How much does tax erode fund excess returns?

We model the tax drag from active fund management based on reported monthly holdings of active equity funds. Tax drag erodes 65 percent of the 0.74 percent excess return in Broad Market funds, but only 21 percent of the 1.80 percent excess return in Small-Cap funds for Australian superannuation (pension) fund investors. Tax drag varies with investment style; market state, which is most detrimental during bull markets; and fund turnover. For high-income individual investors, tax drag is exacerbated to the extent that active management only generates meaningful after-tax excess return for Small-Cap funds of certain styles.     

The relationship between corporate governance and foreign ownership of the banks in developing countries

The aim of this paper is to determine the effect of corporate governance on foreign ownership of the banks. Within this context, annual data of 65 developing countries for the periods between 2004 and 2013 was analyzed. In addition to this situation, 7 explanatory variables were used in this study in order to achieve this objective. As a result of the analysis, it was identified that there is a strong relationship between operations of foreign banks and governance levels of the countries. In this regard, it was determined that the factors of corruption, political stability, rule of law and flexibility in legal regulations affect foreign bank operations. Moreover, it was also analyzed that foreign bank operations are stronger in the countries that have low poverty, high political stability and efficient legal infrastructure. On the other hand, it was defined that strict legal regulation affects foreign bank operations negatively which shows that foreign banks prefer to enter into the countries that have flexible legal regulations. This study gives essential information to developing countries about the factors that affect the decisions of foreign banks in order to enter into a developing country. Therefore, by considering the results of this study, the authorities of these countries can have a chance to take necessary actions so as to attract foreign banks.     

‘Swift Rail’—funding local rail transit through smarter growth

Many medium-size cities suffer from severe traffic congestion and poor accessibility, limiting their potential to improve their economy, environment, and social equity. These problems could be addressed by creating high-quality transit linking such cities with suburban and other catchment areas through use of existing rail lines and abandoned former railway alignments. This concept, termed ‘Swift Rail’, would call for an innovative approach to local railway and transport development.     

Motives for a secular pilgrimage to the Gallipoli battlefields

Pilgrimage is a journey to a non-substitutable site embodying the highly valued, the deeply meaningful, or a source of core identity for the traveller. Secular pilgrimage is an important yet under-researched sector of the tourism industry. Where the motives for religious pilgrimage are well documented, little is known of the motives for secular pilgrimages. This paper presents the results of an empirical investigation of one case of secular pilgrimage, the journey of Australians and New Zealanders to the Gallipoli battlefields in Turkey. Five distinct motives for visits to the pilgrimage site are identified – spiritual, nationalistic, family pilgrimage, friendship and travel motives – and differences in their importance noted across seven visitor groups. These motives share some commonality with the motives for religious pilgrimage, and conversely, with the motives for leisure tourism; yet, other motives are unique to the secular pilgrimage. Suggestions for future research on secular pilgrimage are provided.     

Spatial Planning and Transport in London and the South East—Can Policy Co-Ordination and Delivery be Achieved?

The railway system in London and the south east is fundamental to London in its roles as the capital of the country and as a world-class financial and business centre. This article examines the formal strategies for spatial planning and railway investment in London and the south east and shows that there is a distinct dichotomy between spatial and transport planning. The authors explain the key investments needed in the network. They call for the Government to demonstrate how land use planning and transport investment are dovetailed together and properly funded, and for the Strategic Rail Authority to act more in concert with regional and local interests.     

Are price strategies effective in managing demand of high residential water users?

Encouraging water use efficiency and water conservation is one of the primary goals of water utility companies nationwide. This study estimates price elasticity of residential water demand to measure the responsiveness of water use to price changes, particularly for high water users. Household-level water use data for high residential water users from Central Florida were analysed using 3-stage least square (3SLS). Estimated price elasticity ranges between ?0.07 and ?0.14. This price elasticity estimate is below most of the estimates reported in the literature (in absolute value). The results imply that for price strategies to be effective in managing water demand of high residential water users, a significant price increase would be needed. Overall, this study highlights the importance of designing water conservation policies tailored to specific groups of customers, and the importance of using these strategies effectively and fairly for different customer groups.     

Computing maximin efficient experimental designs using the methods of semidefinite programming

In the paper, we solve the problem of computing the maximin efficient design with respect to the class of all orthogonally invariant criteria. It turns out that on a finite experimental domain, the maximin efficient design can be computed by the methods of semidefinite programming. Using this approach, we can deal with the non-differentiability inherent in the problem, due to which the standard iterative procedures cannot be applied. We illustrate the results on the models of polynomial regression on a line segment and quadratic regression on a cube.     

Contests over joint production on networks

We consider a network of heterogeneous agents where each edge represents a two‐player contest between the respective nodes. In these bilateral contests, agents compete over an endogenous prize jointly produced using their own contest efforts. We provide a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of Nash equilibrium and characterize the equilibrium total effort for every agent. Our model has insightful results regarding the network type, that is, depending on whether the network is bipartite or nonbipartite. Finally, considering the sum of all expected utilities as an efficiency notion, we investigate the optimal network structure.     

A conditional distribution approach to uniform sampling on spheres and balls in Lp spaces

Liang and Ng (Metrika 68:83–98, 2008) proposed a componentwise conditional distribution method for L _p -uniform sampling on L _p -norm n-spheres. On the basis of properties of a special family of L _p -norm spherical distributions we suggest a wide class of algorithms for sampling uniformly distributed points on n-spheres and n-balls in L _p spaces, generalizing the approach of Harman and Lacko (J Multivar Anal 101:2297–2304, 2010), and including the method of Liang and Ng as a special case. We also present results of a numerical study proving that the choice of the best algorithm from the class significantly depends on the value of p.