An Empirical Analysis of Illegal Insider Trading

Whether insider trading affects stock prices is central to both the current debate over whether insider trading is harmful or pervasive, and to the broader public policy issue of how best to regulate securities markets. Using previously unexplored data on illegal insider trading from the Securities and Exchange Commission, this paper finds that the stock market detects the possibility of informed trading and impounds this information into the stock price. Specifically, the abnormal return on an insider trading day averages 3%, and almost half of the pre-announcement stock price run-up observed before takeovers occurs on insider trading days. Both the amount traded by the insider and additional trade-specific characteristics lead to the market's recognition of the informed trading.     

Globalization from Below: The Ranking of Global Immigrant Cities

Immigration to major cities is an important dimension of cultural globalization, one that has been largely ignored in the global cities literature. Rates of immigration to major world cities are an important indicator of global city status and should be included in determining urban hierarchy indexes. Our study considers immigration in more than 100 metropolitan areas, using data from national censuses from more than 50 countries. We rank major cities of immigration and compare them to well‐known global city hierarchies. Using immigration data, we create an urban immigrant index. The index considers four factors of immigration: (1) the percentage of foreign‐born, (2) the total number of foreign‐born, (3) the diversity of the foreign‐born stock, and (4) whether immigrants are from neighboring countries or non‐neighboring countries. This is the first time that an international urban immigrant data set and index have been created. The study explains the empirical challenge of acquiring comparable international metropolitan data and the limits of this research. Some of the cities that rank highly in the index are commonly cited as world cities (London, New York and Frankfurt); others such as Toronto, Amsterdam and Dubai seldom appear so highly ranked. L’Immigration vers les grandes villes est une dimension importante de la mondialisation culturelle, dimension largement ignorée dans la littérature sur les villes planétaires. Les taux d’immigration vers les grandes villes mondiales sont un indicateur significatif du statut de ville planétaire et devraient être pris en compte pour établir des répertoires de hiérarchie urbaine. Cette étude, qui couvre l’immigration dans plus de cent zones métropolitaines, utilise les données de recensements nationaux provenant de plus de 50 pays. Elle classe les principales villes d’immigration et les compare aux hiérarchies de villes planétaires reconnues. A partir des données sur l’immigration, est créé un répertoire des immigrants urbains, lequel se réfère à quatre facteurs d’immigration: (1) le pourcentage néà l’étranger, (2) l’effectif total néà l’étranger, (3) la diversité de la population née à l’étranger et (4) si les migrants viennent de pays voisins ou non. C’est la première fois qu’un fichier de données et un répertoire d’immigrants urbains internationaux sont créés. L’étude expose le défi empirique pour récupérer des données métropolitaines internationales comparables, ainsi que les limites de cette recherche. Certaines des villes placées en tête du répertoire sont fréquemment citées comme villes mondiales (Londres, New York et Frankfort), d’autres comme Toronto, Amsterdam et Dubaï apparaissent rarement à ce niveau de classement.     

Comparing the Earnings of Cohabiting Lesbians,Cohabiting Heterosexual Women,and Married Women: Evidence from the 2000 Census

Using data from the 2000 Census, I tested the hypothesis that cohabiting lesbians have statistically different earnings from cohabiting and married heterosexual women. Cohabiting lesbians earn more than their heterosexual counterparts, even when differences in child‐rearing status are considered. Furthermore, the results do not support differences in household specialization as an explanation for the lesbian earnings premium.     

NATIONAL TELEVISION AND THE MARKET FOR LOCAL PRODUCTS: THE CASE OF BEER*

Information technology lowers the cost of distributing information to dispersed consumers. Because national firms reap larger benefits from new media than firms serving only local consumers, media innovations may reduce the market for local products. This paper considers the effect of television on the market for local beer. Using market‐level data on television penetration, local breweries and brewery production from 1945–1960, results show that increases in television penetration are associated with fewer local breweries and less local beer production. The results indicate that the industrial organization of media markets can affect the structure of markets for local products.     

Is Disability Disabling in All Workplaces? Workplace Disparities and Corporate Culture

Using nearly 30,000 employee surveys from fourteen companies, we find disability is linked to lower average pay, job security, training, and participation in decisions, and to more negative attitudes toward the job and company. Disability gaps in attitudes vary substantially, however, across companies and worksites, with no attitude gaps in worksites rated highly by all employees for fairness and responsiveness. The results indicate that corporate cultures that are responsive to the needs of all employees are especially beneficial for employees with disabilities.     

Transparency and Tax Evasion: Evidence from the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA)

We examine how U.S. individuals respond to regulation intended to reduce offshore tax evasion. The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) requires foreign financial institutions to report information to the U.S. government regarding U.S. account holders. We first document an average $7.8 billion to $15.3 billion decrease in equity foreign portfolio investment to the United States from tax-haven countries after FATCA implementation, consistent with a decrease in “round-tripping” investments attributable to U.S. investors’ offshore tax evasion. When testing total worldwide investment out of financial accounts in tax havens post-FATCA, we find an average decline of $56.6 billion to $78.0 billion. We next provide evidence of other important consequences of this regulation, including increased expatriations of U.S. citizens and greater investment in alternative assets not subject to FATCA reporting, such as residential real estate and artwork. Our study contributes to both the academic literature and policy analysis on regulation, tax evasion, and crime.     

The Efficacy of Third‐Party Consultation in Preventing Managerial Escalation of Commitment: The Role of Mental Representations*

Avoiding continued investment in poorly performing projects is an important function of management control systems. However, prior research suggests that managers fail to use accounting information indicating that a project is performing poorly to discontinue it; that is, they escalate commitment to the project. We perform two experiments to investigate the efficacy of a potential control mechanism, third‐party consultation, in preventing managerial escalation of commitment. We hypothesize that the information‐processing objective (that is, purpose) assigned to consultants influences the mental representations they construct to process and store information, which ultimately influences their recommendations regarding the continuation of a poorly performing project. Results suggest that consultants will not construct mental representations amenable to making high‐quality project‐continuation recommendations unless they are assigned that specific purpose. Results further suggest that applying additional effort likely will not overcome the adverse effects of having inappropriate mental representations when making project‐continuation recommendations. An implication of our study is that third‐party consultants likely will not prevent managerial escalation of commitment unless consultants have a specific mandate of making a project‐continuation recommendation in mind when they encounter relevant accounting information.     

Exploring intersections of physicality and female‐only canoeing experiences1

The benefits of single‐gender experiences for females have been discussed in a variety of contexts, including education, sport and outdoor recreation. In both the discourses of female‐run outdoor adventure travel programs providing such experiences, and the leisure studies and outdoor education literatures, claims are made about the distinct social environment created on such trips and the positive outcomes for females undertaking them. Absent from these discourses is reference to empirical research exploring women's perceptions of such experiences, thereby allowing one to evaluate the merit of such claims. In what would initially appear to be an observation in a completely different vein, there is also a relative dearth of scholarly examinations within leisure and recreational studies of women's lived‐body experiences of their physicalities through active outdoor recreation, and the potentially empowering effects of them. This paper seeks to draw out the connections between these seemingly disparate observations through a qualitative examination of women's experiences of female‐only wilderness canoeing. While the reasons articulated by the women for undertaking such an experience did not explicitly identify issues related to their physicalities, clearly these issues resonated with and held implications for their experiences of them. This, in turn, provides substantiation for claims regarding the importance of the provision of all‐female outdoor experiences.     

Technological Innovation and Employment in Telecommunications

In this paper we examine how the diffusion of technological innovation in the telecommunications industry influences employment levels across occupations and how a firm chooses among alternative personnel mechanisms to reach its target employment levels. We find that technological change has influenced the demand for different types of workers and has centralized office functions. The adjustment patterns to these demand changes differ by the union status, tenure, age, and gender composition of the affected occupations.