Prices and returns on paintings: An exercise on how to price the priceless

Art is priceless, but paintings, and other objects, have been sold on markets since the time of the Roman Empire. In this paper, we describe a method for constructing a price index for paintings and compare this index to the indices of various financial markets. In particular, we discuss whether the price of art is related to financial markets, whether the art market is weakly efficient, and whether it is more or less risky than financial markets.     

Black business ownership in the rural south

The relatively low business ownership rate among blacks nationwide (12.5 per 1,000 people) is even lower in the rural South (8.8 per 1,000). This study uses Census Bureau data to document the level of business ownership among blacks in the rural South and to explore a number of hypotheses regarding the low level of business ownership among rural blacks and the variation from state to state. The size of the black population in the rural areas of a state is negatively correlated with the rural black business ownership rate in the state, while the education level, income level and homeownership level of blacks in rural areas of a state is positively correlated with the rural black business ownership rate. However, it appears that statewide economic conditions may be more closely related to the level of rural black business ownership than are characteristics of rural blacks.     

Knowledge and attitudes of Bahraini adolescents towards obesity

The aim of this study is to evaluate the knowledge and attitudes of Bahraini secondary students towards obesity. A multistage stratified sampling procedure was used to select 742 adolescents aged 14 to 19 years. The findings revealed that the knowledge of adolescents toward causes and complications of obesity was quite sufficient. However, adolescents were more likely to believe many food fads related to reducing weight. Lack of physical excercise, excessive food intake and heredity were the main reasons given by adolescents for obesity. Girls were more likely to depend on television (71—3%) and newspapers and magazine (55—6%) as sources of nutrition education than boys (66—7% and 44—8%, respectively). It was concluded that the school curriculum should include more information about nutritional problems prevalent in the community.     

Detection of Management Fraud: A Neural Network Approach

The detection of management fraud is an important issue facing the auditing profession. A major contributor to this issue is the Loebbecke and Willingham (1988) conceptual model for the detection of management fraud. A cascaded Logit approach using the Loebbecke and Willingham model was developed in Bell et al. (1993). The present study offers an alternative approach using Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). This paper develops a successful discriminator of management fraud using both the generalized adaptive neural network architectures (GANNA) and the Adaptive Logic Network (ALN) approaches to designing neural networks. The discriminant functions can distinguish between fraudulent and non-fraudulent companies with superior accuracy to the cascaded Logit results of Bell et al. (1993). Finally, the discriminant function provides a parsimonious set of questions useful for detecting management fraud.     

Disconfirmation processes and consumer evaluations in product usage

Recent works on satisfaction theory have shown that disconfirmation plays a major role in the determination of satisfaction levels. Less, however, is known about the mental process used by consumers to form disconfirmation cognitions. This study operationalized and tested the role of two types of disconfirmation, inferential and overall (perceived), on the satisfaction of appetite suppressant users after first trial and repeat usage situations. Results showed that overall perceptions mediated the relationship between inferred disconfirmation and satisfaction in both time frames, as hypothesized.