Sampling Minority Business Owners and Their Families: The Understudied Entrepreneurial Experience*

We here review and critique prior research on minority entrepreneurship, paying particular attention to the contributions and limitations of deployed sampling techniques and research methodologies. As based on this review, we then introduce the 2003 and 2005 National Minority Business Owner Surveys—a comprehensive and primary data collection effort that used varied methodologies to secure in‐depth information about random national samples of African American, Korean American, and Mexican American populations as well as a comparison sample of nonminority business owners. We present the initial business ownership profiles developed with these recent data, in part, as a benchmark of the U.S. entrepreneurial experience, and compare the profiles with those presented in prior research. These profiles document similarities and differences across the four groups and provide an empirical foundation for understanding the origin of those similarities and differences. No longer can we ignore the in‐depth study of minority businesses and their owning families nor can we simply assume that all businesses are the same, regardless of minority status or ethnicity.     

The most frequent contributors to the elite economics journals: Half century of contributions to the “Blue ribbon eight”

There is a natural curiosity within the economic academic community regarding who are the most frequent contributors to the economic literature. This paper presents an analysis of the top publishers in the “Blue Ribbon Eight” economics journals, over the past 50 years (1954–2003), plus two 25-year subperiods of 1954–1978 and 1979–2003. While it is tempting to use these results to rank economics departments, this paper is meant to be an historical appreciation of these authors and journals and not meant to imply any type of current ranking.     

Market efficiency and investors' adjustments to asset valuation errors

Market participants are hypothesized to form expectations of future earnings by a process of adjustments to new earnings information while taking into account the pattern of errors in past judgements. Using an ‘adaptive expectations’ model, 140 New York Stock Exchange sample firms were classified as over- or undervalued based on earnings on announcement date versus market expectations. Comparing the risk-adjusted returns of the over- and undervalued securities for two four-year test periods, the conclusion is drawn that the securities market reacts to earnings announcements efficiently.     

MARKET EFFICIENCY AND INVESTORS, ADJUSTMENTS TO ASSET VALUATION ERRORS

Using four selection criteria, over two test periods, the test results found the market reacts efficiently to EPS announcements of firms, Given the test results, the conclusion is drawn that no participant can achieve abnormal returns by using the information contained in quarterly EPS announcements.     

Sixty years of research leadership: contributing authors and institutions to the journal of finance

While corporate executives freely admit that they work in a jungle, faculty members in institutions of higher learning are supposed to pretend that they work in the relaxed atmosphere of an informal English garden (Alice Vandermeulen, 1975).

The Journal of Finance was the first pure finance journal to emphasize research, and it has been the undisputed “gold standard” in academic finance literature for the past 60 years. This study identifies the contributors to JF over these 60 years—the authors, the institutions employing the authors, and the institutions granting PhDs to the authors. The prolific authors listed in this article make it look easy, like Alice’s relaxed English garden, but the information reported herein suggests otherwise.

Benefits from Asia-Pacific Mutual Fund Investments with Currency Hedging

This study presents empirical evidence on the efficiency and effectiveness of hedging U.S.-based international mutual funds with an Asia-Pacific investment objective. The case for active currency risk management is examined for a passive and a selective hedge, which is constructed with currency futures in the major currencies. Both static and dynamic hedging models are used to estimate the risk-minimizing hedge ratio. The results show that currency hedging improves the performance of internationally diversified mutual funds. Such hedging is beneficial even when based on prior optimal hedge ratios. Further, efficiency gains from hedging, as measured by the percent change in the Sharpe Index, are greatest under a selective portfolio strategy that is implemented with an optimal constant hedge ratio.