美国中产家庭破产潮

很难想象,在人们印象中富裕的美国却逐渐形成家庭破产的潮流,而这些家庭中的大部分却是被标榜为社会中坚力量的中产阶级.     

Can retailers get higher prices for “end-of-life” inventory through online auctions?

Manufacturers and retailers are using online auctions to liquidate excess inventory. Using a field study of 11,879 online auctions, this paper builds upon theories of competitive processes to relate four key seller-controlled variables (starting price, day of close, auction length, and brand) to outcomes of online auction for apparel goods. Results suggest that to obtain a higher percentage of the original retail price, retailers should start with a lower price and feature national brands. These and other findings are discussed and a number of future research topics are offered.     

Health care rationing: the Oregon experiment

Oregon Medicaid reforms, passed by the state legislature in 1989, examined in light of Oregon's recent history of attempts to grapple continually rising health care costs.     

ANALYST BEHAVIOR SURROUNDING TENDER OFFER ANNOUNCEMENTS

We examine the usefulness and credibility of analyst recommendations by focusing on their behavior surrounding tender offer announcements. For our 1998–2001 sample, we find analysts did not identify takeover targets through their recommendations nor did they distinguish between wealth‐increasing and wealth‐decreasing tender offers. We find some evidence of conflicts of interest in analyst recommendations, but it is confined to the 1999–2000 dot‐com period. However, the long‐run performance following recommendations suggests that these conflicts have little ultimate cost to investors.     

The Right Road to Monetary Union

How should European monetary coordination develop? John Chown and Geoffrey Wood argue that the European central banks should be forced to compete in providing the best monetary services.     

Mutual funds as monitors: Evidence from mutual fund voting

We address how mutual funds vote on shareholder proposals and identify factors that help determine support of wealth-increasing shareholder proposals. We examine 213,579 voting decisions made by 1799 mutual funds from 94 fund families for 1047 shareholder proposals voted on between July 2003 and June 2005. In an analysis of voting across funds within the same fund family, we find significant divergence in voting within families, emphasizing the importance of focusing on voting by individual funds. We also find that, in general, mutual funds vote more affirmatively for potentially wealth-increasing proposals and funds' voting approval rates for these beneficial resolutions are significantly higher than those of other investors. Our results suggest that funds tend to support proposals targeting firms with weaker governance. We also find that funds with lower turnover ratios and social funds are more likely to support shareholder proposals. Finally, fund voting approval rates significantly impact whether a proposal passes and whether one is implemented.     

Investment sequencing in the brick industry: an application of grounded theory

Since the work of George Richardson on the problem of investmentcoordination, the literature has focused on explaining equilibriumin investment games and neglected the problem of how investmentsare coordinated. This paper reports the findings of a case studyof the brick industry which used grounded theory techniquesto develop a new analysis of investment coordination. Our mainfindings indicate that, despite the high cost of excess capacityand the very clear signalling of investment intentions, brickfirms are reluctant to stand back and delay their own investmentswhen a rival firm is expanding. The fact that for the most partexcess investment is avoided is explained by reference to firms'heterogeneity and constraints to investment.     

Cognitive representations of the future: Survey results

This paper reports the results of a web-based survey concerning how people think about the future. Five hundred and seventy-two people from 24 countries completed the survey. The results indicate that when the respondents hear the word ‘future’, they think about a point in time 15 years into the future, on average, with a median response of 10 years. Respondents think less about the future than the present. On the other hand, they tend to worry more about the future than the present. Respondents’ ability to imagine the future goes ‘dark’ around 15-20 years into the future. Most of the respondents are optimistic about the near term, but become more pessimistic about the longer term. Respondents believe that humankind is not acting very responsibly with respect to a whole host of environmental and social issues but is acting responsibly with respect to technology. Almost half of the respondents would not wish to have been born in the future. Most of the other respondents would have preferred to have been born 50-500 years into the future. Approximately 45% of the sample believes that humankind will become extinct. The data suggest that Christians are more optimistic and less worried about the future and do not believe that we will become extinct. Males worry less but also think more about the future. There is a strong correlation between thinking about the future, clearly imagining the future, and being optimistic about the future. It is concluded that individuals have diverse and rich conceptions about the future but that they think less about the future than futurists might hope. Individuals’ considerations of the future are highly influenced by their identities and worldviews. Future research should focus on better unraveling these relationships and on understanding their implications for futures-oriented policy making.