Do Price Discreteness and Transactions Costs Affect Stock Returns? Comparing Ex‐Dividend Pricing before and after Decimalization

By the end of January 2001, all NYSE stocks had converted their price quotations from 1/8s and 1/16s to decimals. This study examines the effect of this change in price quotations on ex‐dividend day activity. We find that abnormal ex‐dividend day returns increase in the 1/16 and decimal pricing eras, relative to the 1/8 era, which is inconsistent with microstructure explanations of ex‐day price movements. We also find that abnormal returns increase in conjunction with a May 1997 reduction in the capital gains tax rate, as they should if relative taxation of dividends and capital gains affects ex‐day pricing.     

Book reviews

The Co-operation Phenomena: Prc)spects for Small Firms and the Small EconomiesDermont O'Doherty (Ed.)London, Irish Science and Technology Ajrency, Graham & Trotman, 1990, 270pp.

Flexible Manufacturing Technologies & International Competitiveness J. Tidd London, Pinter, 1991, ll3pp., £35.00.

Technology Strategy and the Firm: Management and Public Policy Mark Dodgson (Ed.)London, Longman, 1990, 252pp., £25.00 pb.

Computerization in Developing Countries: Model and Reality Per Lind London, Routledge, 1990, 175pp., £35.00 hb.

The Fifth Branch—Science Advisers as Policy Makers Sheila Jasonoff Cambridge, MA, Haroard University Press, 1990, 302pp., £22.50.     

Business Ethics in the USA: Some Reasons to Smile

In spite of some recent bad news coming out of America our Associate Editor reports positively on the business ethics scene there both in the business community and in a recent major Conference. She holds the Coston Family Chair in Leadership and Ethics at Jepson School of Leadership Studies, University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia 23173, USA.     

In the mirror of the market: The disciplinary effects of company/fund manager meetings

This paper draws upon empirical qualitative research with Finance Directors and Investor Relations managers to examine the disciplinary consequences of their meetings with institutional investors. These ‘private’ meetings have increased both in frequency and importance in the last decade, but, when compared to public disclosure, they are relatively under researched. Existing studies have focussed on the role that the meetings play either in the market for information, or as a mechanism for corporate governance. By contrast, in this paper we draw upon Foucault’s analysis of power/knowledge to explore how the meetings shape executive subjectivity. The meetings take place in the context of a proliferation of techniques through which corporate performance is disclosed, modelled, compared and ranked. Such visibility makes possible processes of executive subjection which the paper traces firstly in the anticipatory self-discipline of executive’s extensive rehearsals for the meetings, and secondly in the rituals of face-to-face scrutiny of the meetings themselves where the body of the executive is understood to represent the company. The paper then explores the ways in which subjection to investors enables executives to speak on behalf of the investor within the business and effect its restructuring in the name of shareholder value. We suggest that these neglected disciplinary effects of company/fund manager meetings have been all too potent in recent years.     

海归派撑起中国IC业

中国籍工程师David Hu(胡祥)和JohnYu(于晓光)在美国接受了高中和大学教育,现在他们用所学到的知识在祖国创业。苹果公司的创始人Steve Jobs和Steve Wozniak毕业于美国加州硅谷的Homestead高中。整整一代过去了,现在,这所学校又为我们贡献了