A Simple Method for Calculating the imin Rate for an Investment Project

The i_min rate of an investment project is the smallest rate such that all the intermediate balances of the project have the same sign or ore null. This rate is mainly used to determine whether an investment project is a pure or a mixed investment project. In this technical note we point out that as i_min is the greatest internal rate of return among the ones of pure truncated projects and since no eventual mixed truncated project can have a root with a value greater or equal to i_min , we then can easily obtain i_min by appropriate use of standard internal rate of return computing routines.     

那神奇的一抹红

红色，显然背景神通。在成就获得情境中，红色意味着危险，也就驱使人回避，这就是为什么红色车会更安全，而在浪漫情境中，红色意味着性的开放或罗曼蒂克，诱发接近行为，这就是为什么红衣女郎会收到更多约会邀请。     

FAIR DAIRY POLICY

Dairy policy in the United States has gone through many changes over the years, but the basic instruments have remained in place for decades. The Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform (FAIR) Act of 1996 is best seen as a relatively small scale reform of dairy policy. Most of the income transfers from consumers and taxpayers to dairy farms remain intact, and the major economic distortions are unaffected. The major change from phasing out price support program is more one of form rather than substance. Some consider this a fundamental shift in U.S. dairy policy, but its quantitative impact is likely to be minor. Further, because dairy assessments associated with the price support are eliminated immediately, the net transfer from taxpayers to the dairy industry is likely to be higher than it would be if the price support program were left in place. This paper reviews the effects of this change and other dairy policy provisions in the FAIR Act and compares the implications of the new dairy program to implications of three alternatives: continuing the previous program, eliminating marketing orders and the price support program, and eliminating all policy interventions including import barriers.     

The Privacy Paradox: Personal Information Disclosure Intentions versus Behaviors

Impelled by the development of technologies that facilitate collection, distribution, storage, and manipulation of personal consumer information, privacy has become a “hot” topic for policy makers. Commercial interests seek to maximize and then leverage the value of consumer information, while, at the same time, consumers voice concerns that their rights and ability to control their personal information in the marketplace are being violated. However, despite the complaints, it appears that consumers freely provide personal data. This research explores what we call the “privacy paradox” or the relationship between individuals’ intentions to disclose personal information and their actual personal information disclosure behaviors.     

Information and Incentives Inside the Firm: Evidence from Loan Officer Rotation

We present evidence that reassigning tasks among agents can alleviate moral hazard in communication. A rotation policy that routinely reassigns loan officers to borrowers of a commercial bank affects the officers' reporting behavior. When an officer anticipates rotation, reports are more accurate and contain more bad news about the borrower's repayment prospects. As a result, the rotation policy makes bank lending decisions more sensitive to officer reports. The threat of rotation improves communication because self‐reporting bad news has a smaller negative effect on an officer's career prospects than bad news exposed by a successor.     

Price Setting in the Euro Area: Some Stylized Facts from Individual Producer Price Data

This paper summarizes the microevidence on the setting of producer prices in the euro area. The main findings are: (i) 21% of producer prices are adjusted each month, (ii) producer prices are changed more frequently and by smaller amounts than consumer prices (even after controlling for product characteristics), (iii) price decreases are relatively frequent, (iv) inflation correlates positively with the difference between the frequency of price increases and decreases, and (v) there is substantial variation in price flexibility across sectors, which can be explained in part by differences in the cost structure, the degree of competition, and the level of sectoral inflation.     

Disclosure Quality and the Excess Value of Diversification

For a sample of U.S. firm years from 1980 through 1996 we document a positive association between the excess value of diversification as defined by Berger and Ofek [1995] and security analyst ratings of voluntary disclosure as developed by the Association for Investment Management and Research. We also examine an alternative proxy for disclosure quality that captures the degree of segment disaggregation and document a positive association between this measure and excess value. Our results are robust to controls for firm performance and information environment. Taken together, these phenomena suggest that disclosure plays a monitoring role in disciplining management's investment decisions. However, tests of the association between disclosure and the value of firms' investment spending yield mixed results.