Contagion Effects Research Articles

The Effect of Network Delay and Contagion on Mobile Banking Users: A Dynamical Analysis

This paper analyses how network contagion affects the acceptance or rejection of mobile banking, emphasizing the risk of contagion that hinders the growth of users among bank clients. As a research method, a mathematical model based on the Susceptible, Infected, and Recovered framework is used within a nonlinear dynamic system with a distributed time delay and the optimal control strategy. The approach aims to find the behaviour dynamics of mobile banking users, non-users, and undecided ones. Our model adds value to the existing literature by employing a qualitative dynamic analysis, as opposed to other studies that study contagion empirically. The steady states and their conditions for stability are found, and the critical value for time delay causing oscillatory is determined. The optimal control strategies are identified to enlarge the number of mobile banking users and decrease the number of non-users. Numerical simulations support the theoretical findings. The research has practical implications given that the model predicts mobile banking user behaviour in assisting policy decision-making and addresses the possible policy measures that aim to increase the number of mobile banking users. The conclusions suggest that financial inclusion can contribute to the expansion of mobile banking users.

Scale-specific effects of urban landscape pattern on the COVID-19 epidemic in Hangzhou, China

ContextUnderstanding the scale-specific effects of different landscape variables on the COVID-19 epidemics is critical for developing the precise and effective prevention and control strategies within urban areas.ObjectiveBased on the landscape epidemiology framework, we analyzed the scale-specific effects of urban landscape pattern on COVID-19 epidemics in Hangzhou, China.MethodsWe collected COVID-19 cases in Hangzhou from 2020‒2022 and combined the datasets of land use and land cover (LULC) and social gathering point (SGP) to quantify the urban landscape pattern. Optimal general linear model with stepwise regression was applied to explore the dominant landscape factors driving the COVID-19 transmission in the city. Furthermore, multi-scale geographically weighted regression illustrated the spatial heterogeneity and scale specificity of these landscape variables’ effects to COVID-19 epidemic.ResultsEight landscape variables of LULC and SGP patterns were identified which explained 68.5% of the variance in spatial risk of COVID-19. Different optimal bandwidths across these variables in MGWR indicated their scale-specific effects. LSI of green space enhanced the spatial risk across the entire region. The effects of landscape contagion, the number of water bodies, LSI of cropland and built-up areas, and the density of commercial houses were detected to vary between urban and suburban areas. The effects of LSI of water bodies and the density of shopping malls were found to vary among different districts.ConclusionsIn this study, we firstly discriminated the scale-specific effects of different landscape variables on the COVID-19 epidemic in the urban region. These findings can help to optimize the differentiated zoning prevention and control strategies for COVID-19 in cities and guide policy-making and urban planning at a multi-scale hierarchical perspective to improve public health and urban sustainability.

Does the Disclosure of Proprietary Information About Loan Losses Pose a Threat to Financial Stability?

AbstractConcerns have been expressed that public disclosure of outcomes from regulatory inspections of banks could lead to contagion and instability in the financial systems. This paper exploits Denmark's system of open inspection reports to analyze whether announcements of required increases in loan loss reserves by the Danish supervisory authorities, following an ordinary bank inspection, lead to contagion in financial markets. We find strong evidence of negative returns for the announcing banks over the period 2009–2020, suggesting that inspection reports containing proprietary information about loan losses provide value-relevant news to investors. We also find statistically significant contagion effects in the share price reactions among non-announcing peer banks. However, the reactions of other, non-affected banks are mild and confined to smaller banks, which is reassuring from a systemic risk perspective. Overall, our findings support the use of accounting disclosures as a policy tool for bank supervisors.

Social Influence in Social-Ecological Systems: Collaborative Capacity and Inter-Organizational Networks in the U.S. Sagebrush.

Collaborative governance has become a prominent, if not dominant, framework for thinking about multi-scalar and cross-jurisdictional environmental management. The literature broadly and consistently suggests that collaborative capacity and inter-organizational networks provide the institutional framework for addressing social-ecological system challenges. Surprisingly little scholarship addresses processes of social influence (or contagion) in social-ecological systems writ large, or more specifically as it relates to collaborative capacity. In this study, we consider the relationship between network position and structure and "collaborative capacity". We use a linear network autocorrelation model to establish a quantifiable, statistical relationship between an organizational-level outcome (collaborative capacity) for organizations that are relationally connected in a network addressing conservation and management issues in the U.S. sagebrush biome. We test three general hypotheses: (1) that social position - operationalized as network centrality - is related to collaborative capacity, (2) that subgroup or community structure - operationalized as modularity - is related to collaborative capacity, and (3) that there is a social contagion effect of collaborative capacity. Our results identify a positive relationship between collaborative capacity and organizations in positions of brokerage as well as evidence of a "collaborative capacity" contagion effect. This work contributes to our understanding of the role of bridging organizations and networks for large-scale environmental management.

The spillover and contagion effects of sovereign risk on stock markets

This study examines the spillover effects of sovereign risk on international stock markets using a dynamic spatial Durbin model (SDM) on a panel of forty countries from 2009Q1 to 2024Q2. The findings show that an increase in sovereign risk, as measured by CDS spreads, leads to a significant decrease in both local and foreign stock prices, with 0.027 percent reductions across foreign markets on average. These effects are transmitted through geographical, and economic and financial channels, with exchange rates, gross fixed capital formation, and industrial production playing crucial roles in influencing stock market performance. Additionally, the negative (positive) spillover effects from rising gross fixed capital formation and sovereign risk (industrial production) demonstrate how foreign markets are more impacted than domestic ones. The study highlights the interconnected nature of global financial markets, reinforcing the need for coordinated international policy responses to mitigate the transmission of sovereign risk across borders. These findings provide new insights into how global economic factors influence stock market volatility, particularly through specific transmission channels, underscoring the importance of multilateral collaboration in managing sovereign risk.

Evaluating methods for estimating influence effects in social networks: a simulation study

The contagion effect, also known as the peer effect, plays a significant role in social networks. It refers to the phenomenon in which one person or group can influence the behavior of other individuals with whom they share social connections. However, accurately estimating the contagion effect is challenging due to the confounding impact of peer selection. Previous studies have shown that this can be viewed as a problem of omitted variable bias. In an attempt to address this issue, simulation studies were conducted to compare the effectiveness of various methodologies in estimating peer influence within social networks, including latent variable models and machine learning techniques. Our research demonstrates that the performance of various approaches vary depending on the social network scenario. Overall, the latent space approach exhibits the best performance. This analysis provides valuable insights for researchers studying estimation techniques and emphasizes the importance of understanding the strengths, limitations, and objectives of these methods before using them for inference-based estimation.

How corruption prevails: A laboratory experiment

Previous research has found the contagion effect in corruption, nevertheless the mechanisms underlying the contamination of corruption remain unexplored. In this paper, we varied different kinds of information relevant to corruption, which are the number(breadth) /the size(depth) /the maximum amount of corruption, exposed to participants in a laboratory experiment to testify how the salience of different information affects participants' corruption decisions. Our results show that participants are more likely to engage in corruption and provide a higher amount after they are informed of the information of peers' corrupt behaviors. We confirm that decreasing social norms cost related to corrupt behavior, belief of increased likelihood of finding a partner to reach corruption, and conforming to peers' behaviors are the main channels.

Research on Credit Risk Contagion of Commercial Banks Based on Copula Model

Research on the credit risk contagion effect of commercial banks is a key issue in credit risk management of commercial banks. This paper constructs a measurement framework for the credit risk contagion effect of commercial banks based on the Copula function theory. On the basis of selecting the appropriate Copula function and measuring specific parameters, taking Bank of China and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China as examples, the tail correlation coefficient was used to measure the credit risk contagion effect of the two banks, and relevant conclusions were drawn.

The connectedness features of German electricity futures over short and long maturities

This research provides an extensive characterization of the contagion between electricity, energy commodities, financial assets and economic indicators across several maturities. Despite the widespread importance of electricity futures, this has been an under-researched topic. The evolution of connectedness is investigated between 2006 and 2023. With a special focus on electricity forward base and peak contracts, results show that the contagion effects are moderate but evolve through time, with greater impacts observed during the crisis years. We confirm that electricity forward prices are more sensitive to operators’ future expectations on fundamental market conditions than to financial and economic shocks.

Robots in the kitchen: The automation of food preparation in restaurants and the compounding effects of perceived love and disgust on consumer evaluations

Restaurants are swiftly embracing automation to prepare food, experimenting with innovations from robotic arms for frying foods to pizza-making robots. While these advances promise to enhance efficiency and productivity, their impact on consumer psychology remains largely unexplored. We present four experiments that demonstrate how food service automation leads to negative downstream effects (i.e., diminished taste perceptions, decreased willingness to pay, less favorable attitudes towards food items) across multiple food categories. This stems in part from two distinct contagion effects, whereby automation appears to undermine the food’s ability to contain symbolic love (positive contagion from human contact) while simultaneously increasing feelings of disgust (negative contagion from machine contact). Moreover, we highlight how communicating the consumer-oriented benefits of automation can suppress the disgust associated with automation and subsequently mitigate the deleterious effects on consumer evaluations. Our findings suggest that service retailers should consider the psychological impact on consumers when shifting away from human involvement in a category as intimate and consequential as the production of our food.

Dynamic DeFi-G7 stock markets interactions and their potential role in diversifying and hedging strategies

AbstractThis study examines the link between stocks and decentralized finance (DeFi) in terms of returns and volatility. Major G7 exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and various highly traded DeFi assets are considered to ensure the robustness of the empirical experiment. Specifically, this study applies the vector autoregression generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (VAR-GARCH) model to examine the information transmission of these two markets on a two-way basis and the dynamic conditional correlation (DCC)-GARCH model to assess the bivariate correlation structure between each DeFi and ETF pair. The volatility spillover analysis proves a contagion effect occurred between different geographic markets, and even between markets of different natures and typologies, during the most turbulent moments of the COVID-19 crisis and the war in the Ukraine. Our results also reveal a weak positive correlation between most DeFi and ETF pairs and positive hedge ratios that approach unity during turbulent times. In addition, DeFi assets, except for the Bazaar (BZR) Protocol, can offer diversification gains when included in financial investment portfolios. These results are particularly relevant for portfolio managers and policy-makers when designing investment strategies, especially during periods of financial crisis.

Social contagion of challenge-seeking behavior.

Despite having little economic utility, people are sometimes motivated to seek challenges (i.e., proactively choosing to work on a more difficult task than an easier one). The present study investigated whether just observing others' challenge-seeking behaviors could motivate people to seek more challenging tasks-the social contagion effect of challenge-seeking. The participants were presented with pairs of options, each associated with a math word problem of a certain difficulty level. We examined whether the participants' preference for a more challenging (i.e., more difficult) option changes after observing the decisions of others who hold a challenge-seeking or a challenge-avoiding attitude. Five experiments consistently showed that, while the participants generally avoided challenging word problems, observing challenge-seeking in others increased the probability of participants choosing more challenging options. These results indicate that our motivation to seek challenges may be instilled, in part, through social processes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Crises and Stock Market Integration: Evidence from BRICS Countries

This paper examines the stock market integration in BRICS (a group of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries and explores the effect of two major events; COVID-19 and Russia-Ukraine war on the stock market linkages of these countries. The study is based on weekly observations of BSE SENSEX (India), Bovespa Index (Brazil), MOEX Index (Russia), Shanghai Composite Index (China), and JSE All Share Index (South Africa) collected from Yahoo Finance and Wallstreet Journal from January 2016 to December 2023. We utilize multivariate DCC GARCH (dynamic conditional correlation) model to discern the time varying conditional correlations (TVCCs) between these equity markets. Thereafter, these TVCCs are regressed on the dummy variables to capture the existence of contagion effects among the stock markets of BRICS countries during these major events. The findings of this study indicate the existence of co-movement in the stock markets prices of BRICS countries during the sample period. We find existence of significant contagion effects among the BRICS countries during the COVID period. Results show a significant downfall in the TVCCs between BRICS stock market returns following the beginning of Russia - Ukraine war.

FINANCIAL CRISIS AND INSTABILITY

Financial crises and instability are common occurrences in the world economy, and they have significant effects on both developed and developing nations. The numerous causes of financial crises and the ensuing instability in the financial markets are thoroughly examined. It explains the theoretical foundations of financial crises, going over important ideas including market bubbles, excessive leverage, and regulatory shortcomings The paper also looks into how regulations and governmental actions can either exacerbate or lessen financial crises, how financial institutions contribute to systemic risk propagation and how interconnected they are. It looks at how the spread of crises across borders and asset classes can aggravate their severity through the contagion effect. It also covers the socio-economic fallout from financial crises, such as social unrest, income inequality, and unemployment. The summary concludes by highlighting how crucial it is to have strong regulatory control and proactive risk management to avert and lessen future financial disasters. It promotes a comprehensive strategy that blends international collaboration, regulatory changes, and responsible risk-taking to promote long-term economic growth and stability in a global financial system that is becoming more linked.

Farmer Protests in Europe 2023–2024

SummaryIn 2023–2024, farmer protests swept across Europe, with tractors blocking roads and supermarkets, drawing significant media attention. Unlike previous protests, these events spread continent‐wide, suggesting a contagion effect. This paper documents the surge in farmer protests, explores their triggers and underlying causes, and emphasizes the need for a just transition to sustainable food systems. The protests were sparked by proposed policy changes, tighter environmental regulations, perceived pressures on farm incomes and increased trade competition. However, the root causes varied by country. Swift policy responses at both national and EU levels included retracting controversial measures like the Sustainable Use of Pesticides Regulation, but these actions also hindered key initiatives for transitioning to more sustainable agri‐food systems. Moving forward, a comprehensive public debate on the future of Europe's agri‐food systems is crucial, focusing on balancing environmental sustainability with the economic viability of agriculture. A major political challenge will be moving beyond simplistic dichotomies to develop a vision for a food system that fosters synergies between farmer interests as well as environmental and social objectives.

Bank scandal contagion: Evidence from the Wells Fargo cross-selling scandal

In the event of a negative reputation shock or scandal, do consumers' anger and mistrust in the scandal-affected products spill over to seemingly unrelated lines of business that the scandal did not directly reach? Our paper looks into Wells Fargo's 2016 “cross-selling” scandal to test the negative sentiment contagion effect on its mortgage business. The study finds significant negative contagion effects, but also shows that Wells Fargo was more accommodating in handling complaints, paying compensation more frequently, and successfully lowering disputes towards zero. These actions are interpreted as Wells Fargo's damage control efforts to ‘Contain the Contagion’.

Understanding cybersecurity breach contagion effects: The role of the loss heuristic and internal controls

In this study, we seek to provide insights into the conflicting findings from prior research about whether the consequences of a cybersecurity breach spillover to non-breached bystander firms in the same industry − a phenomenon known as contagion effects. When considering the implications of a breach for a bystander firm, we suggest investors will rely on the loss heuristic and thus view loss (profit) bystander firms as more (less) likely to suffer a similar breach in the future. This will lead to greater cybersecurity breach contagion effects for loss firms than for profit firms. Furthermore, we propose that internal control quality will mitigate contagion effects and to a greater extent for loss firms than for profit firms. To test our hypotheses, we use a sample of cybersecurity breaches and identify a sample of non-breached bystander firms in the same subindustry as the breached firms. Our findings support our predictions and help explain the mixed findings from research on cybersecurity breach contagion effects. Results should also be informative to boards of directors and firm management considering ways to minimize costs associated with contagion effects.

How emotional contagion shapes spiritual care competence: Insights from a cross-sectional study on intensive care nurses.

Intensive care units (ICUs) are environments where nurses are open to emotional interactions because of complex structures and dynamic relationships. Nurses' susceptibility to emotional contagion and their spiritual care competence may affect the quality of care by influencing their ability to manage and respond to the emotional dynamics present in these environments. This study aimed to determine the level of emotional contagion and spiritual care competence in intensive care nurses. This study is a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted with 199 nurses working in the ICUs of a training and research hospital in Turkey. The data were collected between December 2021 and June 2022 using the Emotional Contagion Scale (ECS) and the Spiritual Care Competence Scale (SCCS). The mean score of the nurses was 50.29 ± 15.36 on the ECS and 90.29 ± 29.53 on the SCCS. A statistically significant difference was found between the ECS and SCCS and gender, marital status, weekly working hours and some approaches about spiritual care (p < .05). It was determined that there was a statistically significant positive correlation between the total scales and sub-dimensions of the ECS and SCCS (p < .05). In this study, it was found that intensive care nurses' susceptibility to emotional contagion was high, and that their spiritual care competence was at a moderate level. The results show that gender, marital status, weekly working hours, type of ICU and some approaches about spiritual care are crucial factors in nurses' emotional contagion and spiritual care competence. In addition, as the intensive care nurses' susceptibility to emotional contagion increased, their spiritual care competence also increased. The results of this study will guide the planning of interventions to protect intensive care nurses from the negative effects of emotional contagion and increase their spiritual care competence. It is necessary to protect intensive care nurses from the negative effects of emotional contagion and to increase their competences in spiritual care.

Analysing Network Dynamics: The Contagion Effects of SVB’s Collapse on the US Tech Industry

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023 was historically significant, and based on past experiences with similar banking sector shocks, it is widely expected to trigger domino effects among tech giants and startups. However, based on the analysis of risk spillover networks established by VARs estimation, we find little evidence of such a spread of risk contagion. We observe a clear downward trend in the total connectedness index of large-cap tech companies right after the the SVB collapse. Moreover, the market quickly responded in a way that isolated the financial services subcategory within the tech sector, forming a distinct community in the network. This explains how the risk contagion paths were cut off. We also provide visualised comparisons of contagion paths within the tech network before and after the SVB’s collapse.

“This Place Will Wear You Down”: Examining the Organizational and Contagion Effects of Stress on Correctional Staff Working Overtime in U.S. Prisons

“This Place Will Wear You Down”: Examining the Organizational and Contagion Effects of Stress on Correctional Staff Working Overtime in U.S. Prisons