The Informational Efficiency of the Equity Market As Compared to the Syndicated Bank Loan Market

The loan market is a hybrid between a public and a private market, comprised of financial institutions with access to private information about borrowing firms. We test whether this is reflected in informationally efficient price formation in the loan market vis-a-vis the equity markets, and reject this private information hypothesis. We also reject a liquidity hypothesis which suggests that equity markets always lead loan markets, despite bank lenders' access to private information, because of greater liquidity in equity markets. We further test, and reject, an asymmetric price reaction hypothesis that states that loan returns are more sensitive to negative information whereas equity returns respond symmetrically to both positive and negative information. We find evidence most consistent with an integrated markets hypothesis that suggests that both the equity and syndicated bank loan markets are highly integrated such that information flows freely across markets. This is particularly true when the equity market makers are also loan syndicate members.      

Anatomy of entrepreneurial marketing

The motivation for this special issue came from the growing attention and debate on what constitutes Entrepreneurial Marketing (EM). Research in EM was first pursued collectively by the Special Interest Group of the American Marketing Association about three decades ago. Recently, there is widespread recognition of the significance of entrepreneurship and innovation to marketing, and indeed the importance of marketing in successful entrepreneurship. Whereas many scholars view that EM is more suitable for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), there is also now a growing recognition of the important role of entrepreneurs in any marketing activities including at the corporate, community and social level. In light of this, it is not surprising that the government, industry and academics are recognising the contribution of EM to explain a range of issues. Although entrepreneurship and marketing are individually acknowledged as a major element in improving firm performance, their dynamics are still an area with limited theory and empirical work being undertaken. These issues have been highlighted in many international marketing and entrepreneurship conferences in the last 10 years. Indeed this special issue was proposed after EM special sessions held at the 2013 AMS WMC (Academy of Marketing Science World Marketing Congress) in Melbourne and ANZMAC 2013 (Australia and New Zealand Marketing Association Conference) in Auckland, New Zealand. The collection of papers presented in this Special Edition of Journal of Strategic Marketing was selected from the papers submitted at the close of the call for papers and following double blind review process. From the review process, authors of five submissions were selected and compiled into this [special issue on the Anatomy of Entrepreneurial Marketing]. It is our intention that this special issue becomes a valuable resource for both scholars and practitioners alike.     

New Methods for Forecasting Inflation,Applied to the US*

Models for the 12‐month‐ahead US rate of inflation, measured by the chain‐weighted consumer expenditure deflator, are estimated for 1974–98 and subsequent pseudo out‐of‐sample forecasting performance is examined. Alternative forecasting approaches for different information sets are compared with benchmark univariate autoregressive models, and substantial out‐performance is demonstrated including against Stock and Watson's unobserved components‐stochastic volatility model. Three key ingredients to the out‐performance are: including equilibrium correction component terms in relative prices; introducing nonlinearities to proxy state‐dependence in the inflation process and replacing the information criterion, commonly used in VARs to select lag length, with a ‘parsimonious longer lags’ parameterization. Forecast pooling or averaging also improves forecast performance.     

Growth and Institutions: A Review of the Evidence

Africa's disappointing economic performance, the East Asianfinancial crisis, and the weak record of the former Soviet Unionhave focused attention on the role of institutions in determininga economic growth. This article critically reviews the literaturethat tries to link quantitative measures of institutions, suchas civil liberties and property rights, with growth of grossdomestic product across countries and over time. An importantdistinction is made between indicators that measure the performanceor quality of institutions and those that measure politicaland social characteristics and political instability. The evidencesuggests a link between the quality of institutions and investmentand growth, but the evidence is by no means robust.      

Product resource–capability complementarity,integration mechanisms,and first product advantage

The current study extends work on resource-based theory (RBT) by exploring resource—capability complementarity in a new context—that of new technology ventures' (NTVs) first product (FP) commercialization in India. This study examines the influence of marketing and technology resource–capability complementarity on FP positional advantages (differentiation and cost-efficiency) and their influence on first product performance (FPP). Furthermore, this study incorporates the influence of supplier integration (SI) mechanisms (in terms of knowledge sharing and co-commercialization) in the process of FP commercialization. The findings suggest that asset complementarities have a positive relation with FP positional advantages, in that both differentiation and cost-efficiency enhance an NTV's FPP, and that SI moderates the relationships between both marketing and technology R–C complementarity and FP positional advantages.     

Mutual fund corporate culture and performance

In this paper we test if a mutual fund's own corporate culture predicts fund performance. To do this we use Morningstar's corporate culture ratings for mutual funds and then examine the ability of these corporate culture ratings to predict risk-adjusted performance of domestic equity funds over the period 2005–2010. Using methods that are robust to survivorship bias, we find there is little significant evidence that corporate culture predicts better fund performance. Indeed, we find that no individual component of the Morningstar stewardship rating including board quality, fees, manager incentives and regulatory issues is able to consistently predict fund performance.     

The Role of Banks in Dividend Policy

We use loan‐specific data to document a significant inverse relation between a firm's dividend payouts and the intensity of a firm's reliance on bank loan financing. Banks limit dividend payouts to protect the integrity of their senior claims on the firm's assets. Moreover, dividend payouts decline in the presence of monitoring by relationship banks, which acts as an effective governance mechanism, thereby reducing the gains from precommitting to costly dividend payouts. Bank monitoring and corporate governance (insider stake and institutional block holdings) are complementary mechanisms to resolve firm agency problems, both reducing the firm's reliance on dividend policy.     

The work of mapping and the mapping of work: prosumer roles in crowdsourced maps

This paper presents an analysis of crowdsourcing work with a particular focus on exploring what forces and characteristics of the collaboration practices and technologies encourage and discourage prosumer work behaviours. Data were gathered through depth interviews with prosumers of a crowdsourced digital nautical map, observational netnographic research of prosumers on angling forums, and interviews and meetings with the map providers. Incorporating research on consumer work and prosumption, three distinct prosumer roles are identified based on how angling prosumers differentially produce and consume the crowdsourced maps. These roles show multiple behaviours along the prosumption continuum, and in so doing extend the continuum by introducing a second dimension – work as private versus public prosumer activity. It concludes by offering suggestions for marketers to engage with prosumers in crowdsourcing contexts.