Comprehensive assessment of patients with irritable bowel syndrome with constipation and chronic idiopathic constipation using deterministically linked administrative claims and patient-reported data: the Chronic Constipation and IBS-C Treatment and Outcomes Real-World Research Platform (CONTOR)

Abstract

Aims

To characterize a US population of patients with irritable bowel syndrome with constipation (IBS-C) or chronic idiopathic constipation (CIC) using CONTOR, a real-world longitudinal research platform that deterministically linked administrative claims data with patient-reported outcomes data among patients with these conditions.     

Unit initial public offerings: Staged equity or signaling mechanism?

We investigate the use of unit (i.e., package) initial public offerings by Australian industrial firms and conclude that their use reflects their role as a signaling mechanism (Chemmanur and Fulghieri, 1997), as distinct from the agency–cost explanation offered by Schultz (1993). From a sample of 394 IPOs between 1976 and 1994, the 66 firms making unit offerings are typically riskier, use less prestigious underwriters and have a lower level of retained ownership than other IPO firms. While these results are also consistent with Schultz's agency cost explanation, other results we report are not. We find no difference in underpricing etween unit IPOs and other IPO firms, nor are there any significant differences in the planned uses of proceeds reported in the prospectus, post–listing failure rates or secondary equity offerings of the type predicted by Schultz. We do however, report evidence consistent with a prediction unique to the signaling explanation. After controlling for the level of ownership retained by insiders, the proportion of firm value sold as warrants is increasing in IPO firms' riskiness.     

The Effect of Illegal Insider Trading on Takeover Premia

This paper empirically investigates whether illegal insidertrading increases the premium a bidder pays for a target. Illegalinsider trading is trading by traditional corporate insiders,as well as others in a position of trust and confidence (e.g.investment bankers, lawyers), based on material, non-publicinformation (‘inside information’). The paper examinesthe premia of takeovers with known illegal insider trading andcompares them to a control sample of takeovers matched by industry,time period, and size that do not have detected illegal insidertrading. After controlling for differences in merger characteristics,such as number of bidders, type of offer, form of payment, etc.,we find that takeovers with detected illegal insider tradinghave takeover premia which are approximately 10 percentage points,or almost one-third, higher than the control sample. We conductadditional tests in an attempt to determine the direction ofcausality between illegal insider trading and takeover premiasize and explore the effect of potential detection bias. Theresults suggest both that illegal inside traders base theirtrades on factors other than premia size, and that illegal insidertrading in takeovers with large premia is not necessarily morelikely to be detected. Our findings are consistent with thehypothesis that the illegal insider trading itself tends tocreate larger takeover premia.     

IOSCO《证券监管目标和原则》述评

在评估监管机构效率的标准上，《目标和原则》为新兴市场和发达市场的监管均提出了应当达到的最佳实践标准，并且还为新兴市场监管提供了与国内相关各方特别是和政府谈判的筹码。     

Economic forecast quality: information timeliness and data vintage effects

This paper investigates the impact of the timeliness of information releases and data vintage variation on economic forecast quality. Specifically, using a set of 63 key US economic series, we provide a concise measure of the forecast accuracy associated with use of economic activity indices with different publication lags. A forecasting model based on an economic activity index that is subject to a short publication lag (viz. the Aruoba-Diebold-Scotti index) is more efficient than competing models. Moreover, if this publication lag advantage is removed (by artificially imposing a publication lag restriction comparable to that of a competing indicator) this efficiency largely disappears. The final part of the analysis employs a novel (simulation-based) method of assessing the impact of data vintage variation on forecast accuracy, and finds that the results are somewhat sensitive to such variation.     

Marrying personality and job resources and their effect on engagement via critical psychological states

This study examined the process by which individuals become engaged with their jobs by integrating seminal engagement theory. More specifically, we suggest that an individual factor (i.e. autotelic personality) and two contextual factors (i.e. feedback environment, job autonomy) interact to predict work engagement through three critical psychological states – namely availability, meaningfulness, and safety. This moderated mediation framework was tested using a cross section of the US population (n = 284); data were collected at two points in time with 3 months in between. Availability and meaningfulness mediated the relationship between autotelic personality and work engagement. Autotelic personality’s indirect effect on work engagement through meaningfulness and safety was conditional such that the nature of feedback environment’s effect depended on job autonomy level. Theory and practice implications are discussed.