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Most firms select their information technology outsourcing (ITO) vendors based on the two methods of the weighted-criteria evaluation technique – the “qualification score plus the lowest bid price for the highest price score (QS-LBHPS)” and the “qualification score plus the average bid price for the middle price score (QS-ABMPS).” This paper aims to understand whether these two methods provide the same or different results of vendor selection and how the proportional weights of a vendor's qualification and bid price affect the vendor selection results under the two methods.

–In total, 1,000 experimental tests were carried out using the developed spreadsheet template to examine vendor selection results of the two methods (QS-LBHPS and QS-ABMPS) and compare the vendor selection results under three conditions of vendors’ qualification and price weights. A correspondence analysis was also used to determine the proximal relationships among the selection results of the weighted criteria technique under the comparable methods.

The results indicate that, when using the two methods of the weighted criteria technique for a vendor selection, the selection results are significantly correspondent. In addition, the proportions of qualification and price weights affect the selection results under the two methods. The different proportions of qualification and price weights under the two methods yield the same selection results rather than different results.

This study fills the gap in ITO literatures concerning the vendor selection strategy. No empirical studies have been undertaken to compare the results of vendor selection under the two methods of the weighted-criteria evaluation technique. The findings enable a firm's selection team to apply the weighted-criteria evaluation technique effectively and realize that vendor selection results are altered based on the predefined proportions of qualification and price weights.

Why do lenders shrink back from full risk pricing in certain credit markets, even when a sophisticated system of credit scoring is already in place? Fear of bad publicity is the usual reason cited but this paper offers a complementary explanation which suggests that there may be an underlying financial process driving such behaviour. The key proposition of the paper is that risk pricing can cause adverse selection which has the potential to mitigate any positive benefits such a pricing strategy may bring to the lender. This explanation is developed by introducing risk pricing into the seminal Stiglitz and Weiss model and in so doing offers the first substantial link between the risk assessment and credit rationing literatures.

The purpose of this paper is twofold, first, to develop an effective tool to assess the performance of the overall economy by creating an assessment ratio that reflects the two top priorities of monetary policy, promoting economic growth and maintaining price stability, and second, to use the annual assessment ratios to build two subsamples, outperformance (better than the historical average) and underperformance, to examine and compare the changes in impacts of monetary and fiscal policy tools on important economic variables in different economic conditions, instead of different time periods.

The assessment ratio is defined as the gross domestic product (GDP) gap/standard deviation of inflation. Essentially, this Growth/Volatility ratio quantifies the price volatility-adjusted long-term output growth, that is, the long-term output growth given 1 per cent of the standard deviation of inflation. The growth has a positive impact on the ratio, while the effect of price volatility is negative. The ratio reflects not only the Fed’s dual goal but also the fundamental economic conditions. A higher value of the ratio indicates that the economy can better handle inflation risk in driving the long-term output growth. As the inflation level is adjusted in the numerator (GDP gap), not the denominator, no matter the Fed is engaging in the fight against inflation, or for reflation (promoting inflation) to prevent deflation and pursue price stability (Bernanke, 2002), the ratio remains consistent with the Fed’s dual goal and prefers a higher value.

Results of this study suggest that impacts of monetary and fiscal policy tools on key economic variables may be cyclic as the economic condition changes. The policy tools can significantly affect inflation volatility and the price volatility-adjusted long-term real output growth in the subpar economic conditions identified with lower assessment ratios. The effects become insignificant when the general economic performance exceeds the historical average. More importantly, results of this study indicate that the funds rate can effectively lower the price volatility, while the fiscal tools can promote long-term real output growth in the subpar economic conditions. Therefore, when inflation volatility spikes and the real output growth slows, the decisive and timely monetary and fiscal policy decisions become necessary to enhance policy effectiveness.

The assessments of effectiveness of monetary policy in the literature are based on some or all of four descriptive statistics: inflation, inflation volatility, output growth, and growth volatility. Each of them measures only one aspect of an economic phenomenon and cannot reflect the well-known conflicting relationship between maintaining price stability and promoting economic growth. For instance, from the policy perspective, a higher price volatility combined with a higher GDP growth rate for one period may or may not outperform another period with lower price volatility and growth rate. However, the assessment ratio created in this study considers both price volatility and economic growth simultaneously and can, therefore, be used as an effective measure of the overall economic performance.

Identifies the relationship between price and the consumer's evaluation of product quality with regard to developing a pricing strategy. Assesses the effects of price changes, and investigates the influence of advertising on perceived product quality.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the manner in which the rate of product consumption contributes to the formation and strengthening of the price-quality heuristic.

The research included a literature review with a series of tests across a sequence of blind and sighted tasting experiments involving 278 subjects assessing seven differently priced products of orange juice, coffee and wine.

The paper found evidence that consumption rates do affect the way consumers respond to price information and that sight-based “System 1” judgement errors accrue and increase progressively with consumption. This relationship was observed to be stronger in sight-based product assessments for consumption of four or more units per week compared to those consuming one unit per week. For blind-based product assessments, an inverse relationship between price affect and consumption was observed, with affect reported to be stronger for minimal rates of consumption.

The observation of sight-based and blind-based affect relationships which are dependent on the levels of product consumption appears to be an interesting advancement in consumer behaviour research. This provides support for a dual structure of rationality operated by an interconnection between “System 1” sight-based associations and “System 2” blind-based ponderous thinking. The paper further provides support for Kahneman’s “conflation of intuition” as classically conditioned memory.

Proceeding from studies that, at a general level, identify the extrinsic price cue as a mediator between a wine's perceived and intrinsic merit, the authors aim to report on a tasting‐room experiment conducted to determine the impact of the price cue on sighted ratings across categories of gender, age, and relative experience.

A total of 73 subjects assessed seven merlot wines, first blind and then sighted. During the sighted tasting, the only available cue‐information was the price per bottle. The seven price points ranged from the cheap (R25) to the expensive (R160).

Across all segmentations, the authors' analysis of sighted scores revealed the marked extent to which price effects demean the intrinsic merit of a wine. Older, more experienced and female strata appear to respond the most to price information; their respective model price effects are shown to increase by 57, 33 and 24 percent relative to their base comparators.

These findings challenge the dogma that unbiased sighted assessments are best conducted by self‐proclaimed wine experts who are older and more experienced; and suggest alternately, and perhaps heretically, that such assessments would be better conducted by younger, less experienced, non‐experts.

This paper aims to investigate the influence of consumption situation on the use of extrinsic cues, such as price and expert opinion, in the assessment of different types of risk associated to purchase decisions.

An experimental design was conducted in a sample of 128 postgraduate students, using red wine as product category. The experiment manipulated consumption situation, price, and expert opinion about the product. Different types of risks associated with the purchase decision and purchase intention were then measured.

Results suggest that consumption situation affects the use of price in the assessment of performance risk, but only in the case of negative expert opinion about the products. Additionally, expert opinion demonstrated to have a strong effect reducing performance risk and increasing intention to buy.

The main limitations of the present research are associated with the exploratory and inconclusive characteristic of the performed mediation tests, and the use of just one product category in the research. Future research should replicate the study in other product categories and include other types of extrinsic cues.

Managers should consider the complex effects of price on the assessment of risks related with a purchase, and the effect of consumption situation on the process. In addition, managers should use positive expert opinions in advertising and point‐of‐purchase material.

The study analyzes the influence of consumption situation on consumers' use of different extrinsic cues to assess risks associated with the purchase of uncertain quality products.

Embedded options can create asymmetries in information impounded by cash and futures markets, causing errors in price discovery estimation. This paper aims to investigate the impact of embedded location options on measures of price discovery.

Various price discovery metrics are computed using observed futures prices that contain embedded location options and cash prices for Chana. Prices of a futures contract that contains no options using observed futures prices and estimates of location option value are synthesized. The price discovery measures are recomputed using synthetic option-adjusted futures contract prices and cash prices, and changes in these measures are attributed to the impact of the embedded location option.

If the presence of the location option is ignored, futures appear to dominate price discovery. Once the location option is adjusted for, cash markets are found to dominate price discovery.

The lack of complete time-series data from the exchange for multiple commodities allows only limited empirical evidence for generalizing conclusions.

This paper highlights that regulators, exchanges and policymakers in India need to revisit delivery specifications of agricultural commodity futures contracts to enhance their utility from a price discovery perspective.

This work shows that ignoring the presence of embedded options can cause significant errors in price discovery assessment of agricultural futures contracts, particularly in heterogenous cash markets.

The purpose of this study is to enhance the estimation of vertical and horizontal inequity within property valuation. Property taxation is a crucial source of finance for local government around the world – based on a presumptive tax base underpinned by estimates of property value, inaccurate real estate valuations used for such ad valorem or value-based property tax calculations potentially lead to a variety of costs, both financial and other, for tax payers and governments alike. More common are increased costs in time, staff and, in some cases, legal fees. Some governments are even bound by acceptability thresholds to promote fairness, equitability and overall government accountability with respect to valuation.

There exist a number of vertical inequity measurements that have undergone academic testing and scrutiny within the property tax industry since the 1970s. While these approaches have proved successful in detecting horizontal and vertical inequity, one recurring disadvantage pertains to measurement error/omitted variable bias, stemming largely from a failure to accurately account for location. A natural progression within property tax research is the application of a more spatially local weighted modelling approach to examine vertical and horizontal inequity. This research, therefore, specifies a geographically weighted regression (GWR) methodology to detect and measure vertical inequity in property valuations.

The findings show the efficacy of using more applied spatial approaches for vertical tax estimation and indeed the limitations of employing conditional mean estimates coupled with delineated boundaries for assessing property tax inequity. The GWR model findings highlight the more fluctuating nature of vertical inequity across the Belfast market for the apartment sector both in a progressive and regressive sense and at different magnitudes. Moreover, the results reveal spatial clustering in the effects and are indicative of systematic inequities related to location inferring that spatial (horizontal) tax inequities are not random. The findings further show increased GWR model predictability overall.

This research adds to the existing literature base for evaluating both vertical and horizontal inequity in value-based property taxation at the intra-neighbourhood level. This is accomplished by modifying the Birch–Sunderman approach by transforming the traditional OLS model architecture to a GWR model, thereby allowing coefficient estimates of inequity to vary not only across a jurisdiction, but also at a more local level, while incorporating property characteristic variables. This arguably allows assessors to identify specific geographical areas of concern, saving them money, time and resources on identifying, addressing and correcting for inequity.

The primary purpose of this paper is to test an appropriate methodology for quantifying a return to residential property homeowners who were committed to make improvements to their homes prior to placing on the market for sale.

This is a pilot study where empirical data were collected via two survey instruments from nine homeowners within the Horowhenua/Manawatu region of New Zealand. Market values of the properties before and after home improvement were assessed using a variety of market value measures including a valuation by a registered valuer, property owner's assessment and sale price.

The findings reveal that both the registered valuations and the property owner's assessment of expected sale price was within the range ±8 per cent of the final sale price. Seven of the nine houses included in this pilot study showed a positive return on time and money invested in minor home improvements.

Limitations relate to the dated data, small sample size and geographical spread of the sample. The time and cost required to gather home improvement activity data is another limitation.

Potential exists for the model developed in this paper to be replicated internationally. This paper supports the view that homeowners who are actively involved in the real estate market have an accurate assessment of the value of their own homes. Improvements increase the quality and condition of existing residential housing stocks. Minor improvements are often overlooked due to the cost of gathering data. This paper encourages further studies of minor improvement expenditure on residential property.

This paper adds to the body of renovation literature as the data collection was conducted at the time improvements were being made, thus reducing response errors. The inclusion of comprehensive valuation reports by registered valuers increased the reliability of market value assessments. Research in this area is useful to provide greater understanding of the benefits of minor improvement expenditure.