Frequent issuers’ influence on long-run post-issuance returns

Prior studies conclude that firms’ equity underperforms following many individual sorts of external financing. These conclusions naturally raise significant questions about market efficiency and/or about the techniques used to measure long-run “abnormal returns.” Rather than concentrating on a single security type or issuance, we examine long-run performance following any and all sorts of security issuances. Initial financing events do not associate with underperformance; however, subsequent financings do. Our results suggest that negative post-issuance returns have nothing to do with the specific type of security issued, and everything to do with the number of types of securities issued.     

The social costs of unit banking restrictions

Many U.S. commercial banks are prohibited from establishing more than one full service office location. In the absence of free entry to the banking industry, this constraint may force unit banks to operate with a socially inefficient combination of inputs. Moreover, entry to the industry in unit banking states may be more difficult than in branching states, where market entrants need not necessarily acquire a new charter. If so, existing unit banks could price their output above marginal social cost, earning excess profits and imposing allocational inefficiencies. This paper demonstrates empirically that unit banking restrictions in the United States impose statistically and economically significant deadweight social costs.     

The determinants of tendering periods for PPP procurement in the UK: an empirical analysis

The procurement of infrastructure projects via public–private partnerships (PPPs) is rising globally. PPPs are, however, often characterized by lengthy tendering periods, defined as the difference between contract notice and financial close. Tendering periods are important because they account for a significant proportion of overall project delivery time. Slow tendering deters bidders and thus reduces competition for contracts. We source data on 670 PPP projects in the United Kingdom and use a duration analysis model to empirically examine factors that impact tendering period duration. Our results reveal significant sectoral variation with projects in the health and housing sectors taking significantly longer to reach financial close. We also show that, after controlling for other factors, projects with higher capital values and projects that overlap with the timing of general elections are associated with significantly longer tendering periods. We further examine the impact of the competitive dialogue procurement method and find evidence that tendering periods have increased since 2006; the year competitive dialogue was introduced. We do, however, observe a significant reduction in the time between appointment of preferred bidder and financial close post-2006. This suggests that competitive dialogue is effective in reducing the scope for negotiations by preferred bidders holding quasi-monopoly advantages.     

A behavioral urban recreation site choice model

Abstract

A multinomial logit site choice model (MNL) derived by utility maximization and based on reported travel distance and perceived site attributes was estimated for 21 forest‐related urban recreation sites in Chicago. Reported travel distance was the dominant explanatory variable. Perceived site attributes included stimulating/educational, quiet, safe, and forested. When estimated for subsets of the 21 sites, the coefficient for travel distance remained stable in sign, magnitude, and significance, while coefficients for “quiet” and “forested” changed in sign and significance. This supports the application of travel cost models at the urban scale, but suggests that site choice criteria may be sensitive to variables not included in the study.     

Market Discipline in the Governance of U.S. Bank Holding Companies: Monitoring vs. Influencing

Market discipline is an article of faith among financial economists, and the use of marketdiscipline as a regulatory tool is gaining credibility. Effective market discipline involvestwo distinct components: security holders' ability to accurately assess the condition of afirm (monitoring) and their ability to cause subsequent managerial actions to reflect thoseassessments (influence). Substantial evidence supports the existence of market monitoring.However, the existing evidence about market influence involves relatively rare events suchas management turnover. This paper seeks evidence that U.S. bank holding companies'security price changes reliably influence subsequent managerial actions. Although weidentify some patterns consistent with beneficial market influences, our methodology doesnot provide strong evidence that stock or (especially) bond investors regularly influencemanagerial actions. Day-to-day market influence remains, for the moment, more a matterof faith than of empirical evidence.     

Partial adjustment toward target capital structures

The empirical literature provides conflicting assessments about how firms choose their capital structures. Distinguishing among the three main hypotheses (“tradeoff”, pecking order, and market timing) requires that we know whether firms have long-run leverage targets and (if so) how quickly they adjust toward them. Yet many previous researchers have applied empirical specifications that fail to recognize the potential for incomplete adjustment. A more general, partial-adjustment model of firm leverage indicates that firms do have target capital structures. The typical firm closes about one-third of the gap between its actual and its target debt ratios each year.     

Where they go,what they do and why it matters: the importance of geographic accessibility and social class for decisions relating to higher education institution type,degree level and field of study

This article considers the impact of geographic accessibility and social class on school leavers when making decisions relating to higher education institution (HEI) type, degree level and field of study. Using a novel and comprehensive Irish data set, we consider a number of joint decisions facing school leavers in relation to where and what to study and employ a range of bivariate choice models which allows us to control for correlations in these decisions. We find that geographic accessibility and social class play an important role in determining outcomes relating to HEI type, degree level and field of study. We argue that these decisions are important in terms of future labour market and other outcomes for school leavers and that current policy in Ireland does not go far enough in mitigating the impact of distance and socio-economic barriers on these outcomes.     

How Do Large Banking Organizations Manage Their Capital Ratios?

U.S. banks hold significantly more equity capital than required by their regulators. We test competing hypotheses regarding the reasons for this “excess” capital, using an innovative partial adjustment approach that allows estimated BHC-specific capital targets and adjustment speeds to vary with firm-specific characteristics. We apply the model to annual panel data for publicly traded U.S. bank holding companies (BHCs) from 1992 through 2006, an extended period of increasing bank capital that ended just before the subprime credit crisis of 2007–2008. The evidence suggests that BHCs actively managed their capital ratios (as opposed to passively allowing capital to build up via retained earnings), set target capital levels substantially above well-capitalized regulatory minima, and (especially poorly capitalized BHCs) made rapid adjustments toward their targets.     

Politics at play: locating human rights,refugees and grassroots humanitarianism in the Calais Jungle

Abstract

This article examines the political footprint of a new wave of grassroots humanitarian organisations in the informal refugee camp, popularly dubbed ‘The Jungle’, in Calais, northern France. Set against the formal humanitarian void created by the French state barring of international aid agencies, and the abject conditions of camp life, we trace the shifting socio-spatial remit and progressive politicisation of these ‘apolitical’ organisations as they encounter a crisis of human rights in the Jungle, prior to its violent demolition by state decree in October 2016. In foregrounding the organisational perspectives of Play4Calais and the Refugee Youth Service, and their unorthodox deployment of play, sport, cinema and art, we reveal a grassroots humanitarian praxis which offers an alternative to the large-scale ‘professionalised’ registers of aid delivery. By virtue of their relative informality, spatial proximity and volunteer activism, these grassroots organisations not only stand in tension with the violent border sovereignties of neoliberal states, but open up the inchoate possibility for political struggle and refugee-centred claims-making over the right to inhabit the ‘exceptional’ space of the camp.