A Note on the Relationship between Firm Diversification and Corporate Advertising Expenditures

Using data on 200 major U.S. advertisers, our empirical analysis examines the relationship between the degree of firm diversification and corporate advertising expenditures, while controlling for competing explanations. Data on corporate advertising expenditures are obtained from Leading National Advertisers (1989). Compustat line of business data and Hoover's Handbook are used to construct measures of firm diversification, and other firm/industry characteristics included as covariates in our empirical analysis to account for possible alternative explanations. Our results suggest that less diversified firms spend more on corporate advertising.     

Information Transmission Between NSE50 Spot and Derivative Platforms in India: An Empirical Study

In this study, we examine the information transmission process between spot, futures and options segments for the NIFTY 50 index. The data is used from 2003 to 2013. Empirical results show that the spot market leads the price discovery process followed by the futures market and then the options market. The spot market again leads in the volatility spillover process while options dominate the futures contracts. There is a univariate skewness spillover from spot as well as futures to the options platform. Further, long term bidirectional kurtosis spillover is observed between spot and futures with former playing a more dominant role.

     

Pathways of stakeholder influence in the Canadian forestry industry

We draw on the stakeholder influence literature to propose and empirically test hypotheses regarding the direct and indirect pathways of perceived influence that stakeholders exercise within the domain of corporate sustainability. Our results allow us to examine the interaction between different types of stakeholder pressure and different types of stakeholder influence strategy. We show that stakeholders who do not control resources critical to the focal firm's operations are able to pressure a firm indirectly via other stakeholders on whose resources the firm is dependent. We contribute to the stakeholder perspective by showing how stakeholders who are affected by the focal firm's operations can enhance their salience via stakeholders who can affect the firm. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

The impact of inflationary news on money market yields and volatilities

This study investigates the impact of surprises in hourly wages, non-farm payroll, unemployment rate, and producer price index on the yields and volatilities of money market securities. The methodology is conducted in a framework that preserves the strong substitutability among the instruments. We find first the short-term interest rate nexus is inherently a steady state long-run phenomenon. Second, yield variability is fundamentally linked to the release of macroeconomic news that conveys important information on inflation. Third, results from the equality of variance tests suggest that volatilities on announcement days are significantly higher than non-announcement day volatilities across all securities.     

An Improved Approach to Computing Implied Volatility

A well‐known problem in finance is the absence of a closed form solution for volatility in common option pricing models. Several approaches have been developed to provide closed form approximations to volatility. This paper examines Chance's (1993, 1996) model, Corrado and Miller's (1996) model and Bharadia, Christofides and Salkin's (1996) model for approximating implied volatility. We develop a simplified extension of Chance's model that has greater accuracy than previous models. Our tests indicate dramatically improved results.     

Diabetic peripheral neuropathy: resource utilization and burden of illness

Introduction:

Diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) is a debilitating complication of diabetes and accounts for significant morbidity by pre-disposing the foot to ulceration and lower extremity amputation. Using a large US commercial claims database, this study analyzes the drug class usage and co-morbidities associated with DPN as well as estimates the associated economic burden.

Methods:

Patients older than 18 and diagnosed with DPN were followed longitudinally for 2 years pre- and post-diagnosis date. Patients were analyzed for age, gender, hospital visits, ER and doctor’s office visits, pharmacy claims, co-morbidities, and drug classes prescribed pre- and post-DPN diagnosis. The economic impact post-diagnosis of DPN was compared to the patients’ pre-diagnosis resource use.

Results:

In total, 10,982 incident DPN patients were identified, with a median age of 61 years, and an equal gender distribution. Post-DPN diagnosis, there was a 20% increase in the number of patients visiting hospitals and a 46% increase in the number of visits to hospitals. Further, there was a 46% increase in the annual cost per patient associated with visits to the hospitals, emergency room (ER), doctor’s office, and pharmacy claims. As per the analysis presented in this study, increase in the number of visits, cost per visit, and number of patients visiting hospitals, ER and doctor’s offices added up to a 46% increase in aggregated cost associated with Medical Resource Utilization (MRU) owing to DPN, with the highest increase (60%) in costs associated with hospitalization of patients with DPN.

Conclusion:

This study highlights the high economic burden associated with DPN. The results indicate that resource use significantly increases post-diagnosis of DPN, which leads to an increase in costs for payers. A noticeable proportion of patients with DPN had a pain co-diagnosis signifying the need for treatments that can effectively manage painful DPN.     

Indian Consumers’ Perception for Packaged Food and the Strategies of Food and Grocery Retailers in India—An Analysis

The aim of this article is to study the Indian consumer buying decisions of packaged food and to assess the impact of demographic dynamics on their behavior and their perception about the practicing marketing strategies of different leading food retailers across the National Capital region. We have taken six different retailers—viz. Big Bazaar, Spencer’s Retail, Reliance Fresh, 6Ten retail stores, convenience stores, and kirana (mom-and-pop) shops—in our research in an attempt to examine the consumer’s perception for these retailers’ marketing strategies to sell packaged food. The purpose to choose these retailers is to assess the impact as a whole from organized food retail as well as unorganized food retailing on consumer buying decisions. Respondents were selected by using the stratified random sampling method, and participation was voluntary. 925 respondents from the cities Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, and Faridabad were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. Statistical tools such as chi-square, factor analysis, ANOVA, and the Bonferroni test were used to attain final empirical results and to know the comparison of food retailer strategies with the customer’s choice of retailer.     

The Asymmetric Response of Equity REIT Returns to Inflation

This paper posits that the failure of past studies to document a positive relationship between REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) returns and inflation is an artifact of the empirical framework that has predominated in these studies. Applying a pooled estimation methodology to an expansive data set containing 195 publicly traded equity REITs for the period 1981–2002, the study documents a strong asymmetry in the response of equity REIT returns to inflation. Specifically, when expected and unexpected inflation are separated into positive and negative changes, results indicate that equity REIT returns rise in response to both increases and decreases in inflation. The evidence, which is partly contingent on the prevailing monetary policy environment, carries important policy implications for portfolio management and provides insights into the observed anomalous relationship between REITs and inflation.