Spatial Linkages in Returns and Volatilities among U.S. Regional Housing Markets

This article investigates spatial linkages in returns, idiosyncratic risks and volatilities across 19 U.S. regional housing markets. Using Case & Shiller housing price indices from 1995 through 2009, we find that interconnections across markets can be “wider” and “stronger” than would normally be expected. They are “wider” because, in addition to geographic closeness, economic proximity is also an important source of influence; they are “stronger” because of the significant contagion effects during the 2007–2009 subprime and financial crises. The increased comovement and interdependence, especially among more geographically diverse regions with similar economic conditions, may help explain the failure of geographic portfolio diversification strategies.     

Institutional common ownership and firm value: Evidence from real estate investment trusts

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate about whether and how institutional common ownership (ICO) affects firm behavior. Using a sample of equity real estate investment trusts (REITs), which provide significant advantages for isolating a monitoring channel, we find a robust and positive relation between ICO and REIT firm value. The positive relation between ICO and firm value is driven mainly by motivated investors and becomes stronger when we construct our ICO measures using blockholdings. Our difference‐in‐differences analysis, using mergers between institutional investors, suggests a causal relation exists between ICO and firm value. After investigating various channels through which ICO could affect firm behavior, we conclude that asset allocation decisions and performance are the most plausible explanations. Our finding that the monitoring associated with ICO aids managers in their portfolio disposition strategies further supports this conclusion. This enhanced monitoring leads to increased property portfolio returns, as well as more geographic diversification.     

Alliance Concentration in Multinational Companies: Examining Alliance Portfolios,Firm Structure,and Firm Performance

Research summary: This article explores the distribution of alliances across firms' internal structure. Focusing on multinational companies, we examine the impact of alliance portfolio concentration—i.e., the extent to which alliances are concentrated within a limited number of geographic units—on focal firms' performance. Relying on Knowledge‐Based View (KBV) insights, we hypothesize that an increase in alliance portfolio concentration positively influences firm performance and that alliance portfolio size negatively moderates this relationship. Our empirical results enrich the emerging capability perspective on alliance portfolios, point to the relevance of conceptualizing focal firms in alliance portfolio research as polylithic entities instead of monolithic ones, and provide new insights into how firms create value by potentially recombining externally accessed knowledge. Managerial summary: In the setting of multinational companies, we examine whether alliance activities are concentrated in a limited number of subsidiaries or are highly dispersed across multiple subsidiaries. We find that, over time, firms exhibit different patterns in terms of alliance portfolio concentration. In addition, the results show that, for MNCs with a relatively small alliance portfolio, an increase in alliance portfolio concentration is positively related to their financial performance. However, when MNCs' alliance portfolios are relatively large, the relationship between alliance portfolio concentration and firm performance becomes negative. Jointly, these findings suggest that the distribution of alliances across firms' internal structure is an important factor in shaping potential knowledge recombination benefits from alliance portfolios. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The relationship between portfolio diversification and firm value: The evidence from corporate venture capital activity

Corporate venture capital (CVC) activity exposes firms to new technologies and markets. An important but as yet unexplored question is the relationship of the industry diversification profile of the portfolio of venture companies to corporate value creation. Insights from options and diversification perspectives support our hypothesis that diversification of a corporate investor's portfolio of venture companies is related to corporate wealth creation in a U‐shaped relationship. We also propose that a corporate investor's financial constraints moderate the relationship between the diversification profile of its CVC portfolio and value creation. When we tested our hypotheses using a sample of CVC investments across multiple industries, we found support for them, and these findings may inform the CVC activities of corporate investors. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Some evidence on the gains from international diversification for Canadian investors

It is easily demonstrated ex post that international portfolio diversification results in increased returns and reduced risk. However, to determine the value of international diversification as an effective portfolio management strategy, it is necessary to form portfolios based on information available at the time of their composition, and then evaluate the performance of the portfolio in the following months. This is the main focus of our study, which adds several innovations to past research. First, we use daily rates of return on 23 national indices to evaluate the value of international diversification for a Canadian investor. Second, we evaluate the predictive value of the historical variance-covariance matrix vis-à-vis alternative models. Third, we use the Bayes-Stein correction to reduce errors in the historical return vector. Finally, we use a quadratic programming model in order to introduce the effects of constraints on the optimisation process. The results, obtained over the 1986–1989 period, are not in favour of international diversification. Returns on diversified portfolios were often lower than returns on the low-risk Canada market during the low-performance portfolio test periods. In other cases, higher returns on diversified portfolios could not be justified by their higher volatility. It is possible that these results may be partially due to the effects of the market crash in October 1987. Nevertheless, our study brings up many directions for future research. Is international diversification in fact profitable? Is portfolio optimisation appropriate in an international context? Finally, what is the best way to estimate the expected return vector in various markets?     

The Spatial Proximity of Metropolitan Area Housing Submarkets

An important question related to housing submarket construction is whether geographic areas must be spatially adjacent in order to be considered the same submarket. Housing consumers do not necessarily limit their search to spatially concentrated areas and may search similarly priced neighborhoods located throughout a metropolitan area when making housing consumption decisions. This article examines two alternative procedures for delineating submarkets: one that combines adjacent census block groups into areas with enough transactions to estimate the parameters of a hedonic house price equation and a second that permits spatial discontinuities in submarkets. The criterion used to evaluate the alternative techniques is the accuracy of hedonic house price predictions.     

Technological Diversification, Coherence, and Performance of Firms

Technological diversification at the firm level (i.e., the expansion of a firm's technology base into a wide range of technology fields) is found to be a prevailing phenomenon in all three major industrialized regions,—the United States, Europe, and Japan—prompting the term multitechnology corporation. Whereas previous studies have provided insights into the composition of technology portfolios of multitechnology firms, little is known about the relationship between technological diversification and firms' technological performance. Against a backdrop of the technology and innovation management literature, the present article investigates the relationship between technological diversification and technological performance, taking into account the moderating role of technological coherence in firms' technology portfolios. Hereby, technological coherence is defined as the degree to which technologies in a technology portfolio are technologically related. To measure the technological coherence of portfolios, a measure of technological relatedness of technology fields is constructed based on patent citation patterns found in 450,000 European Patent Office (EPO) patent grants. Two hypotheses are presented here: (1) Technological diversification has an inverted U‐shaped relationship with technological performance; and (2) technological coherence moderates the relationship between technological diversification and technological performance positively. These hypotheses are tested empirically using a panel data set (1995–2003) on patent portfolios pertaining to 184 U.S., European, and Japanese firms. The firms selected are the largest research and development (R&D) actors in five industries: pharmaceuticals and biotechnology; chemicals; engineering and general machinery; information technology (IT) hardware (i.e., computers and communication equipment); and electronics and electrical machinery. Empirical results, obtained by fixed‐effects negative binomial regressions, support both hypotheses in the present article. Technological diversification has an inverted U‐shaped relationship with technological performance. Technological diversification offers opportunities for cross‐fertilization and technology fusion, but high levels of diversification may yield few marginal benefits as firms risk lacking sufficient levels of scale to benefit from wide‐ranging technological diversification, and firms may encounter high levels of coordination and integration costs. Further, the results show that the net benefits of technological diversification are higher in technologically coherent technology portfolios. If firms build up a technologically coherent diversified portfolio, the presence of sufficient levels of scale is ensured and coordination costs are limited. At the same time, technologically coherent diversification puts firms in a better position to benefit form cross‐fertilization between technologies. The present article clearly identifies the important role of technological coherence in technology diversification strategies of firms.     

Diversification strategies,business cycles and economic performance

Two major diversification strategies of firms are examined: diversification into related businesses and diversification into unrelated businesses. The first strategy attempts to exploit operating synergies. In the second, the firm attempts to gain financial benefits from its ability to increase leverage due to a greater stability of cash flows. The study utilizes a large sample affirms to assess empirically the benefits and costs of these two diversification strategies by developing a new measure of diversification across business cycles and economic sectors. This new measure is compared with Berry—Herfindahl type measures of total diversification and recent measures of diversification into related businesses. The results indicate that pure financial diversification is associated with (a) more stable cash flows, i.e. lower operating risk; (b) increased levels of leverage; and (c) lower profitability. These observations are in accord with the theory. We also reaffirm that firms which diversify into related businesses have, on the average, higher profitability than non-diversified firms, although these results are not always statistically significant.     

The impact of marketing capability, operations capability and diversification strategy on performance: A resource-based view

Using resource-based view (RBV) of the firm as a theoretical backdrop; we aim to find out the relative impact of a firm's functional capabilities (namely, marketing and operations) and diversification strategies (product/service and international diversification) on financial performance. We hypothesize that this linkage depends on the firm's relative efficiency to integrate its resource-capabilities-performance triad. Using archival data of 102 UK based logistics companies, we find marketing capability is the key determinant for superior financial performance. This study highlights that a market-driven firm is likely to have better business performance than a firm focusing solely on operational capabilities. Also, firms are better off when they focus on a narrow portfolio of products/services for the clients and concentrate on a diverse geographical market. Our findings provide a new perspective to model a firm's functional capabilities and diversification strategy on its financial performance and offer a benchmarking tool to improve resource allocation decisions.     

Determinants of income diversification amongst rural households in Southern Mali

Household-level panel data from a representative sample of rural households in Southern Mali describing the different sources of household income are used to examine the determinants of income diversification. A conditional fixed effects logit model is employed in the analysis to control for household-specific effects. We find evidence that poorer households have fewer opportunities in non-cropping activities such as livestock rearing and non-farm work, and hence less diversified incomes. This appears to reflect their relative lack of capital, which makes it difficult for them to diversify away from subsistence agriculture. The results also indicate that households in remote areas are less likely to participate in the non-cropping sector than their counterparts closer to local markets, while households with educated heads are more likely to participate in the non-farm sector than those with illiterate heads. The significance of entry-constraints in explaining portfolio diversification suggests that the role of government in making assets — as well as improved infrastructure — available to poorer households is still essential in promoting income diversification.     

Opportunity costs and non‐scale free capabilities: profit maximization,corporate scope,and profit margins

The resource‐based view on firm diversification, subsequent to Penrose ( 1959 ), has focused primarily on the fungibility of resources across domains. We make a clear analytical distinction between scale free capabilities and those that are subject to opportunity costs and must be allocated to one use or another, thereby shifting the discourse back to Penrose's ( 1959 ) original argument regarding the stock of organizational capabilities. The existence of resources and capabilities that must be allocated across alternative uses implies that profit‐maximizing diversification decisions should be based upon the opportunity cost of their use in one domain or another. This opportunity cost logic provides a rational explanation for the divergence between total profits and profit margins. Firms make profit‐maximizing decisions to increase total profit via diversification when the industries in which they are currently competing become relatively mature. Due to the spreading of these capabilities across more segments, we may observe that firms' profit‐maximizing diversification actions lead to total profit growth but lower average returns. The model provides an alternative explanation for empirical observations regarding the diversification discount. The self‐selection effect noted in recent work in corporate finance may not be indicative of inferior capabilities of diversifying firms but of the limited opportunity contexts in which these firms are operating. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Why Agency Costs Explain Diversification Discounts

We study diversificsation within the real estate industry because of its relative transparency: portfolio management of assets with well-defined market prices. Diversification is over property types and geographical regions. The major cause of the diversification discount is not diversification per se but anticipated costs due to rent dissipation in future diversifying acquisitions. Firms expected to pursue nonfocusing strategies do indeed diversify more, are valued ex ante at a 20% discount over firms anticipated to follow a focusing strategy, are predominantly privately controlled and use dual-class shares extensively. The ex ante diversification discount is, therefore, a measure of agency costs.     

The spatial distribution of broadband providers in the United States: 1999–2004

Variations in the supply and demand of telecommunications infrastructure in the United States are well documented. However, amidst waning concerns of a broadband digital divide, the geographic aspects of broadband availability continue to be intriguing. While some areas benefit from a robust selection of broadband providers, choices for consumers in other regions are often limited. The purpose of this paper is to explore the spatially unbalanced levels of broadband provision in the USA by providing an abbreviated longitudinal analysis of broadband regions and their development from 1999 to 2004. Broadband core and periphery regions are identified through the use of spatial statistical techniques and a geographic information system. A broadband competition index for ranking metropolitan and micropolitan areas is also introduced.     

The measurement of corporate portfolio strategy: analysis of the content validity of related diversification indexes

Measures developed for the analysis of corporate diversification have become fundamental to a broad range of strategy research. This paper examines the content validity of the two most widely used continuous measures of related diversification—the related component of the entropy index and the concentric index—and raises fundamental questions about their validity as indicators of portfolio relatedness. These questions are not driven by the use of SIC data for estimation of the indexes; they involve validity problems intrinsic to the construction of the measures. The related component of entropy and the concentric index are sensitive to features of corporate portfolio composition that may not be directly linked to portfolio relatedness. These sensitivities can create important ambiguities in strategy research. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Real Estate Investment Acquisition Rules for Life Insurance Companies and Pension Funds: A Survey

Real estate comprises the major wealth of the United States as well as the world. Life insurance companies and pension funds are rapidly becoming major investors in real estate due to their large portfolios and annual cash inflows. Aggregate inflows of life insurance companies and pension funds are estimated to be about 150 billion dollars per year. Increasing amounts of these funds are believed to be going into real estate investments. This study surveys life insurance companies and pension managers on all facets of their real estate investments. The survey covers real estate portfolio size and type, portfolio composition, investment by property type, international investments, before-tax analysis, after-tax analysis, diversification strategies, computer usage, holding period assumptions and criteria for obtaining mortgages, equity positions and construction loans. The results of this study are then compared and contrasted with previous studies.     

Asset diversification,firm risk,and risk-based capital requirements in banking

The implications of diversification by firms for risk has been raised particularly in connection with conglomerate mergers. This issue is of special interest in banking now because of a recently implemented policy — risk-based capital guidelines. This study presents results of an empirical investigation into the relationship between diversification of a bank's financial assets and indicators of the risk of insolvency. Results indicate that financial asset diversification, as well as geographic diversification, are related to lower risk.     

Opportunity costs,industry dynamics,and corporate diversification: Evidence from the cardiovascular medical device industry, 1976–2004

This paper examines how demand conditions across alternative markets impact diversification decisions and firm performance by influencing the opportunity costs of deploying non‐scale free capabilities. Using data within the cardiovascular medical device industry, this study shows that: (1) firms with a larger stock of pre‐entry innovation experience are more likely to diversify; (2) firms in a current market with greater relative demand maturity are more likely to diversify; (3) diversification is associated with a performance decrease in the current market; and (4) diversification is associated with a performance increase at the corporate level. These findings shed new light on the self‐selection process of corporate scope, the conceptualization of firm capabilities, and the connection between industry dynamics and resource deployment. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Equity diversification among the four Asian NICs

Recent studies have indicated the potential gains to U.S. investors from international portfolio diversification. Due to the rapid growth of the four Asian newly industrialised countries (NICs), namely, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, it is believed that U.S. investors will become increasingly interested in these equity markets. The purpose of the present study is to investigate from the U.S. perspective, the prospects of diversifying across the countries. The results indicate that a diversified portfolio among these markets yields a higher return-to-risk ratio than investing in the U.S. market alone.The authors are with the School of Management, National University of Singapore.     

Asset Location,Timing Ability and the Cross‐Section of Commercial Real Estate Returns

This study examines the sensitivity of equity REIT returns to time‐varying MSA allocations of REIT property portfolios. Using a large sample of individual commercial property holdings, we find significant cross‐sectional and time variation in REIT geographic exposures and the ability of these exposures to explain the cross‐section of REIT returns. We further find evidence consistent with REIT managers being able, on average, to time allocation decisions ahead of MSA outperformance. This effect is most prevalent in non‐gateway markets, varies significantly across MSAs and over time, and is concentrated in financially flexible firms with a more diversified geographic portfolio.     

Technological diversity,related diversification,and firm performance

Previous findings that related diversification creates value have been called into question over concerns about methodology and measures. Reviewing existing theory to consider how a firm's knowledge base interacts with its product market activity, I address several of these concerns by creating a measure of technological diversity based on citation‐weighted patents. The measure indicates a firm's opportunity for corporate diversification based on economies of scope in valuable knowledge assets, is defined for both single‐ and multibusiness firms, and is not correlated with more fundamental aspects of diversification, such as the number of businesses in the corporate portfolio. Evidence from a large sample of firms shows the positive relationship between diversification based on technological diversity and market‐based measures of performance, controlling for R&D intensity and capital intensity as further indicators of the type of assets underlying diversification. Results hold when controlling for the endogeneity of diversification and performance in a cross‐sectional sample or when controlling for unobserved factors using panel data. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.