Stability, Asymmetry and Seasonality of Fund Performance: An Analysis of Australian Multi‐sector Managed Funds

Using a sample of Australian Multi-sector trusts we examine selectivity and market timing performance and extend the analysis to include the relatively new measure of volatility timing. This is of particular relevance to our data set, as high levels of volatility persistence are prevalent in Australia. In addition we consider the stability, asymmetry and seasonality of the various performance and risk measures. A survivorship adjustment procedure is also employed in order to assess the impact of survivorship on selectivity, market timing and volatility timing performance.     

Are the Best Small Companies the Best Investments?

Previous research finds that large companies previously judged to be excellent growth companies have subsequently been poor investments. We examine small companies selected by Business Week on the basis of multiple criteria used in annual articles featuring highly rated growth companies. We study the investment performance over the three years before eleven annual Business Week publications and the three years after publication. We find positive excess returns in the pre‐publication period, but negative excess returns in the post‐publication period. This reversal in investment performance appears to be due to a mean‐reversion tendency in operating performance, in which the earnings and the past rates of return on capital of such companies subsequently decrease significantly.     

Time Series Concepts for Conditional Distributions*

The paper asks the question – as time series analysis moves from consideration of conditional mean values and variances to unconditional distributions, do some of the familiar concepts devised for the first two moments continue to be helpful in the more general area? Most seem to generalize fairly easy, such as the concepts of breaks, seasonality, trends and regime switching. Forecasting is more difficult, as forecasts become distributions, as do forecast errors. Persistence can be defined and also common factors by using the idea of a copula. Aggregation is more difficult but causality and controllability can be defined. The study of the time series of quantiles becomes more relevant.     

UNIT MANAGEMENT BUYOUTS, STOCKHOLDER WEALTH, AND SELLING FIRMS' CHARACTERISTICS

Previous research on unit management buyouts, UMBs, has shown that selling firms benefit from the selloff transaction. The current research demonstrates that when the selling firm has either poor liquidity or poor earnings, selling firm shareholders do not benefit as much. We hypothesize that the unit managers have knowledge about the selling firm's difficulties so they do not pay as large a premium for the assets. Since the unit managers technically are employed by the selling firm shareholders, their bargaining to achieve a better price is an agency cost. Finally, selloff frequency does not affect seller abnormal returns.     

The local economic impact of construction projects in a small and relatively self-contained economy: The case of Lancaster University

Whilst the local multiplier impacts of the annual operation of universities has been the subject of intensive research, the economic impacts of capital construction projects have been almost completely ignored. This paper presents the results of detailed analysis of capital projects at Lancaster University in 1993-The reasons for the radically different annual operation and construction multipliers estimated in the Lancaster study are examined. Despite the smaller size of construction multipliers it is argued that it is a serious mistake to estimate local construction multipliers by making simplifying assumptions on the size of the key parameters in the multiplier equations.