Can investors time their exposure to private equity?

Private equity performance, both for buyouts and venture capital, has been highly cyclical: periods of high fundraising have been followed by periods of low performance. Despite this seemingly predictable variation, we find modest gains, at best, to pursuing realistic, investable strategies that time capital commitments to private equity. This occurs, in part, because investors can only time their commitments to funds; they cannot time when commitments are called or when investments are exited. There is a high degree of time-series correlation in net cash flows even across commitment strategies that allocate capital in a very different manner over time.     

Some Potential Linkages for Input-Output Analysis with Flow-of-Funds

Three major, interrelated accounting statements, at the frontiers of quantitative economic analysis, are three interrelated systems, namely: (1) National income and product accounts (NIPA), (2) The input-output tableaux, (IO), and (3) flow-of- funds accounts (FF). The third-mentioned system is somewhat less available and used in only limited areas of macroeconomic analysis. This paper is mainly concerned with use of FF accounting systems. This system shows where financial resources originate, and where they go in support of real capital formation. In this respect, interest rates and other market-based financial rates are of key importance. While much macroeconomic analysis is based on the rates that fit the yield curve, showing the interest rate structure over various maturities of debt associated with a given degree of risk. In contrast, the FF accounts throw light on the whole spectrum of interest rates, across maturities and debt qualities. For example, in analysis of the real estate market and funding of capital formation there, it is important to have a full understanding of the course of mortgage rates of different maturities and qualities. In short, it is necessary to develop a full appreciation of supply and demand forces in the mortgage market, which often is not obviously related to movements of the operative rate for monetary policy, such as very short-term inter bank rates or call money rates. This paper attempts to provide material from the flow-of-funds accounts that would make it possible to analyze the movement of relevant mortgage rates or whatever other rates are needed to understand the financing of capital formation in real estate.     

Economic Growth and Productivity Gains from Capital Inflow: A Rejoinder

Journal of Quantitative Economics -     

INITIAL PUBLIC OFFERINGS: GOING BY THE BOOK

In the U.S., and increasingly in other countries as well, IPO securities are marketed to investors in a process known as "book-building"—one that amounts to polling institutional investors to establish a demand schedule for the issue and then allotting stock to individual investors according to the strength of their professed interest. Although book-building methods require use of discriminatory tactics that have attracted strong criticism from investors and regulators, this article defends such practices by demonstrating that book-building is more efficient than alternative methods. It effectively allows issuers to increase the net proceeds of their offerings by making better use of information about market demand conditions.
In the process of explaining the efficiency of the book-building method, this article also offers a plausible explanation for a phenomenon that has long puzzled economists: the systematic underpricing of IPOs. The key to the success of a book-building effort lies in the use of a strategic pricing and allocation policy designed to offset the investor's incentive to understate his or her interest in an IPO. By committing to favor investors who provide strong indications of interest with relatively large allocations of underpriced shares, the investment bank can limit the distortion of investor's incentives in bidding and so increase the level of proceeds the issuing firm can expect to generate from its IPO.     

Current and future changes in corporate attitudes to national identity

This commentary is a revised version of a speech that was delivered by the Honorable Thomas Harris to the Thunderbird community at the Glendale campus on February 6, 2001. Although the speech was delivered in 2001, its attendant concerns and arguments endure and are germane in today's global business considerations. Ambassador Harris is presently Her Majesty's Consul General and Director General of British Trade and Investment in the United States. Following his graduation from Cambridge University, Ambassador Harris joined the Board of Trade in 1966, and subsequently the British Diplomatic Service. His diplomatic career included stints in Tokyo, Washington, and Lagos. He has also held various appointments in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. His most recent overseas posting was as British Ambassador to Korea between 1993 and 1997. He was later appointed Director General for Export Promotion in the Department of Trade and Investments (now known as British Trade International), before taking on his present assignments in New York. As Director General of British Trade and Investment, he has overall responsibility for the promotion of British trade throughout the U.S. and for securing investment by U.S. firms in the United Kingdom. In 1995, Ambassador Harris was appointed by Her Majesty, the Queen of England, to be a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG). © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Measuring Market Orientation: Exploring a Market Oriented Approach

This paper demonstrates that applications of existing approaches to measuring market orientation are myopic, non-comparative and over-reliant on the views of single respondents. Consequently, a multi-perspective, multi-informant approach for measuring market orientation is generated which focuses on gauging customers', competitors' and intra-organizational members' perceptions of the market orientation of an organization. To evaluate the psychometric properties of this approach an application of this design in a survey of manufacturing industry is subjected to tests for inter-rater reliability, scale reliability, content validity, criterion-related validity and construct validity. The conclusion of this evaluation is that the developed measure is both a reliable and valid means of gauging market orientation. The paper concludes with a series of implications for both theorists and practitioners.