Testing for Regime Switching: A Comment

An autoregressive model with Markov regime‐switching is analyzed that reflects on the properties of the quasi‐likelihood ratio test developed by Cho and White (2007). For such a model, we show that consistency of the quasi‐maximum likelihood estimator for the population parameter values, on which consistency of the test is based, does not hold. We describe a condition that ensures consistency of the estimator and discuss the consistency of the test in the absence of consistency of the estimator.     

Quality Cutting: Perceived Faculty and Staff Effects of State Budget Cuts on Institutional Quality

Product degradation is the deterioration of a commodity over time. Since the beginning of the 21st century, higher education in South Carolina has engaged in a process of cutting state funding to higher education. During this process questions emerged on the effects of the cuts on the many education programs that depend on state funding. The purpose of this study was to measure the perceptions of university faculty and administrators’ concerning the recent budget cuts in South Carolina and determine if the term product degradation can be appropriately applied to the educational product at state-supported four-year institutions in South Carolina.     

A Transaction‐Efficiency Analysis of an Internet Retailing Supply Chain in the Music CD Industry*

The emergence of the Internet may have fundamentally altered the mechanisms underlying information exchanges between sellers and end consumers. However, little attention has been given to the impact these mechanisms have on the efficiency of supply chain operations. This paper begins to address this deficiency in the literature by evaluating supply chain transaction efficiency effects from Internet purchases by consumers. It develops and empirically tests a theoretical framework examining the role Internet purchases have in establishing transaction‐efficiency levels in product exchanges involving sellers, placed at different supply chain echelons, and consumers. The theoretical framework integrates the transaction‐cost and internet economics, inter‐organizational information systems, and supply chain management literatures. Empirical testing, via structural equation modeling, is based on archival data in the Internet music CD market. The results show that Internet‐mediated purchases by consumers allow for greater transaction efficiencies when inventory ownership is postponed farther upstream in the supply chain and supply chain echelons are disintermediated. The results also indicate that channel structure configuration, defined by the supply chains' Internet retailing echelon, moderates these transaction efficiency effects.