Bank Culture and the Official Sector: A Spectrum of Options

If you think culture is too squishy, please hear us out. In Part I of this Article, we set out what we mean by culture. In Part II, we explain why we are interested in culture and why it matters to us now. In Part III, we will survey the work of other public authorities in their efforts to address culture. In our view, these efforts fall into several categories along a spectrum from more advisory to more prescriptive. We do not endorse any particular method. All of these efforts are useful attempts to address a common problem: repeated ethical failures that undermine the trustworthiness of financial services. We hope this Part will direct interested academics to useful source material and demonstrate the value of the various different approaches. In Part IV, we will focus on what the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (the New York Fed) has done to address culture. These efforts fall on the advisory end of the spectrum of available tools covered in Part III. This reflects, in part, the New York Fed’s role within the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States. Finally, in Part V, we pose a few questions for further discussion in academic forums: 1. What are we missing about culture? 2. What else should we and our colleagues at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York do? 3. How do we know if there has been progress? This Article does not include the customary survey of scholarly literature; we leave that to the more academically focused. Our purpose is not to fill gaps in what theorists and researchers have written. In addition, we avoid stating how financial institutions have approached culture, except where their efforts are public or described by other public authorities. This approach avoids concerns about inadvertently disclosing any confidential supervisory information

Spatiotemporal variability in the O-18-salinity relationship of seawater across the tropical Pacific Ocean

The relationship between salinity and the stable oxygen isotope ratio of seawater (δ18Osw) is of utmost importance to the quantitative reconstruction of past changes in salinity from δ18O values of marine carbonates. This relationship is often considered to be uniform across water masses, but the constancy of the δ18Osw-salinity relationship across space and time remains uncertain, as δ18Osw responds to varying atmospheric vapor sources and pathways, while salinity does not. Here we present new δ18Osw-salinity data from sites spanning the tropical Pacific Ocean. New data from Palau, Papua New Guinea, Kiritimati, and Galápagos show slopes ranging from 0.09 ‰/psu in the Galápagos to 0.32‰/psu in Palau. The slope of the δ18Osw-salinity relationship is higher in the western tropical Pacific versus the eastern tropical Pacific in observations and in two isotope-enabled climate model simulations. A comparison of δ18Osw-salinity relationships derived from short-term spatial surveys and multiyear time series at Papua New Guinea and Galápagos suggests spatial relationships can be substituted for temporal relationships at these sites, at least within the time period of the investigation. However, the δ18Osw-salinity relationship varied temporally at Palau, likely in response to water mass changes associated with interannual El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability, suggesting nonstationarity in this local δ18Osw-salinity relationship. Applying local δ18Osw-salinity relationships in a coral δ18O forward model shows that using a constant, basinwide δ18Osw-salinity slope can both overestimate and underestimate the contribution of δ18Osw to carbonate δ18O variance at individual sites in the western tropical Pacific.We are grateful for the dedicated water samplers who enabled this research: Lori J. Bell and Gerda Ucharm of the Coral Reef Research Foundation, Palau; Rosa Maritza Motoche Gonzalez and the Fuerza Aerea Ecuatoriana, Santa Cruz, Galapagos, Ecuador; Taonateiti Kabiri and the students of Tennessee Primary School, London, Kiritimati; and the Manus Weather Observers, U.S. Department of Energy ARM Climate Research Facility, Manus, Papua New Guinea. We would like to thank the Galapagos National Park, the Kiritimati Ministry of Environment Lands and Agricultural Development for sample permits, and the Charles Darwin Research Station for logistical support. Funding sources for this work includes NSF-AGS-PF 1049664 to J.L.C., NSF P2C2-1203785 to K.M.C., J.L.C., and D.N. This research was also supported by the Office of Biological and Environment Research of the U.S. Department of Energy as part of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility. Isotope data are available as supporting information associated with the manuscript. (1049664 - NSF-AGS-PF; P2C2-1203785 - NSF; Office of Biological and Environment Research of the U.S. Department of Energy as part of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility

Tree Cover Mapping for Assessing Greater Sage-Grouse Habitat in Eastern Oregon

We used a predictive model to map canopy cover of vegetation over seven feet in height ( tall woody vegetation ) at 30-meter resolution over nearly 29 million acres within and adjacent to the range of the greater sage-grouse in Oregon (Figure 1). Texture measures computed at various resolutions from color-infrared aerial photography provided the main source of predictor data used to produce the map. Canopy cover was treated as a categorical variable using six cover classes: absent (cover class C0), present at less than 4% (C1), 4 – 10% (C2), 10 – 20% (C3), 20 – 50% (C4), and 50% and over (C5). The map is referenced to conditions in the years 2011 and 2012. Although the specific target of the mapping was western juniper (Juniperus occidentalis), our reference data did not permit separating juniper from other tall woody vegetation during the predictive modeling process. The majority of the tall woody vegetation within the project area is western juniper. However, in high elevation regions, riparian, wetland, and residential areas, other vegetation is occasionally represented. The methodology discussed here produces raw modeled data. It is recommended that prior to use in most applications this raw tree cover product be additionally filtered or masked to eliminate false detections which often occur adjacent to agricultural areas and roads. For species-specific applications, an additional modeling phase is necessary to either eliminate tree cover detections likely to be species other than the target, or to model species importance values associated with each tree occurrence

Understanding Consumers’ Inferences from Price and Nonprice Information in the Online Lodging Purchase Decision

The sustained success of variable pricing for revenue management (RM) is dependent on the creation of appropriate price points at which to sell a given product offering. To date, few studies have considered the impact of nonprice information on consumer reaction to price, and none have investigated the relative weights that consumers assign to price and the nonprice information available to them during different phases of the purchase choice process. This exploratory study uses a combination of eye tracking and retrospective think-aloud (RTA) interviews to examine how consumers consider the price and nonprice content generated by the firm and the nonprice information generated by other consumers during two distinct phases of the online choice process: browsing and deliberation. This study’s findings suggest that during browsing, firm-generated content appears to be very influential, particularly the image selected to represent the property in search results. Both firm-generated and user-generated content play a role in hotel choice during deliberation, with the interplay among several types of information being an important indication of value for consumers

Influence of Sea-Ice Anomalies on Antarctic Precipitation Using Source Attribution in the Community Earth System Model

We conduct sensitivity experiments using a general circulation model that has an explicit water source tagging capability forced by prescribed composites of pre-industrial sea-ice concentrations (SICs) and corresponding sea surface temperatures (SSTs) to understand the impact of sea-ice anomalies on regional evaporation, moisture transport and sourcereceptor relationships for Antarctic precipitation in the absence of anthropogenic forcing. Surface sensible heat fluxes, evaporation and column-integrated water vapor are larger over Southern Ocean (SO) areas with lower SICs. Changes in Antarctic precipitation and its source attribution with SICs have a strong spatial variability. Among the tagged source regions, the Southern Ocean (south of 50 S) contributes the most (40 %) to the Antarctic total precipitation, followed by more northerly ocean basins, most notably the South Pacific Ocean (27%), southern Indian Ocean (16 %) and South Atlantic Ocean (11 %). Comparing two experiments prescribed with high and low pre-industrial SICs, respectively, the annual mean Antarctic precipitation is about 150 Gt yr1 (or 6 %) more in the lower SIC case than in the higher SIC case. This difference is larger than the model-simulated interannual variability in Antarctic precipitation (99 Gt yr1). The contrast in contribution from the Southern Ocean, 102 Gt yr1, is even more significant compared to the interannual variability of 35 Gt yr1 in Antarctic precipitation that originates from the Southern Ocean. The horizontal transport pathways from individual vapor source regions to Antarctica are largely determined by large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns. Vapor from lower-latitude source regions takes elevated pathways to Antarctica. In contrast, vapor from the Southern Ocean moves southward within the lower troposphere to the Antarctic continent along moist isentropes that are largely shaped by local ambient conditions and coastal topography. This study also highlights the importance of atmospheric dynamics in affecting the thermodynamic impact of sea-ice anomalies associated with natural variability on Antarctic precipitation. Our analyses of the seasonal contrast in changes of basin-scale evaporation, moisture flux and precipitation suggest that the impact of SIC anomalies on regional Antarctic precipitation depends on dynamic changes that arise from SICSST perturbations along with internal variability. The latter appears to have a more significant effect on the moisture transport in austral winter than in summer

Strategic Price Positioning for Revenue Management: The Effects of Relative Price Position and Fluctuation on Performance

Emerging price optimization models systematically incorporate competitor price information into the derivation of optimal price points. While consideration of competitor pricing at this tactical level is essential to maximizing short-term revenues, the long-term impact of competitive price positioning on revenue performance should not be overlooked. This study examines the effect of two key dimensions of strategic price positioning - relative price position and relative price fluctuation - on the revenue performance of 6998 US hotels over an 11-year period. It finds that revenue performance is strongest for hotels that price higher than the competition and maintain a consistent relative price over time. Implications for revenue management practitioners are discussed

Integrating Customer Relationship Management and Revenue Management: A Hotel Perspective

A number of authors have advocated a move towards integrating customer relationship management (CRM) and revenue management (RM). The implications of integrating CRM and RM strategies in the context of the hotel environment, however, have received little attention. The key questions that need to be addressed are: who should be targeted with CRM efforts and how will those efforts affect the RM process? This paper examines the relationship between CRM and RM. By means of the lifetime/profitability approach to customer segmentation proposed by Reinartz and Kumar in 2002, the appropriate customer segments to target with CRM efforts are identified and a supporting RM strategy is outlined for each segment. These include traditional RM, lifetime value-based pricing, availability guarantees and short-term and ad hoc promotions. The impact of these RM strategies on business processes in relation to customer segmentation, demand forecasting, information systems management and human resource management is addressed

How Long Should Dinner Take? Measuring Expected Meal Duration for Restaurant Revenue Management

Restaurants have two strategic levers for revenue management: duration control and demand-based pricing. Reducing dining times, especially during peak periods, can add considerable revenue for the restaurant. Managing meal duration, however, can be far more complex than manipulating the price. This paper examines dinner duration expectations for a casual restaurant using an adaptation of a price sensitivity measurement tool, naming it \u27Time Sensitivity Measurement\u27 or TSM. TSM is then used to derive the expected dining time, the optimal and indifference duration points. The results show that there is a relatively wide spread of acceptable dining duration times. Furthermore, the optimal and indifference points were significantly shorter than the mean expected dining time, suggesting that many restaurants may be able to shorten dining duration significantly (some 20 per cent in this present study) without compromising customer satisfaction. Furthermore, the paper explores whether demographic variables have an impact on time preferences and finds only nationality effects to be significant. Specifically, North Americans and Asians have similar duration expectations, while Europeans preferred a significantly longer dining time

Total Hotel Revenue Management: A Strategic Profit Perspective

Hospitality firms are expanding traditional revenue management (RM) practice to focus on customer value and strategic profit management. Participants in series of semi-structured interviews suggested that revenue management is moving away from a sole focus on top-line rooms revenue toward a bottom-line orientation focused on the customer. Thus, RM will expand to multiple revenue sources and encompass a multi-channel demand management approach. The interviews with sixteen senior hotel leaders, RM vendors, and solution providers highlighted the importance of profit, rather than just revenue, given rising distribution and variable costs. Despite the attraction of other revenue and profit sources, such as F&B, spas, and function space, the participants noted that expanding RM to those areas involves complexities not found in the rooms division. Ideally, hoteliers seek to assess the value of each customer’s patronage and develop a specific relationship with each customer. With changes envisioned by these hotel leaders, the practice of revenue management will evolve into the more accurate and expansive notion of strategic profit management

An investigation into the application of customer profitability analysis as a strategic decision-making tool in a hospitality environment

The primary objective of this study was to investigate the Applicability of Customer Profitability Analysis as a strategic decision-making technique in a hospitality environment. The study commenced with a review of literature in the fields of Yield Management, Customer Profitability Analysis (CPA) and Activity-Based Costing (ABC), with ABC being identified as an appropriate method of costing to use in CPA. Issues arising from the implementation of an Activity-Based CPA including the purpose of the system, the selection of software and the identification of activities and drivers are considered both in the context of a literature review and are later considered in the context of the primary research undertaken by the author. The primary research involved the development of an Activity-Based CPA and its implementation in a hotel environment. The test site chosen for the implementation of the system was a three star, medium-sized hotel property located in the centre of Dublin city. The time taken to conduct the study at the site was thirteen months. Findings indicate that the concept of CPA, using ABC, is applicable in the hotel environment. Findings also suggest that is technically feasible to apply an Activity-Based CPA in a hotel organisation with results of the analysis at the site providing valuable information to management for decision-making. One of the significant findings of the analysis was that 38% of revenue generated at the site is contributing to 137% of total profits. The study has resulted in the availability of cost and revenue data by customer group, data that was previously inaccessible by management at the site. Management anticipate maintaining the system at the site in order to use the customer profitability information generated by the system in long-term customer-related decisions