Liquidity, analysts, and institutional ownership

In this paper, we investigate the empirical relationship between institutional ownership, number of analysts following and stock market liquidity. We find that firms with larger number of financial analysts following have wider spreads, lower market quality index, and larger price impact of trades. However, we find that firms with higher institutional ownership have narrower spreads, higher market quality index, and smaller price impact of trades. In addition, we show that changes in our liquidity measures are significantly related to changes in institutional ownership over time. These results suggest that firms may alleviate information asymmetry and improve stock market liquidity by increasing institutional ownership. Our results are remarkably robust to different measures of liquidity and measures of information asymmetry.     

Solidarische Privatversicherung oder Bürgerprivatversicherung? Eine Replik

In der Juniausgabe ver?ffentlichte der Wirtschaftsdienst einen Aufsatz mit dem Titel „Die Solidarische Privatversicherung — Ein Vorschlag zur Gesundheitsstrukturreform“. Dieses Konzept diskutieren Johann Eekhoff und Christine Wolfgramm und stellen dem einen eigenen Vorschlag entgegen. Ulrich van Suntum erl?utert seine Sichtweise in einer Erwiderung.     

Exchange traded contracts for difference: Design,pricing, and effects

Contracts for Difference (CFDs) are a significant financial innovation in the design of futures contracts. Over‐the‐counter trading in the UK is significant and has created controversy, but there is no published academic research into the design, pricing, and effects of CFDs. This study analyzes CFD contract design and pricing. It uses a unique database of trades and quotes on exchange traded equity CFDs introduced by the Australian Securities Exchange to test theoretical pricing relationships, and draws out implications for successful design and trading arrangements for the introduction of new derivative contracts. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark     

Regaining Missed Opportunities: The Role of Tourism in Post-war Development in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka had the opportunity to become one of the best tourism countries (TCs) in Asia immediately after independence in 1948. However, it missed opportunities on a number of occasions due to inappropriate economic policies, continuous political violence and war. Between 1983 and May 2009 the Sri Lankan tourism sector was seriously affected by nearly three decades of separatist war. Immediately after the end of the war, tourism in Sri Lanka bounced back and it has now become one of the main engines of economic growth in post-war Sri Lanka. In this article, a historical analysis has been undertaken to demonstrate how, despite its large tourism potential, Sri Lanka missed opportunities and fell far behind its Asian counterparts on a number of occasions. This article demonstrates that opportunities exist for the Sri Lankan tourism sector to play a vital role in the current post-war inclusive development strategy in terms of generating much needed foreign exchange, poverty alleviation via employment generation, accelerating economic growth and uplifting living standards of all Sri Lankans.     

Alcohol Advertising Controls in the 1990s

Public health campaigners have criticized the British system for the regulation of alcohol advertising, which relies on several distinct codes of practice governing different media. This paper looks at the options for change, in the light of the economic, political and technological factors that will influence the development of the UK's alcohol advertising policy in the 1990s. The available evidence on the costs and benefits of alternative policies is reviewed, drawing on the Addiction Research Centre's multi-disciplinary programme of work undertaken at the Universities of Hull and York. While there is some evidence that a ban on alcohol advertising would have a marginal effect on overall consumption, it is argued that legislative intervention is no longer feasible. Technological innovation and global pressures for deregulation have made it difficult for national governments to ban the advertising of any one product. At the same time, however, it is feared that commercial pressures resulting from the introduction of satellite broadcasting and the increased competition for advertising revenues could undermine the existing self-regulatory system and exert a downwards pressure on advertising standards. It is suggested that the way forward lies in developing a strong self-regulatory system throughout Europe.     

Money,interest rate spreads,and economic activity

Money, Interest Rate Spreads, and Economic Activity. —Numerous empirical studies for industrial countries have shown that the term structure of interest rates is a good indicator for future output growth. This paper analyzes whether the interest rate spread contains any additional predictive power if the model includes the money stock. A multivariate error-correction framework is applied to three European economies — France, Germany, and Italy. Granger causality tests are performed for various monetary aggregates and the term structure. The evidence concerning the marginal information content is mixed: For France and Italy, the term structure does not improve the results of the basic model whereas it is significant for Germany.     

A “Pure” long-term interest rate and the demand for money

This article presents the appropriate rate by which to discount a constant, certain, infinite stream of future payments: that is, the yield on a noncallable perpetuity or consol. The American consol series is a daily risk-free “pure” long term interest rate which is undistorted by tax effects, call premiums, and varying duration and reinvestment assumptions. If Hamburger had used the American consol series instead of the U.S. Government Long Term Bond Rate in his money demand function, he would have found more of the “missing money.” His average error (actual minus predicted money demand) as a percentage of actual money demand would have been reduced from 1.43% to 0.93% a 35% error reduction.