Establishing the need for a low‐cost Canadian debt relief procedure

Canada does not have a low‐cost bankruptcy option for debtors with low incomes and low assets. In this article, we present empirical evidence of the need for such an option by estimating the number of debtors who might benefit from it. We then review the successful low‐cost bankruptcy options in operation in New Zealand and in the United Kingdom and recommend that Canada adopt a similar system.     

On the Relation between Local Amenities and House Price Dynamics

This study explores the extent to which local amenities are related to house price volatility, returns and risk‐adjusted returns across 238 MSAs. We find strong evidence that high amenity areas experience greater price volatility. In regards to returns, high amenity areas experience greater (lower) real returns in appreciating (depreciating) markets. However, high amenity areas experience little to no abnormal risk‐adjusted returns. Results from the study are robust to an endogenous treatment of amenities and land supply elasticity. Overall, we conclude that the desirability of a metropolitan area is a significant channel through which land values drive house price dynamics.     

IPO first‐day returns: Skewness preference,investor sentiment and uncertainty underlying factors

In this paper, we investigate the initial public offering (IPO) first-day returns. Our focus is to examine the irrational component of the agent behavior towards IPO lotteries. Based on 234 French IPOs performed between 2002 and 2012, we find that IPOs with high initial returns have higher idiosyncratic skewness, turnover and momentum. This finding provides empirical evidence for investors' preference for stocks with lottery-like features and investor sentiment. In addition, we show that the skewness preference and the investor sentiment effect are stronger during periods of favorable market conditions. Our results are robust to the integration of uncertainty underlying factors.     

Effectiveness and Efficiency of Cross-Border Knowledge Transfer: An Empirical Examination

abstract    Based on a sample of 102 US organizations, this study examines the impact of knowledge characteristics, recipient learning intent, source attractiveness, and relationship quality on the effectiveness and efficiency of knowledge transfer from the international business affiliates of these organizations. Findings indicate that recipient learning intent and source attractiveness positively impact the effectiveness of knowledge transfer. In addition, recipient learning intent was found to have a positive effect on knowledge transfer efficiency. In particular, results highlight the strong positive impact that the quality of the relationship between the source and the recipient has on both the efficiency and effectiveness of cross-border knowledge transfer. The study also indicates that knowledge value is positively associated with recipient learning intent and that knowledge value, rarity and non-substitutability influence source attractiveness. Finally, findings suggest that the relationship between knowledge characteristics and knowledge transfer is partially mediated by recipient learning intent and source attractiveness.     

Sim-heuristics low-carbon technologies’ selection framework for reducing costs and carbon emissions of heavy goods vehicles

ABSTRACT

UK logistics fleets face increasing competitive pressures due to volatile fuel prices and the small profit margins in the industry. By reducing fuel consumption, operational costs and carbon emissions can be reduced. While there are a number of technologies that can reduce fuel consumption, it is often difficult for logistics companies to identify which would be the most beneficial to adopt over the medium and long terms. With a myriad of possible technology combinations, optimising the vehicle specification for specific duty cycles requires a robust decision-making framework. This paper combines simulated truck and delivery routes with a metaheuristic evolutionary algorithm to select the optimal combination of low-carbon technologies that minimise the greenhouse gas emissions of long-haul heavy goods vehicles during their lifetime cost. The framework presented is applicable to other vehicles, including road haulage, waste collection fleets and buses by using tailored parameters in the heuristics model.     

Does intraday technical analysis in the U.S. equity market have value?

This paper investigates whether intraday technical analysis is profitable in the U.S. equity market. Surveys of market participants indicate that they place more emphasis on technical analysis (and less on fundamental analysis) the shorter the time horizon; however, the technical analysis literature to date has focused on long-term technical trading rules. We find, using two bootstrap methodologies, that none of the 7846 popular technical trading rules we test are profitable after data snooping bias is taken into account. There is no evidence that the market is inefficient over this time horizon.     

Rare disaster risk and the expected equity risk premium

Consistent with the predictions of rare disaster models, we find that a proxy for the time‐varying probability of rare disasters helps to explain fluctuations in expectations of the equity risk premium. Our proxy for disaster risk is a recently developed measure of global political instability, and the expected market risk premium is from Value Line analysts' expected stock returns. Consistent with long‐run risk models, uncertainty about expected GDP growth and expected consumption growth is also significantly positively related to the expected market risk premium. We obtain similar results when we use the earnings–price ratio and the dividend–price ratio as proxies for the expected market risk premium.