Why managers divest—Evidence from New Zealand's largest companies

Chief Executives from New Zealand's largest companies were surveyed to distinguish divesting and nondivesting companies, and to identify the relative importance of the factors and motives which led to the divestment of 208 business units in the period 1985 through 1990. The divesting companies were considerably larger and faster growing than nondivestors. The typical divestment was motivated by the need to convert unattractive assets into liquid form which could then be held to strengthen the balance sheet, or reinvested in either the core business or new areas.     

Testing for abnormal security-price performance under conditions of event-period uncertainty

This paper examines an event study test procedure based on cumulative average residuals (CARs) and a boundary-crossing probability for Brownian motion. The boundary-crossing test procedure is designed to detect abnormal security-price performance under conditions of event-period uncertainty. Simulations with daily security-return data show that the boundary-crossing test is well specified under the null hypothesis and has good power properties under the alternative hypothesis of abnormal security-price performance distributed over an event period of uncertain length.     

The New Growth Theory and Coasean economics: Institutions to capture externalities

The New Growth Theory and Coasean Economics: Institutions to Capture Externalities. — This paper presents the main theoretical arguments which lead many adherents of the New Growth Theory to the conclusion that externalities in research and development are important for economic growth and warrant government subsidies. In contrast, the authors point to private institutions like associations, company structures and industry clusters which can capture such externalities. An international comparison of private R&;D investment and special features of institutions in Switzerland and Japan are in line with this hypothesis. Thus, the argument for R&;D subsidies made by the New Growth Theory is considerably reduced.     

AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION INTO THE IMPACT OF PROFIT SHARING SCHEMES OF EXECUTIVIES ON THE CONTENT OF CORPORATE SUBMISSIONS ON PROPOSED ACCOUNTING STANDARDS

This paper examines the comments submitted by UK companies on 20 proposed accounting standards to test the hypotheses that executives favor standards that increase, or dampen the variance of, accounting profit numbers on which their incentive remuneration is based. Test results were generally as hypothesised but only the profit variance outcomes were statistically significant. Allowing for political environment changes affected only the profit variance results. There was no evidence that the relative monetary size of bonus payments was a significant lobbying factor. No significant differences were found between the lobbying preferences of companies with or without executive incentive schemes.     

INDEPENDENT EXPERT'S REPORTS IN TAKEOVER BIDS

This paper reports an empirical examination of independent expert reports in takeover bids using the 170 reports that were issued in the 364 cash-based bids that occurred between January 1988 and December 1991. It was found that bid premia offered in takeover bids where an expert's report was issued were not significantly lower than bid premia in other bids. This may be attributable to independent experts acting as a countervailing influence on bidders holding a superior pre-bid bargaining position. Next, some dimensions of the “fair and reasonable” criterion that experts are required to use are examined. These are the single-test and dual-test interpretations of the phrase, the relation between offer price, market price and the expert's valuation of the target, the cost and length of expert's reports and, finally, the influence an expert has on the outcome of a bid.     

Estimating nonlinear time-series models using simulated vector autoregressions

This paper develops two new methods for conducting formal statistical inference in nonlinear dynamic economic models. The two methods require very little analytical tractability, relying instead on numerical simulation of the model's dynamic behaviour. Although one of the estimators is asymptotically more efficient than the other, a Monte Carlo study shows that, for a specific application, the less efficient estimator has smaller mean squared error in samples of the size typically encountered in macroeconomics. The estimator with superior small sample performance is used to estimate the parameters of a real business cycle model using observed US time-series data.     

Game theoretic derivations of competitive strategies in conjoint analysis

While conjoint analysis has been applied in a wide variety of different contexts in Marketing, most applications fail to explicitly consider retaliatory reactions from competitors. In this paper, a methodological extension is developed for conjoint analysis by explicitly modeling competition in a game theoretic context. The Nash equilibrium concept is employed to model competitive reactions to produce design, and its implications for reactive product strategies are discussed. The optimal product design problem for each firm is formulated as a nonlinear integer programming problem, which is solved via a specialized branch and bound method combined with a heuristic. In order to compute a Nash equilibrium, a sequential iterative procedure is proposed. The proposed procedure is illustrated under several scenarios of competition using previously published conjoint data.This research has been supported by the Henry Rutgers Research Fellowship, Rutgers University.     

An interview with Rhonda Anderson. Interview by Connie R. Curran

Nurse executives working in a hospital system experience varied and challenging opportunities to enhance the quality of patient care as well as the success of their professional careers. In this interview, Rhonda Anderson, MPA, RN, CNAA, discusses the hospital system, the managed care environment, and the importance of developing nurse managers.     

Measurement error and panel data1

The underidentification of linear models with measurement error does not necessarily extend to panel data models, as has been shown by GAiliches and Hausman (1986). We discuss and extend some of their results for a simple case and address particular issues concerning identification and asymptotic variances.