Forecasting economic indicators using a consumer sentiment index: Survey‐based versus text‐based data

Given the confirmed effectiveness of the survey‐based consumer sentiment index (CSI) as a leading indicator of real economic conditions, the CSI is actively used in making policy judgments and decisions in many countries. However, although the CSI offers qualitative information for presenting current conditions and predicting a household's future economic activity, the survey‐based method has several limitations. In this context, we extracted sentiment information from online economic news articles and demonstrated that the Korean cases are a good illustration of applying a text mining technique when generating a CSI using sentiment analysis. By applying a simple sentiment analysis based on the lexicon approach, this paper confirmed that news articles can be an effective source for generating an economic indicator in Korea. Even though cross‐national comparative research results are suited better than national‐level data to generalize and verify the method used in this study, international comparisons are quite challenging to draw due to the necessary linguistic preprocessing. We hope to encourage further cross‐national comparative research to apply the approach proposed in this study.     

Which survey indicators are useful for monitoring consumption? Evidence from European countries

This paper assesses the information content of two survey indicators for consumption developments in the near future for eight European countries in the period 1985–1998. Empirical work on this topic typically focuses on consumer confidence, the perceptions of buyers of consumption goods. This paper examines whether perceptions of sellers of consumption goods, measured by retail trade surveys, may also improve short‐term monitoring of consumption. We find that both consumer confidence and retailer confidence embody valuable information, when analysed in isolation. For France, Italy and Spain we conclude that adding retail confidence does not improve the indicator model once consumer confidence has been included. For the UK the reverse case is obtained. For the remaining four countries we show that combining consumer sentiment and retail trade confidence into a composite indicator leads to optimal results. Our results suggest that incorporating information from retail trade surveys may offer significant benefits for the analysis of short‐term prospects of consumption. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

校报新闻评论选题刍议

选题问题是新闻评论写作首先要解决的问题，通过抓问题进行新闻评论选题是一种行之有效的方法。为此，要做到：第一，迅速及时地捕捉新问题；第二，对老问题抓出新意；第三，抓取人们普遍关心的热点问题；第四，抓问题要着眼于解决问题。     

广东实施峰谷电价及其效果探讨

研究了广东省的峰谷电价政策及其实施效果。通过对佛山市某些典型大工业用户依据电价政策变化而进行的负荷调整情况的分析表明峰谷电价新政策在一定程度上促使了企业进行生产的重新安排以减少电费开支，并在总体上促进了电力消费。     

关于银行卡用卡环境问题的探讨

主要从发卡银行、特约商户、持卡消费者否个方面对目前我国银行卡用卡环境中的不良现象进行了分析,并提出了一些解决的方法。     

“Q宠宝贝”带来的思考

对腾讯公司推出的电子宠物——“Q宠宝贝”受宠现象进行分析。总结出其营销成功的主要原因:迎合消费者的各种消费心理,并逐一说明。     

消费者行为分析中贴现因子的确定方法研究

在比较固定贴现因子法及参数评估法的基础上，提出了用异质偏好函数法来确定贴现因子，并用实际的数据库验证了异质偏好函数法确定贴现因子在消费者行为模型的适应性方面比前两种方法优越，还讨论了三种方法的使用原则。另外，还提出了在考虑客户偏好异质性时，消费者行为建模所应考虑的主要变量。     

毛细管电泳手性分离进展

评述了近年来毛细管电泳手性分离的进展。以各种手性选择剂的发展为线索介绍了毛细管电泳手性分离理论、方法及应用。简要说明了分离中应注意的一些关键问题。     

信息时代的消费者权益保护法

信息时代的到来必将在某种程度上改变人们的生产和生活,对消费者的保护也必然面临新的机遇与挑战。为了在信息时代这一特定的历史条件下更好地保护消费者的权益,就需要研究信息时代消费者保护实践的变化和特点,并根据这些变化和特点对现有的消费者保护法律制度进行创新。     

消费品生命周期隐患识别与风险评价的三维矩阵方法

面对近年我国产品质量安全事故频发、消费者人身安全与健康遭受不同程度的威胁以及出口产品不时被召回或退回的问题，给出了一种基于消费品生命周期和事故致因的隐患识别及表征方法，有助于提升人们对消费品危害规律的认知水平并为消费品风险评价奠定基础. 考虑到事故伤害受体的能力和行为会对消费品缺陷或隐患演化及事故伤害后果产生重要影响，在常规风险评价二维矩阵的基础上，加入风险受体的脆弱性要素，提出了消费品风险评价的三维矩阵方法，能够更好地表征消费者能力与行为等主观要素对消费品隐患事故及危害的影响作用. 以家用电器风险评价为例，基于欧盟非食品类消费品快速预警系统（RAPEX）对中国消费品通报信息分析和专家评价打分，形成了消费品评价三维风险矩阵，分析了家用电器的风险规律，为消费品的风险评价提供了新思路、新方法.