Empirical evidence of the existence of speculative bubbles in the prices of stocks traded on the São Paulo Stock Exchange

Speculative price bubbles are defined as a significant deviation between an asset's intrinsic value and its market value and in this paper it refers to stock values. Literature about the theme has noted the existence of bubbles in various types of markets and their respective assets. A great deal of effort has been directed toward identifying bubbles in stock price indices. However, few research endeavors focus on assets as the unit of analysis. Studies about stocks in Brazil have identified the presence of bubbles in IBOVESPA (São Paulo Stock Exchange Index). Given this context and assuming that the speculative bubbles are present in the Brazilian stock market, this research is focused on the following question: Is there evidence of the existence of speculative bubbles in stock prices traded on the São Paulo Stock Exchange? Econometric tests were performed on twenty-seven stocks, based upon their positions each semester, for the period between the first semesters of 1990 until the first semester of 2010. The nominal values of the selected stocks were adjusted for inflation by the IPCA (Brazilian Consumer Price Index). In order to identify the presence of bubbles, we applied the Johansen non-cointegration test and/or the Granger non-causality test between the intrinsic value, dividends and interest on equity capital, and the market value (semester closing price) of the stocks. The primary findings reveal a presence of bubbles in twenty of the twenty-seven stocks, at a 5% significance level. Of the seven stocks not showing evidence of bubbles, six are financial institutions. In five stocks the tests reveal Granger causality stemming from the market value toward the intrinsic value. The study findings are consistent and contribute with previous research in the literature and, are useful for investors, financial institutions, academics, government agents, and traders.     

Social networking websites: who survives?

This article studies the relationship between the characteristics of social networking sites (SNSs) and their probability of survival. The data sample includes 224 SNSs launched throughout the world from 1995 to 2015 and that can be described by focus strategy, business financing methods and interactions with external companies, such as partnerships, mergers and acquisitions. Three factors are systematically associated with closure hazard rates. First, compared with SNSs that address a specialized audience, generalist SNSs have a three times higher probability of closing. Second, being the target of a merger or acquisition more than doubles the probability of closure. Third, new entrants have higher probability to survive if compared with SNSs with experience in the industry.     

Liminal mothers’ negotiation of conflicting service consumption

Pregnancy is a significant period of transition, transforming ‘women’ into ‘mothers’. The mid or liminal phase of transition is particularly ripe for consumer researchers. Transformative services research (TSR) considers that services may deliver objective well-being outcomes (e.g. consumer health). This article extends TSR into liminality and considers that services may also encompass hedonic (mood, satisfaction and happiness) and eudaimonic (mastery, autonomy, positive relations and self-acceptance) dimensions. The article unpacks women’s service experiences to enrich and expand understanding of positive and negative consumption meanings. It identifies that unanticipated outcomes emerge as a feature of transformative services. It demonstrates that services situates new mothers at the centre of a multiplicity of consumption. This may both overwhelm and act as transitional resource developing mothers as postmodern bricoleurs.     

Combining homogeneous groups of preclassified observations with application to international trade

This article proposes three methods for merging homogeneous clusters of observations that are grouped according to a pre‐existing (known) classification. This clusterwise regression problem is at the very least compelling in analyzing international trade data, where transaction prices can be grouped according to the corresponding origin–destination combination. A proper merging of these prices could simplify the analysis of the market without affecting the representativeness of the data and highlight commercial anomalies that may hide frauds. The three algorithms proposed are based on an iterative application of the F‐test and have the advantage of being extremely flexible, as they do not require to predetermine the number of final clusters, and their output depends only on a tuning parameter. Monte Carlo results show very good performances of all the procedures, whereas the application to a couple of empirical data sets proves the practical utility of the methods proposed for reducing the dimension of the market and isolating suspicious commercial behaviors.     

Women directors contribution to organizational innovation: A behavioral approach

This paper aims to analyze the relationships between women directors (a demographic characteristic) and organizational innovation (a predictor of firm performance) by considering the mediating role of the board’s decision-making culture. To scrutinize board processes and behaviors, we use survey data to test our hypotheses on a sample of 341 Norwegian firms. The results suggest that women directors contribute positively and significantly to organizational innovation. Furthermore, the positive relationship between women directors and the level of organizational innovation is mediated by some decision-making culture dimensions: the degree of cognitive conflict and the degree of preparation and involvement during board meetings. Implications for theory and practice and future research directions are discussed.     

Deep and Proximate Determinants of the World Income Distribution

This paper studies the deep and proximate determinants of the evolution of the cross-country distribution of GDP per worker in the period 1960–2008 by a novel method based on an information criterion. We find that countries of our sample follow three distinctive growth regimes identified by two deep determinants, namely life expectancy at birth in 1960 and the share of Catholics in 1965, and that each regime is characterized by non-linearities. Growth regimes appear to be the main cause of the increased inequality and polarization, while technological catch-up, proxied by the initial level of GDP per worker, acts in the opposite direction. Finally, human capital marginally reduces polarization, while investment rates and employment growth have no distributional effect.     

Corporate Networks and Business Groups in Argentina in the Early 1970s

This article examines the interlocking directorates' structure of prominent Argentine business groups at the end of the import substitution period (1970–72), identifying corporate relations among and between business groups and the largest companies, during a period characterised by high institutional and macroeconomic instability. Applying social network analysis, it seeks to clarify how business groups can contribute to the cohesion of a corporate network structure, through their ability to create links among firms not only within their boundaries but also external to them. The article contributes to both corporate network and business groups' literature, highlighting a role of business groups that extant literature has failed to identify as relevant.     

International R&D Spillovers,Absorptive Capacity and Relative Backwardness: A Panel Smooth Transition Regression Model

We investigate how a country's absorptive capacity and relative backwardness affect the impact of international R&D spillovers on domestic Total Factor Productivity (TFP). To account for nonlinearities, we adopt a Panel Smooth Transition Regression approach, where a country's TFP elasticity to the foreign R&D stock is allowed to change smoothly across various identified extreme values, and the change is related to observable transition variables: human capital (capturing the country's absorptive capacity) and relative backwardness. The results suggest that absorptive capacity is positively associated with international R&D spillovers. In contrast with previous results, relative backwardness is instead found to have a negative and significant impact on international knowledge spillovers.     

The marketing message: Being broadcast loud and clear?

Communication lies at the very heart of marketing; but how well do marketers and marketing academics communicate? Academics, including those in marketing, have been criticized for putting their ideas across in a complex and unclear way. Marketing academics may have some valuable new ideas to “sell” to practitioners; but are they so product orientated that they are ignoring the communications needs of their potential customers? This paper tries to explore the importance of clear communications for academics and practitioners; and to survey how clearly we are communicating through the channel of marketing journals in particular.