Effect of the Actual Size Rule Under Market Stress

We examine the introduction of the Actual Size Rule (ASR) on Nasdaq during a control period and a period of market stress. We find that market makers in both ASR and Non-ASR stocks reduce quotation sizes and widen spreads when under stress but the reduction of quotation size and increase in spread width are significantly larger for ASR stocks. We also examine October 27, when the market was under the most severe stress. We find ASR and Non-ASR stocks have similar reductions in time-weighted quotation ask size when compared with the control sample but ASR bid sizes are about 10% smaller than Non-ASR bid sizes. Our findings imply that the ASR rule may significantly reduce market quality under times of market stress. JEL Classification: 14, G15, G18     

A study of earnings-management motives in the Anglo-American and Euro-Continental accounting models: The Canadian and French cases

The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors that potentially influence earnings-management policy with reference to the Anglo-American and Euro-Continental accounting models. Canada and France, respectively, belong to those different socio-economic environments. Earnings-management practices detected in those countries are expected to be affected by specific socio-economic features of the Anglo-American and the Euro-Continental environments. We explain earnings-management practices by incentives suggested in the literature to reveal which motives are prominent within each environment.We tested our earnings-management motives (EMM) model using appropriate panel-estimation techniques over 1674 Canadian and 1470 French firm-year observations. Our results provide evidence that incentives for earnings management for French firms are specifically linked to contractual debt costs and effective tax rate. However, Canadian firms show specific incentives matched with a dynamic capital market. Issuing equity is a strong motive for earnings management in Canadian firms.     

An institutional analysis of supply chain innovations in global marketing channels

The adoption of sophisticated supply chain innovations by trading partners in global channels of distribution is often limited by the institutional context of the international transaction. In particular, the regulatory, normative, and cultural-cognitive elements of institutional environments around the world can enhance or inhibit the ability of trading partners to craft the contractual, ownership, and social elements of institutional arrangements required by an innovation. Because supply chain innovations often require costly, new investments and activity sets, firms may be reluctant to participate in an innovation unless a new institutional arrangement can be crafted to provide adequate safeguards and guarantees. A conceptual model is developed to explain the role of institutions in the successful deployment of supply chain innovations in global marketing channels.     

Wer wird Professor für Kommunikationswissenschaft und Journalistik?

Der vorliegende Beitrag fragt nach der demographischen Struktur der zentralen akademischen Akteure der Kommunikationswissenschaft in Deutschland und nach m?glichen Ver?nderungen dieser Struktur in den letzten 50 Jahren. Die Analyse zeigt zum einen, dass von einem einheitlichen Zugang zum Hochschullehrerberuf nach wie vor keine Rede sein kann, und zum anderen, dass das Fach vor einer demographischen Herausforderung steht. Die Kommunikationswissenschaft hat sich durch Akademisierung und ?Versozialwissenschaftlichung? von ihren Wurzeln gel?st. War Berufserfahrung im Medienbereich bis in die 1960er Jahre Voraussetzung für eine Berufung, verfügt heute nur noch eine Minderheit über solche Erfahrungen. Da die Existenz des Faches im Rahmen der Universit?t auch von der Nachfrage der Studierenden abh?ngt, kann man über die Folgen des anstehenden Generationswechsels nur spekulieren. In jedem Fall fehlt es an formal für die Hochschullehrerlaufbahn qualifiziertem Nachwuchs. Deshalb sind erhebliche Anstrengungen erforderlich, wenn der Boom im letzten Drittel des 20. Jahrhunderts sich nicht als Seifenblase erweisen soll.     

An Empirical Study of Firm Size and Competitiveness in German Life Insurance

Based on a purely rank-oriented approach, this empirical study analyzes to what extent superior firm size in German life industry generally translates into corporate advantages for the companies concerned. It turns out that while modest advantages with some criteria are measurable, any such benefits are usually outweighed by unquantifiable factors unrelated to firm size. Confining the study to a highly homogeneous subgroup of life insurers, however, reveals substantial corporate advantages in a number of areas, thereby confirming well-established theoretical reasoning.     

Urban planning: an ‘undisciplined’ discipline?

The need for cross disciplinary boundaries appeared in scientific research at least twenty years ago. Since its foundation, at the beginning of the 20th Century, urban planning has been claiming the assets of multidisciplinarity. It is particularly concerned with transgressing disciplinary boundaries. However, multidisciplinarity may weaken urban planning as a discipline, because it is a recent knowledge domain that has borrowed without questioning from the knowledge acquired in both the social and engineering sciences. Urban planning may forget to formulate an inventory and to build its own theoretical and practical assets. This article argues that it is only when a dsicipline has acquired its own identity that it can implement a fertile transdisciplinarity contribution.     

Macroeconomic consequences of terror: theory and the case of Israel

This paper analyzes the effect of terror on the economy. Terror endangers life such that the value of the future relative to the present is reduced. Hence, due to a rise in terror activity, investment goes down, and in the long run income and consumption go down as well. Governments can offset terror by putting tax revenues into the production of security. Facing a tide in terror, a government that acts optimally increases the proportion of output spent on defense, but does not fully offset the tide. Thus, when terror peaks the long run equilibrium with an optimizing government is of lower output and welfare. Next, we show that this theory of terror and the economy, helps to understand changes in trend and business cycle of the Israeli economy. The estimates show that terror has a large impact on the aggregate economy. Continued terror, at the level of the death toll by about the same size as due to car accidents, is expected to decrease annual consumption per capita by about 5% in 2004. Had Israel not suffered from terror during the last 3 years, we estimate that the output per capita would have been 10% higher than it is today.