Financial globalization and stock market risk

This paper examines stock market volatility measured by either “beta-volatility” or by the standard deviation of stock returns over 1995-2007. In our dynamic panel data framework, after controlling for size, turnover, and real output growth, we find some support to increases in financial integration reducing total stock return volatility for representative emerging markets, with almost no impact for industrial economies. Allowing for feedback effects from stock volatility to stock turnover, we obtain a richer interpretation for the broadening of investor basis hypothesis: more integrated financial markets leads to lower stock volatility, yet these are not so strong as found previously and are not accompanied by more turnover.     

The Profitability of Moving Average Rules: Smaller Is Better in the Brazilian Stock Market

This study analyzes the effectiveness of using certain moving average rules in the most important emerging market of Latin America: Brazil. Using different MSCI indices, we find that the best performance is provided by the MSCI Brazil Small Cap Index, which tracks the small cap segment of the Brazilian stock market, as opposed to the MSCI Brazil Index which measures the performance of large and medium firms and has been the main reference for the Brazilian stock market in previous empirical evidence. Additionally, we report clear evidence of the existence of a size effect in the Brazilian stock market due to the superior performance of the index which tracks the smaller companies over those which track larger companies. These results restate the importance of in-depth knowledge of stock market patterns in order to develop correct trading strategies in each case.     

A Law of Large Numbers: Bidding and Compulsory Competitive Tendering for Refuse Collection Contracts

In this paper we investigate the relationship betweencosts and number of bidders for U.K. local authorities'refuse collection contracts. We find that a highernumber of bids is associated with a lower cost ofservice. This finding, as well as being an importantempirical verification of standard proposition inauction theory, has important policy implications. TheU.K. Labour government elected in 1997 has abolishedCompulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT). Our findingsindicate that this would increase local authorities'expenditure in refuse collection.     

People and process,suits and innovators: the role of individuals in firm performance

Performance differences between firms are generally attributed to organizational factors rather than to differences among the individuals who make up firms. As a result, little is known about the part that individual firm members play in explaining the variance in performance among firms. This paper employs a multiple membership cross‐classified multilevel model to test the degree to which organizational or individual factors explain firm performance. The analysis also examines whether individual differences among middle managers or innovators best explain firm performance variation. The results indicate that variation among individuals matter far more in organizational performance than is generally assumed. Further, variation among middle managers has a particularly large impact on firm performance, much larger than that of those individuals who are assigned innovative roles. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

What determines the level of informal venture finance investment? Market clearing forces and gender effects

We undertake the first research to move analysis beyond estimating the propensity for a person to become an informal investor and onto the core concern which is the total volume of venture finance. We find that a 1 % increase in entrepreneurial activity increases the number of informal investors by 1.7 %. However, the average invested amount declines by 0.8 %, leading to a net positive total increase of about 0.9 %. This result indicates that, to a considerable extent, demand for informal investment creates its own supply. As a result, the research finds that market forces help solve finance constraints for new ventures and hence lessen the need for public policy intervention. This effect is stronger for males than females.     

Tourism managers' view of the economic impact of cruise traffic: the case of southern Spain

This article focuses on analysing the perception that the tourism sector itself has of its impact in cities at which cruises call. We use a sample of 371 managers of tourism establishments in the hinterlands of two Spanish cruise ports. The conclusions confirm the good public image that cruise traffic has traditionally enjoyed. However, the vision that the managers have is not uniform but depends on the characteristics of the tourist establishment and its own experience. Managers also advocate the direct intervention of the public administrations, even with economic aid, to favour the implementation of cruise tourism in their cities.     

Cultural tourism as tourist segment for reducing seasonality in a coastal area: the case study of Andalusia

The present paper analyses the seasonal concentration on the Andalusian coastline, a Spanish Mediterranean coastal destination characterised by its high seasonality in the summer months. The analyses were conducted by separating tourists according to their main travel motivation, and distinguishing sun and sand tourists from cultural and other segments tourists, based on their place of origin and on the coast they visited. The quantitative tools applied included the additive decomposition of the Gini index and the calculation of the relative marginal effects. The proposed methodology serves as a useful tool for tourism managers and administrators interested in reducing seasonality, since it facilitates the identification of tourists segments that can effectively contribute to the reduction of seasonal concentration. Among the main results for the studied area, it was found that given the heterogeneity of the groups of tourists (both domestic and foreign), it was much more effective to separate tourist segments by their main travel motivation. The cultural segment was the most favourable for deseasonalisation, especially within domestic tourists, since with foreigners the same deseasonalising effect was not present in all the coasts analysed.     

How diversity contributes to academic research teams performance

The objective of this paper is to analyse how the job-related diversity in academic research teams influences their scientific performance. To achieve that objective, an empirical study of a university's research teams was carried out during the years 2006–2009. The results reflect a non-significant effect of functional diversity on research teams' performance, whereas status diversity affects in a positive and significant way. However, educational diversity has a significant negative impact when a certain threshold is exceeded. The effect of institutional diversity presents an inverted U-shaped relation with the number of published articles by the research teams. The results reveal that the relationship between diversity and research performance may not be a simple and direct one because its effect could depend on the organisational context and the type of diversity attributes.     

From rules to collaborative practice: When regulatory mechanisms drive collective co-production

The paper develops an analysis of latent spaces of co-production enacted by the government. Based on a survey and interviews, the authors identified the elements of co-production logics which emerged from the interactions of members of Brazilian municipal health councils. Collective co-production emerges when members adhere to a set of norms and values which are favourable to co-operation. The paper explains how councils’ regulatory mechanisms can drive the understanding of their members in relation to co-production and its benefits.