An innovation to improve health outcomes in Amajuba district,KwaZulu-Natal,South Africa

Systems’ thinking places high value on understanding the context. This study focused on the collection of disaggregated data in order to understand the context, to facilitate improvement of health outcomes. The aim of this article was to assess the implementation of municipal ward-based health data collection (disaggregated data) and health care workers’ perceptions of this data collection process. This cross-sectional study used mixed methods in Amajuba district. The participants were professional nurses at the Primary Health Care level. Of the 131 respondents, 123 (93.9%) collected municipal ward-based health data, and found it useful. Opportunities for improving data collection were identified. Disaggregation of the data at ward level contributes to a better understanding of the target population’s health, assists planning for health needs and enables provision of targeted interventions in order to improve health outcomes, to prevent financial regression and waste of health resources.     

INTRA-INDUSTRY EFFECTS OF BOND RATING ADJUSTMENTS

Several studies find that bond rating downgrades cause negative valuation effects. Other studies find that signals conveyed by earnings releases, earnings forecasts, bankruptcies, and stock offerings of individual firms can be transmitted to their corresponding industries. By combining the two sets of studies, we hypothesize that bond rating changes may contain relevant information not only about the firm, but also about the corresponding industry. We find significantly negative valuation effects for rating downgrades, which are transmitted throughout the industry. Furthermore, we find that intra-industry effects depend on particular characteristics of the bond downgrade, the downgraded firm, and industry rivals. Specifically, the negative intra-industry effects are more pronounced when (1) the downgraded firm experiences a more severe share price response to the bond rating downgrade, (2) the downgraded firm is dominant in the industry, (3) the downgraded firm is more closely related to its rivals in the industry, and (4) the downgrade is due to a deterioration in the firm's financial prospects.     

Corporate Board Composition, Protocols, and Voting Behavior: Experimental Evidence

We examine voting by a board designed to mitigate conflicts of interest between privately informed insiders and owners. Our model demonstrates that, as argued by researchers and the business press, boards with a majority of trustworthy but uninformed “watchdogs” can implement institutionally preferred policies. Our laboratory experiments strongly support this conclusion. Our model also highlights the necessity of penalties on insiders when there is dissension among board members. However, penalties for dissent appeared to have little impact on the experimental outcomes.     

The Market's Assessment of the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999

We examine the impact of the events leading up to and including the passage of the Financial Services Modernization Act (FSMA) of 1999 on the stock returns of banks, brokerage firms, and insurance companies. We find that the impact is positive for all institutions. Bank gains are positively related to size and capitalization. Brokerage firms gain regardless of size, but the gains are inversely related to capitalization and insurance companies gain regardless of size or capital position. The strong positive reaction suggests that the market expects the institutions to benefit from the new opportunities created by the FSMA's passage.     

The index futures markets: Is screen trading more efficient?

This article uses a nonparametric test based on the arc‐sine law (see, e.g., Feller, 1965 ), which involves comparing the theoretical distribution implied by an intraday random walk with the empirical frequency distribution of the daily high/low times, in order to address the question of whether the abandonment of pit trading has been associated with greater market efficiency. If market inefficiencies result from flaws in the market microstructure of pit trading, they ought to have been eliminated by the introduction of screen trading. If, on the other hand, the inefficiencies are a reflection of investor psychology, they are likely to have survived, unaffected by the changeover. We focus here on four cases. Both the FTSE‐100 and CAC‐40 index futures contracts were originally traded by open outcry and have moved over to electronic trading in recent years, so that we are able to compare pricing behavior before and after the changeover. The equivalent contracts in Germany and Korea, on the other hand, have been traded electronically ever since their inception. Our results overwhelmingly reject the random‐walk hypothesis both for open‐outcry and electronic‐trading data sets, suggesting there has been no increase in efficiency as a result of the introduction of screen trading. One possible explanation consistent with our results would be that the index futures market is characterized by intraday overreaction. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 24:337–357, 2004     

Does an Industry Effect Exist for Initial Public Offerings?

We examine the impact of initial public offerings (IPOs) on rival firms and find that the valuation effects are insignificant. This insignificant reaction can be explained by offsetting information and competitive effects. Significant positive information effects are associated with IPOs in regulated industries and the first IPO in an industry following a period of dormancy. Significant negative competitive effects are associated with larger IPOs in competitive industries, those in relatively risky industries, those in high‐performing industries, and those in the technology sector. IPO firms that use the proceeds for debt repayment appear to represent a more significant competitive threat to rival firms relative to IPO firms that use their proceeds for other purposes.     

Does direct foreign investment affect domestic credit constraints?

Firms in developing countries cite credit constraints as one of their primary obstacles to investment. Direct foreign investment may ease credit constraints by bringing in scarce capital. Alternatively, if foreign firms borrow heavily from domestic banks, they may crowd local firms out of domestic capital markets. Using firm data from the Ivory Coast, we test whether: (1) domestic firms are more credit constrained than foreign firms, and (2) whether borrowing by foreign firms exacerbates domestic firm credit constraints. Results provide support for both hypotheses. We also find that state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are less financially constrained than other domestic enterprises.