Insider employee stock option trading and stock prices

The question of which factors determine corporate bonds pricing is investigated by analysing the spreads of eurobonds issued by major G-10 companies during the 1991–2001 period. Three main results emerge from the analysis. First, bond ratings appear as the most important determinant of yield spreads, with investors’ reliance on rating agencies judgments increasing over time. Second, the primary market efficiency and the expected secondary market liquidity are not relevant explanatory factors of spreads cross-sectional variability. Finally, rating agencies adopt a different, ‘through the cycle’, evaluation criteria of default risk with respect to the forward looking one adopted by bond investors.     

A Range-Based Finite Difference Approach to Valuing Options in Markov Switching Regimes*

Recognizing the inflexibility inherent in standard capital budgeting analysis, recent research has provided new insights using a real options framework. This paper uses the explicit finite difference approach to value real options. However, instead of assuming a constant return and volatility term, we assume that these variables are sensitive to changes in the economic environment. Accordingly, we adapt our approach to incorporate a Markov switching feature. Further, we recognize that some of the modeling assumptions can be violated in a practical application. Therefore, we recommend using range based estimates of the real option value, as opposed to a point estimate.     

The sources of use knowledge: Towards integrating the dynamics of technology use and design in the articulation of societal challenges

This paper reviews three strands of the innovation literature that have presented innovation as a distributed process that combines knowledge of designers and users: user innovations, Science and Technology Studies (STS), and domestication research. These literatures have explored different aspects of the micro-processes through which use and design knowledge are locally embedded. This paper pulls together insights from the literatures, and identifies an important gap: the connections between the local embedding of use and design knowledge, and the meso dynamics of industrial and technological change. The paper then develops a number of integrating concepts and propositions for a framework to study the co-evolution of use and design in innovation processes. It also demonstrates that this framework is most valuable in researching how societal challenges become articulated over time in processes of technological change and innovation.     

Profit rate dynamics, income distribution, structural and technical change in Denmark, Finland and Italy

Under less restrictive assumptions than in previous contributions, this paper highlights various patterns of profit rate dynamics that are common to the countries under scrutiny. Without a substantial re-distribution of income in favour of profits, the profit rate declines. When labour productivity is weak the profits/wages ratio declines leading to a decline in the profit rate, also due to capital deepening. Developments in the capital-labour ratio tend to increase the organic composition of capital while those in the ratio between the capital price deflator and the average wage tend to decrease it. Falls in the profit rate took place in countries with a weak technological change with episodes of Marxian bias. Employment shifted from low to high capital intensity sectors, from low to high organic composition industries and from low to high productivity sectors. Rising strength of labour and realization failures tend to have a greater role than rising organic composition in cyclical profit rate dynamics. Over the cycle, the first mechanism is also the first one to show up, while the others tend to follow it. Theoretical and policy implications are offered.     

健脑俱乐部悄然兴起

现年63岁的作家琳达·巴克林（Linda Hale Bucklin）看见自己所在的社区新开了一家“健脑俱乐部”，当场办了张卡。现在，她每周去那里三次，通过电脑学习一个“视觉处理”课程，她觉得这个课程帮助她更快地找到汽车钥匙，并提高了自己的网球技巧。     

Exploring VCR use as a leisure activity

On the basis of a uses‐and‐gratifications perspective, this exploratory study examined the TV viewing and VCR use of a sample of 119 households with VCRs. The instrument developed for use in this study consisted of a TV and VCR diary in which respondents recorded a variety of information related to each viewing (or recording) occasion for 1 week. The results suggest that although the ability to manipulate the broadcast schedule was a valued feature of the VCR, VCR use merely enhanced established patterns of TV viewing rather than significantly altered TV viewing or leisure behavior. The playback function of the VCR represented a primarily solitary activity pursued for entertainment and relaxation. Watching rented movies represented a primarily social activity pursued for entertainment, relaxation, and companionship. An equal number of television programs were viewed alone as were viewed with others.     

When imperfect collusion is profitable

This paper studies cartel stability under the assumption that member firms can choose intermediate degrees of collusion as well as the joint-profit-maximizing solution in determining the quota to be produced by each firm. After showing that firms can increase the number of participants by decreasing the degree of collusion, I prove that individual members' profits are maximized when firms choose a (possibly low) degree of collusion such that all firms in the industry want to take part in the cartel. More precisely, if the number of firms in the industry is four or less, then all of them want to take part in the cartel even if the maximum degree of collusion is chosen (i.e., the monopoly output is produced); if the number of firms is greater than four, firms will still create an industry-wide cartel but they will produce a higher quantity than the monopoly output.     

Vacancy durations - a model for employer's search

This paper investigates a Dutch data set on vacancy durations and numbers of applicants to enquire employers' search strategies. A nonsequential search process assumes that most vacancies are filled from a pool of applicants, which is formed shortly after the posting of the vacancy. The time spent on recruiting applicants and the duration of the selection process are estimated with a proportional hazard model, via the arrival and attrition rates of applicants.