Around 6,000 railway coaches per year have been produced in the past 3 years by IR. As per the coach production plan for the year 2023–2024, a tentative 6551 coaches of various types have been planned for production. The insights gained from this paper may facilitate need-based coach manufacturing and optimum utilization of the inventory.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the literature on rail ticket demand forecasting and adds value to the process of rolling stock management. The proposed model can be a comprehensive decision-making tool to plan for new train services and assess the rolling stock production requirement on any railway system. The analysis may help in making demand predictions for the busy season, and the management can make important decisions about the pricing of services.

Details

foresight, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-6689

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 26 April 2022

Michela Serrecchia

The aim of this study is to examine the trend over time of the demand for .it domain names.This study first assesses whether there is a phase of growth and expansion or at a point…

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this study is to examine the trend over time of the demand for .it domain names.This study first assesses whether there is a phase of growth and expansion or at a point of saturation. Second, this research can be useful also to compare researches that have considered other internet metrics and other models.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper describes the forecasting methods used to analyze the internet diffusion in Italy. The domain names under the country code top-level domain “.it” have used as metrics. To predict domain names .it the seasonal auto regressive integrated moving average (SARIMA) model and the Holt-Winters (H-W) methods have been used.

Findings

The results show that, to predict domain names .it the SARIMA model is better than the H-W methods. According to the findings, notwithstanding the forecast of a growth in domain names, the increase is however limited (about 3%), tending to reach a phase of saturation of the market of domain names .it.

Originality/value

In general many authors have studied internet diffusion applying statistical models that follow an S-shaped behavior. On the other hand, the more used diffusion models that follow an S-shape not always provide an adequate description of the Internet growth pattern. To achieve this goal, this paper demonstrates how the time series models, in particular SARIMA model and H-W models, fit well in explaining the spread of the internet.

Article
Publication date: 20 November 2023

Thorsten Teichert, Christian González-Martel, Juan M. Hernández and Nadja Schweiggart

This study aims to explore the use of time series analyses to examine changes in travelers’ preferences in accommodation features by disentangling seasonal, trend and the COVID-19…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to explore the use of time series analyses to examine changes in travelers’ preferences in accommodation features by disentangling seasonal, trend and the COVID-19 pandemic’s once-off disruptive effects.

Design/methodology/approach

Longitudinal data are retrieved by online traveler reviews (n = 519,200) from the Canary Islands, Spain, over a period of seven years (2015 to 2022). A time series analysis decomposes the seasonal, trend and disruptive effects of six prominent accommodation features (view, terrace, pool, shop, location and room).

Findings

Single accommodation features reveal different seasonal patterns. Trend analyses indicate long-term trend effects and short-term disruption effects caused by Covid-19. In contrast, no long-term effect of the pandemic was found.

Practical implications

The findings stress the need to address seasonality at the single accommodation feature level. Beyond targeting specific features at different guest groups, new approaches could allow dynamic price optimization. Real-time insight can be used for the targeted marketing of platform providers and accommodation owners.

Originality/value

A novel application of a time series perspective reveals trends and seasonal changes in travelers’ accommodation feature preferences. The findings help better address travelers’ needs in P2P offerings.

Details

International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-6119

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 31 May 2023

Xiaojie Xu and Yun Zhang

For policymakers and participants of financial markets, predictions of trading volumes of financial indices are important issues. This study aims to address such a prediction…

Abstract

Purpose

For policymakers and participants of financial markets, predictions of trading volumes of financial indices are important issues. This study aims to address such a prediction problem based on the CSI300 nearby futures by using high-frequency data recorded each minute from the launch date of the futures to roughly two years after constituent stocks of the futures all becoming shortable, a time period witnessing significantly increased trading activities.

Design/methodology/approach

In order to answer questions as follows, this study adopts the neural network for modeling the irregular trading volume series of the CSI300 nearby futures: are the research able to utilize the lags of the trading volume series to make predictions; if this is the case, how far can the predictions go and how accurate can the predictions be; can this research use predictive information from trading volumes of the CSI300 spot and first distant futures for improving prediction accuracy and what is the corresponding magnitude; how sophisticated is the model; and how robust are its predictions?

Findings

The results of this study show that a simple neural network model could be constructed with 10 hidden neurons to robustly predict the trading volume of the CSI300 nearby futures using 1–20 min ahead trading volume data. The model leads to the root mean square error of about 955 contracts. Utilizing additional predictive information from trading volumes of the CSI300 spot and first distant futures could further benefit prediction accuracy and the magnitude of improvements is about 1–2%. This benefit is particularly significant when the trading volume of the CSI300 nearby futures is close to be zero. Another benefit, at the cost of the model becoming slightly more sophisticated with more hidden neurons, is that predictions could be generated through 1–30 min ahead trading volume data.

Originality/value

The results of this study could be used for multiple purposes, including designing financial index trading systems and platforms, monitoring systematic financial risks and building financial index price forecasting.

Details

Asian Journal of Economics and Banking, vol. 8 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2615-9821

Keywords

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