Does local political support influence financial markets? A study on the impact of job approval ratings of political representatives on local stock returns

Using data on job approval ratings of governors, U.S. senators, and the president, we find that firms located in states with high approval ratings outperform firms located in states with low approval ratings by .64% per month. Furthermore, this relationship is stronger when investors are actively involved in politics, when local politicians are closer to the center of political power, for small firms that have a larger proportion of local investors, and for financially strong areas where investors are ready to execute investments in local stocks. Overall, our study shows that investors’ political sentiment is important in determining stock returns.     

Sixty years of research on technology and human resource management: Looking back and looking forward

Technology has changed the way we work and how companies manage their employees. This article reviews 60 years of research on the relationship between technology and human resource management, as represented in Human Resource Management. Based on 154 articles, we identify recurring and evolving patterns of research on technology across three time periods (separated by the advent of the personal computer in 1977 and by the popularization of consumer internet services in 1997), three perspectives on technology (tool, proxy, and ensemble view of technology), and three thematic streams (the impact of technology on jobs and organizations, the utilization of technology in HR activities, and the management of technology workers). Drawing on patterns of research that emerged in the past, we provide suggestions for future HR research on newly arriving technology.     

Spatial heterogeneity of country-of-origin effects within a country: analysis of online review ratings in the US car market

We investigate spatial heterogeneity of country-of-origin effects (COEs) within a country and its determinants. Drawing on the literature of COEs and information economics, we maintain that COEs are heterogeneous across regions within a country, which bears important implications to better understand subnational heterogeneity of consumer preferences. We employ a geographically weighted regression model, a spatial analysis to estimate varying COEs across regions in the USA, and analyze online review ratings of US and foreign car bands in the US market during the 2008–2014 period. The results show that (1) COEs of car brands from Germany, Japan, Korea, and the UK are heterogeneous across regions in the USA; (2) geographic distance from the country-of-origin exerts negative influences on COEs; and (3) the proportion of population born in the country-of-origin positively influences COEs.     

Equilibrium audit strategies against tax treaty shopping

This paper examines game‐theoretic models of tax treaty shopping. An investor can choose a direct or indirect investment route across countries to minimize tax. A tax agency can audit the investor. The audit is costly but it can give additional revenue to the tax agency. In simultaneous‐move games, regardless of whether incomplete information exists and whether a home country allows foreign tax credits, there are mixed‐strategy equilibria where the investor may choose tax‐minimizing indirect routes and the tax agency may audit the investor. This equilibrium random audit strategy helps the tax agency raise revenue and reduce treaty shopping. Comparative statics yields an implication consistent with empirical evidence. However, if the home country has a foreign tax credit system with a high tax rate, or if the tax agency observes the investor's action in a sequential‐move game, the investor always chooses the direct route, and no treaty shopping occurs in equilibrium.     

Understanding the role of China's domestic market in the (unequal) growth of world economy

This study investigates the rising role of China's domestic market expansion from 1995 to 2011 in the world economy's growth. China maintained high domestic expenditure growth during the entire period, with even bigger increases in the last years, when the global financial crisis and subsequent economic recovery occurred. The expenditures facilitated rapid growth through high demand for durable goods, which are produced across widely fragmented Asian channels. At the same time, China integrated further into the global economy and imported intermediate goods increasingly became embedded in goods for domestic sale. These two forces combined to magnify the impact of China's market expansion on foreign economies but disproportionately more on its neighbouring countries and sectors related to durable goods production. Specifically, our estimates suggest that the expenditure growth in China over the 2009–11 period added about 1 percentage point to the annual GDP growth rate in Taiwan, Malaysia and Korea, while the NAFTA and EU member countries typically benefited by less than 0.1 percentage point.     

A sequential choice model for multiple discrete demand

Quantitative Marketing and Economics - Consumer demand in a marketplace is often characterized to be multiple discrete in that discrete units of multiple products are chosen together. This paper...