Can Hedge Funds Time the Market?

We answer the somewhat narrower question of whether hedge funds adjust their conditional market exposure in response to real‐time changes in macroeconomic conditions, and whether doing so improves their performance. We find that hedge funds differ substantially in their responsiveness to macroeconomic data. The most procyclical market timers outperform their less active and counter‐cyclical peers by over 4% annualized with a risk adjusted alpha of 5.5%.     

How Does Foreign Entry Affect the Domestic Banking Market? The Brazilian Case

ABSTRACT

Using bank level data for Brazil in the 1995–2001 period, this paper examines the extent of foreign ownership in the domestic banking market. It also separates and analyses the domestic banking system as to private and state-owned institutions, given the almost 50% market share of state-owned banks in Brazil by the deposit criteria. The net interest margins, overhead, taxes paid, and profitability of foreign and domestic banks are compared with domestic banks achieving higher profits than foreign banks, which contradicts the empirical evidence in the literature. Also, further estimation results suggest that an increase in the share of foreign banks leads to higher profitability of domestic banks, which is opposed to the literature. Finally, while domestic private banks have higher net interest margins and profits than foreign banks, state-owned banks have lower net interest margin and profits, and higher overhead expenses than foreign banks.

RESUMEN. Con base en datos bancarios brasileños del período 1995–2001, este documento examina la extensión de la titularidad extranjera en el mercado de la banca doméstica. También separa y analiza el sistema de la banca doméstica en instituciones privadas e instituciones estatales, con base en la participación superior al 50% del mercado de los bancos estatales en el Brasil, en lo que se refiere al volumen de los depósitos. Se han comparado los márgenes del interés neto, gastos generales, intereses pagados y rentabilidad de los bancos extranjeros y domésticos, llegando a la conclusión que los bancos domésticos alcanzaron mayores niveles de rentabilidad que los bancos extranjeros, lo que–empíricamente hablando–contradice la evidencia de la literatura. Además, otros resultados de las proyecciones realizadas sugieren que un aumento en la participación de los principales bancos extranjeros redundará en la mayor rentabilidad de los bancos domésticos, lo que también es contrario a lo expresado en la literatura. Finalmente, mientras que la banca doméstica privada tiene mayores márgenes de interés netos y rentabilidad que los bancos extranjeros, los bancos estatales tienen un margen neto y una rentabilidad menores y mayores gastos generales que los bancos extranjeros.

RESUMO. Utilizando dados bancários do Brasil, no período de 1995 a 2001, este artigo analisa a extensão da propriedade estrangeira no mercado bancário nacional. Além disso, examina o sistema bancário nacional e distingue entre instituiç[otilde]es privadas e públicas, considerando-se a parcela de quase 50% do mercado de bancos estatais, no Brasil, segundo o critério de depósitos. Comparam-se as margens de intermediação financeira, as despesas administrativas, os impostos pagos e a rentabilidade de bancos estrangeiros e nacionais, sendo que os bancos nacionais alcançam lucros mais altos do que os bancos estrangeiros, contradizendo a evidência empírica apresentada pela literatura. Além disso, outros resultados avaliados sugerem que um aumento da participação de bancos estrangeiros acarreta maior rentabilidade para os bancos nacionais, contrariando a literatura. Finalmente, enquanto os bancos privados nacionais apresentam margens líquidas de juros e de lucros mais elevadas do que os bancos estrangeiros, os bancos estatais apresentam margens de intermediação financeira e de lucros mais baixas e despesas administrativas mais altas do que os bancos estrangeiros.     

Are Farmers' Market Shoppers Different From Cross-Shoppers? The Case of Hawaiian Avocado Purchasers

Small- and medium-size growers use direct marketing and farmers’ markets to access customers and avoid supply chain intermediaries that increase costs of getting products to consumers. This study examined consumers’ use of agricultural product information sources and their shopping outlet patronage preferences for one type of locally grown produce: avocados.

Two farmers’ market segments were identified: 1) shops only farmers’ markets and 2) cross-shops grocery stores. Product information came from a variety of sources: media, retailers, and organizations. “Buy Local” or “product origin” were considered in produce shopping decisions. One dimension, “Buy Local,” was significant in differentiating farmers’ market segments.     

CSR Business as Usual? The Case of the Tobacco Industry

Tobacco companies have started to position themselves as good corporate citizens. The effort towards CSR engagement in the tobacco industry is not only heavily criticized by anti-tobacco NGOs. Some opponents such as the the World Health Organization have even categorically questioned the possibility of social responsibility in the tobacco industry. The paper will demonstrate that the deep distrust towards tobacco companies is linked to the lethal character of their products and the dubious behavior of their representatives in recent decades. As a result, tobacco companies are not in the CSR business in the strict sense. Key aspects of mainstream CSR theory and practice such as corporate philanthropy, stakeholder collaboration, CSR reporting and self-regulation, are demonstrated to be ineffective or even counterproductive in the tobacco industry. Building upon the terminology used in the leadership literature, the paper proposes to differentiate between transactional and transformational CSR arguing that tobacco companies can only operate on a transactional level. As a consequence, corporate responsibility in the tobacco industry is based upon a much thinner approach to CSR and has to be conceptualized with a focus on transactional integrity across the tobacco supply chain. Guido Palazzo is Assistant Professor for Business Ethics at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland). He graduated in Business Administration at the University of Bamberg (Germany) and earned his PhD in Political Philosophy (1999) from the University of Marburg (Germany). His research interests are in Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Branding, Democratic Theory, and Organizational Ethics. Ulf Richter is a doctoral student at the University of Lausanne. He is writing his thesis on Corporate Social Responsibility, conceptualizing the concept from a multidisciplinary perspective. He has studied in Germany, Peru and the US, and graduated from the European Business School, Oestrich-Winkel, majoring in International Management and Real Estate.     

The Illusion of Merit and the Demons of Economic Meritocracy: Which are the Legitimate Expectations of the Market?

Journal of Business Ethics - Meritocracy is gaining momentum in public discourse, being close to the determinants of people’s demand of social justice (equality of opportunity, social...     

Price Transmission in the Swiss Wheat Market: Does Sophisticated Border Protection Make the Difference?

This article discusses horizontal wheat price transmission from international markets to the domestic Swiss market. The Swiss case is peculiar due to the presence of different border policies segmenting the domestic wheat market according to its use: food or feed. Vector Error Correction (VEC) models with structural breaks are estimated. They account for these policy instruments and their adaptation during periods of market exuberance, and acknowledge linkages between the two market segments. Estimation results suggest that the border policy regime isolates the domestic wheat market for feed use, while, in the food case, the domestic price still responds to international markets.     

Still Silent – Political Market Segmentation and the Case of Ethnic Women

This paper considers not only the nature of segmentation, but in particular political segmentation. It suggests that currently political parties utilise a simplistic type of segmentation and that they need to be more aware of the complexities of the electorate. In particular, the political parties need to be aware of the preferences of those who make up 52% of the population – women. The literature on attracting women voters is explored indicating that women have different perceptions of politics and politicians. To illustrate the point a discussion group with black and Asian women is presented. The campaigns and the results of the 2005 election are also explored to further illustrate the point. The paper concludes that the issues of importance to politicians are not in line with the aspirations and requirements of the female voters.     

Can Spending Time in the Minors Pay Off? An Examination of the Canadian Junior Public Equity Markets

This paper tests whether the junior public equity markets serve as an effective development market for early‐stage firms compared to private venture capital (VC). Focusing on the Canadian market, we compare the long‐run stock performance of firms that graduate from the Toronto Venture Stock Exchange (TSX‐V) to the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) against the performance of VC‐backed firms that have a direct IPO on the TSX. Controlling for various confounders and possible selection biases, we find that TSX‐V graduations significantly outperform VC‐backed IPOs by 28.2 percentage points in the three years following the TSX listing. Our results are consistent with the idea that a TSX‐V listing provides the insiders of early‐stage companies with valuable public‐markets experience.     

Do Financial Reforms Improve the Performance of Financial Holding Companies? The Case of Taiwan

We examine the performance of financial holding companies (FHCs) in Taiwan after the financial reform that removes the separation of banking, securities, insurance, and other financial services. Using data envelopment analysis, we find that FHCs fail to improve technical efficiencies in the post‐reform era. They also do not outperform independent commercial banks after the financial reform. Lower technical efficiency caused by excess operating expenses appears to be the primary source of inefficiency. While scale efficiency may improve as FHCs grow larger, the benefits are marginal and insufficient to offset the potential costs of organizational diseconomies. Our findings suggest that increasing the size and scope of financial activities alone do not necessarily improve the performance of financial firms.     

Did the Proposed Country-of-Origin Law Affect Product Choices? The Case of Salmon

The 2002 Farm Securit and Rural Investment Act mandated that country-of-origin labeling (COOL) be applied to specific food commodities. Using revealed preference data for 1998–2006, a nonlinear AIDS model is used to estimate the demand for uncooked frozen, uncooked fresh, and precooked salmon to assess the impact of the legislation on consumer demand patterns. Findings from a non parametric analysis suggest a possible rotation in the demand curve for fresh salmon that may be linked with the quality signal associated with COOL. However, our findings indicate that COOL had no significant impact on overall consumer demand for the three products. All three were found to be inelastic, with uncooked fresh salmon being slightly more price sensitive than uncooked frozen and precooked salmon. Given the expenditure elasticities, the fresh salmon segment of the industry appear to be more vibrant than the other salmon segments and would likely influence investment decisions in the salmon industry.     

Political Risk Assessment and the Arab Spring: What Can We Learn?

Whether dealing with debt issues in the Eurozone, investment prospects in emerging markets, or potential disruptions in patterns of global trade, the identification, assessment, and measurement of political risk (PR) are recurring issues for businesses and governments today. In the past few years, abrupt social and political change has become the rule in international relations. A prominent instance of this is the “Arab Spring,” the massive and unexpected wave of social and political turmoil that, starting in the winter of 2010‐2011, swept across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The Arab Spring has significantly affected the business climate of the countries involved. In doing so, it has also exposed the shortcomings of the extant approaches to PR assessment. This article discusses the performance of five different approaches to PR assessment (OECD, ONDD, EIU, PRS, SACE) vis‐à‐vis the Arab Spring, providing some specific suggestions on how to improve PR assessment and analysis. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The Performance of Europe-wide Businesses: Has the Single Market Led to Scale Economies?

This article follows up earlier research which had found that in the 1970s and 1980s the incentives to invest in Europe-wide businesses had often been lacking or even negative: for example, the most profitable Europe-wide businesses were less likely to be European market leaders and were likely to have lower market shares than their principal competitors; they were less likely to be innovative, having entered the market as follower rather than leader. The author finds evidence that this started to change even before the single market and that the change has continued. The key success factors for profit in European business are coming closer into line with the success factors for growth – innovation, quality and intellectual property.     

Can market frictions really explain the price impact asymmetry of block trades? Evidence from the Saudi Stock Market

We empirically examine the price impact of block trades, in the Saudi Stock Market over the time period of 2005–2008. Using a unique dataset of intraday data consisting of 2.3 million block buys and 1.9 million block sales, we find an asymmetry in the price impact of block purchases and sales. The asymmetry persists even when we account for the bid–ask bias in block trades, which is contrary to the previous literature. Overall, our findings suggest that in an emerging market where institutional trading is relatively scarce, market microstructure cannot explain the asymmetry in the price impact of large trades.     

Translation Mechanisms of International Market Shaping: The Transformation of the St. Petersburg Bread Market from 1997–2007

There is a need to understand how indigenous markets transform following foreign entry. We refer to this transformation as international market shaping—the progression of a set of cross-border activities that contribute to changes in economic exchange. Building on the markets-as-practice literature and an explorative longitudinal single-case study conducted in the St. Petersburg bread market (1997–2007), we study international market-shaping mechanisms that translate a foreign company’s idea of a market into market practices. We contribute to the literature by identifying four translation mechanisms of international market shaping: advice, demonstration, requirements, and management mobility.     

Can the Beast be Tamed?: Reflections on John McMurtry's Unequal Freedoms: The Global Market as an Ethical System

My paper responds to certain themes of Professor John McMurtry's recent book, Unequal Freedoms: The Global Market as an Ethical System. Although I am in general sympathy with McMurtry's penetrating critique of conventional market theory and practice, I find Unequal Freedoms ambivalent on the critical question of whether endorsing and enacting the life-value code McMurtry proposes would require only a mitigation of the principles and definitive activities of the competitive market system or whether significant reforms within the system would have to be deep structural ones. It is argued that the second alternative is inescapable. I defend my perspective from the point of view of a philosophical analysis of orthodox or neo-classical theory-construction about the competitive market order. In particular, I examine three fundamental principles of such modelling: the maximization of the satisfaction of self-interest, the unboundedness of consumer desire for material goods, and the distribution of monetized wealth. In order for McMurtry's "civil commons" to survive, the practice of each of these principles would need to be radically modified. However, in doing so, competitive capitalism would lose its essential identity as a socio-economic order.     

Can design improve the performance of marketing management?

Marketing management and design is assumed to be well performing when well integrated. Seen from a marketing management perspective, design is complementary and provides useful tools like visualisation and prototyping as well as empathy with the consumers. Jointly this can increase the performance of the company. Due to different cultures, languages and procedures marketing management often fails to deliver these advantages. The introductory essay provides an overview of methods to afford a better integration between the two and introduces a number of articles providing an overview and up-to-date analysis of the current situation.     

Marketing in the Nonprofit Sector–The Unique Case of Art Museums

ABSTRACT

Art museums face the problem of survival while endeavoring to maintain their sometimes lofty intellectual and educational missions. Threats abound in the external environments from reductions in funding from national, state, and local agencies to threats from competition, which may be any form of entertainment, leisure activity, or educational effort. A study was conducted to examine the marketing practices in art museums in the southeastern United States to identify the museums' responses to these threats. The findings describe the marketing practices deemed successful and used most frequently by most museums and the marketing practices that appear to be the least helpful and least used.