Ago\ra Partnerships Nicaragua: A micro venture capital fund

Agora Partnerships is a micro venture capital fund founded by Benjamin Powell in the US and Ricardo T. Teran in Nicaragua. Agora started operations in 2005 with the goal of identifying and supporting entrepreneurs and business plans with high potential for success. The fund faces some unique challenges. First, the size of the businesses that is investing in does not allow for a traditional “management fee” structure. Secondly, traditional investment exits are nearly impossible in Nicaragua. This teaching case includes analysis on sources of investment capital, deal structures, and expected returns. The unresolved dilemma remains how to structure an investment proposal attractive to both investors and entrepreneurs. The case also allows discussing how to adapt the venture capital model to an emerging country like Nicaragua.     

Can Operating Leverage Be the Cause of the Value Premium?

Recent theoretical models (Carlson, Fisher, and Giammarino, 2004) predict an association between the book-to-market equity ratio (BE/ME) and operating leverage in the cross-section. Consistent with these models, we find a positive association between BE/ME and the degree of operating leverage (DOL), between DOL and stock returns, and between DOL and systematic risk. Overall, our findings provide support for a risk-based explanation for the value premium that is consistent with existing theoretical models. The evolution of systematic risk associated with firm-level investment activity, rather than financial distress, seems to be the main determinant of the value premium.     

Knowledge sharing and the dynamics of social capital

Mutual aid often entails the sharing of knowledge. We investigate how, in turn, knowledge sharing affects the long-run dynamics of mutual aid. In our economy, agents with specific knowledge are “held up” by their principals. Inside communities, agents aid each other by sharing their specific knowledge. This process generates a new type of knowledge which exacerbates the specificity of the existing types and induces more agents to engage in mutual aid. However, since the knowledge generated is shared, it progressively renders agents inside communities more flexible and, thus, less dependent on mutual aid. We characterize conditions under which in the long-run mutual aid spreads or is abandoned.     

Stock picking,market timing and style differences between socially responsible and conventional pension funds: evidence from the United Kingdom

As far as we are aware, this study presents the first comparative analysis of the stock picking and market timing abilities of managers of conventional and socially responsible (SR) pension funds, and of their use of superior information. For the United Kingdom, the results obtained show a slight stock picking ability on the part of SR pension fund managers (although it disappears if multifactorial models are considered), and a negative market timing ability on the part of both SR and conventional pension fund managers (these results hold for multifactorial models controlled by home bias). In relation to the management styles, both conventional and SR pension funds usually invest in small cap and growth values, although it is the SR pension funds that are the most exposed to these styles. We also observed that, while conventional pension fund managers make certain use of superior information to follow stock picking strategies, managers of SR pension funds use superior information to follow market timing strategies.     

Productivity Accounting in Vertically (Hyper‐)integrated Terms: Bridging the Gap between Theory and Empirics

The present paper is a methodological contribution introducing a disaggregated physical productivity accounting framework in vertically (hyper‐)integrated terms, establishing a direct correspondence between Supply–Use Tables and Pasinetti's (1973, 1988) theoretical magnitudes. As an empirical application, we computed productivity indicators and indexes of direction of technical change at the subsystem level for the case of Italy during 1999–2007. Our findings suggest that: (a) only 60 per cent of productivity growth accrued to real wages, (b) the degree of mechanization increased, (c) the most dynamic subsystems correspond to consolidated sectors, and (d) technical change has almost always been capital intensity increasing.     

A conceptual framework for public-private interplay in the telecommunications sector

Public activity in the telecommunications industry has experienced important transformations in the last decade: “reinvolvement” in infrastructure deployment, “innovative” boosting measures, and decentralisation of some decisions. Conceptually, even more important than the measures themselves is the fact that private agents often participate in their realisation and execution. This paper reviews how justifications for public action that would apply to any economic activity area have modelled the public-private relationship in the telecommunications sector. Subsequently, it focuses on the analysis of the new spaces for public-private collaboration that are currently opening up.     

Optimal Portfolio Choice for Long-Horizon Investors with Nontradable Labor Income

This paper examines how risky labor income and retirement affect optimal portfolio choice. With idiosyncratic labor income risk, the optimal allocation to stocks is unambiguously larger for employed investors than for retired investors, consistent with the typical recommendations of investment advisors. Increasing idiosyncratic labor income risk raises investors' willingness to save and reduces their stock portfolio allocation towards the level of retired investors. Positive correlation between labor income and stock returns has a further negative effect and can actually reduce stockholdings below the level of retired investors.     

Saving in Developing Countries: An Overview

This article reviews the current state of knowledge on the determinantsof saving rates, presenting the main findings and contributionsof the recently completed World Bank research project, ‘SavingAcross the World.’ The article discusses the basic designof the research project and its core database, the World SavingDatabase. It then summarizes the main project results and placesthem in the context of the literature on saving, identifyingthe key policy and nonpolicy determinants of private savingrates. Special attention is paid to the relationship betweengrowth and saving and the impact of specific policies on savingrates. The article concludes by introducing the studies includedin this special issue.