The Relative Importance of Stock, Bond and Real Estate Factors in Explaining REIT Returns

This paper examines the link between REIT, financial asset and real estate returns, and tests whether it changed subsequent to the “REIT boom” of the early 1990s. The main focus is on answering the question do REIT returns now better reflect the performance of underlying direct (unsecuritized) real estate? We develop and implement a variance decomposition for REIT returns that separates REIT return variability into components directly related to major stock, bond, and real estate-related return indices, as well as idiosyncratic or sector-specific effects. This is applied to aggregate REIT sector (NAREIT) returns as well as returns to size and property-type based REIT portfolios. Our results show that the REIT market went from being driven largely by the same economic factors that drive large cap stocks through the 1970s and 1980s to being more strongly related to both small cap stock and real estate-related factors in the 1990s. There is also a steady increase over time in the proportion of volatility not accounted for by stock, bond or real estate related factors. We also find that small cap REITs are “more like real estate” compared to larger cap REITs, at least over the 1993–1998 period. We argue that this could be a result of the institutionalization of the ownership of larger cap REITs that took place in the 1990s.     

Nowcasting with payments system data

We consider the potential usefulness of a large set of electronic payments data, comprising the values and numbers of both debit card transactions and cheques that clear through the banking system, for the problem of reducing the current-period forecast (‘nowcast’) loss for (the growth rates of) GDP and retail sales. The payments system variables capture a broad range of spending activity and are available on a very timely basis, making them suitable current indicators. We generate nowcasts of GDP and retail sales growth for a given month on seven different dates, over a period of two and a half months preceding the first official releases, which is the period over which nowcasts would be of interest. We find statistically significant evidence that payments system data can reduce the nowcast error for both GDP and retail sales growth. Both debit transaction and cheque clearance data are of value in reducing nowcast losses for GDP growth, although the latter are of little or no value when debit data are also included. For retail sales, cheque data appear to produce no further nowcast loss reductions, regardless of whether or not debit transactions are included in the nowcasting model.     

Examining design cognition coding schemes for P-12 engineering/technology education

Cultivating students’ design abilities can be highly beneficial for the learning of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) concepts, and development of higher-order thinking capabilities (National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council in STEM integration in k-12 education: status, prospects, and an agenda for research, The National Academies Press, Washington, 2014). Therefore, examining students’ strategies, how they distribute their cognitive effort, and confront STEM concepts during design experiences, can help educators identify effective and developmentally appropriate methods for teaching and scaffolding design activities for students (National Research Council in standards for k-12 engineering education? The National Academies Press, Washington, 2010). Yet, educational researchers have only recently begun examining students’ engineering design cognition at the P-12 level, despite reports such as Standards for K-12 Engineering Education? (National Research Council 2010) designating this area of research as lackluster. Of the recent studies that have investigated engineering design cognition at the P-12 level, the primary method of investigation has been verbal protocol analysis using a think-aloud method (Grubbs in further characterization of high school pre- and non-engineering students’ cognitive activity during engineering design, 2016). This methodology captures participants’ verbalization of their thought process as they solve a design challenge. Analysis is typically conducted by applying a pre-determined coding scheme, or one that emerges, to determine the distribution of a group’s or an individual’s cognition. Consequently, researchers have employed a variety of coding schemes to examine and describe students’ design cognition. Given the steady increase of explorations into connections between P-12 engineering design cognition and development of student cognitive competencies, it becomes increasingly important to understand and choose the most appropriate coding schemes available, as each has its own intent and characteristics. Therefore, this article presents an examination of recent P-12 design cognition coding schemes with the purpose of providing a background for selecting and applying a scheme for a specific outcome, which can better enable the synthesis and comparison of findings across studies. Ultimately, the aim is to aid others in choosing an appropriate coding scheme, with cognizance of research analysis intent and characteristics of research design, while improving the intentional scaffolding and support of design challenges.     

Factors influencing student success on open-ended design problems

Open-ended design problems have become an important component in our educational landscape (Grubbs and Strimel in J STEM Teach Educ 50(1):77–90, 2015; Jonassen et al. in J Eng Educ 95:139–151, 2006; National Research Council in Education for life and work: developing transferable knowledge and skills in the 21st Century, National Academies Press, Washington, 2012; Strimel in Technol Eng Teach 73(7):8–18, 2014a). The ability of students to confront open-ended problem scenarios, think creatively, and produce novel designs have all been lauded as necessary skills for today’s twenty first century learners (Partnership for 21st Century Skills in P21 framework definitions, Author, Washington, 2016). This emphasis on open-ended design problems in problem-based learning scenarios has been tied to workforce and higher education preparation for students (National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council in STEM integration in K–12 education: status, prospects, and an agenda for research, National Academies Press, Washington, 2014; National Research Council in Engineering in K–12 education: understanding the status and improving the prospects, National Academies Press, Washington, 2009; Strimel in Technol Eng Teach 73(5):16–24, 2014b). However, little research has been conducted to identify the impact of potentially-influential factors on student success in such open-ended design scenarios. Therefore, the researchers examined data from 706 middle school students, working in small groups, as they completed an open-ended design challenge to determine the relationships between a variety of potentially-influential factors and student performance, as measured through adaptive comparative judgment. The analysis of the data revealed several relationships, significant and not significant, between identified variables and student success on open-ended design challenges.     

Benefit Formation and Enhancement

Quantitative Marketing and Economics - The identification of product attributes and features that are essential for a benefit to exist is critical to new product development and formulation. Some...     

Alpha- and beta-characteristic functions in cooperative non-sidepayment games: An experimental test

This article investigates theories of payoff allocation in cooperative non-sidepayment games, that is, games where players can form coalitions and coordinate strategies but cannot redistribute payoffs via sidepayments. A labotatory experiment was conducted with 4-person, 3-strategy non-sidepayment games. The goal of this experiment was to ascertain which characteristic function, V_α(S) or V_β(S), provides the more accurate basis for payoff predictions from solution concepts. Predictions from each of three solution concepts (core, stable set, imputation set) were computed on the basis of both V_α(S) and V_β(S), making a total of six theories under test. The results showed two basic findings. First, for each of the three solutions, the prediction computed on the basis of V_α(S) was more accurate than the prediction computed from V_α(S). Second, the β-core was the most accurate of the six theories tested. Overall, these results support the view that V_β(S) is superior to V_α(S) as a basis for payoff predictions in cooperative non-sidepayment games.     

嘲笑，“非友人”或者真正的商业？

以前我常在其他网站的边栏看到Twiteer，但现在它却已经成为我每天几乎是虔诚地使用的一个网站。我一直在猜想其三个标准的哪个才是我开始的原因，或者它们三者皆是。     

Capital Markets Research And The Goodwill Debate

This paper provides a review of capital markets research relevant to the goodwill accounting debate. Results indicate that the reported goodwill asset under United States GAAP is associated with share values, but there is no clear evidence of a similar association for goodwill amortisation. Similarly, there is no clear evidence of a competitive disadvantage associated with the requirement to amortise goodwill.     

The effect of non-audit services on client risk, acceptance and staffing decisions

The Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 prohibited auditing firms from providing certain non-audit services to audit clients and left open the possibility that other currently non-prohibited services could also be banned. This prohibition hinges, in part, on regulatory concerns that auditors were willing to accept prospective higher risk clients in order to obtain more profitable non-audit service engagements. Accounting firms rejected this claim. Given the prospect that more non-audit services could be prohibited, we revisit this debate by examining these competing claims in an experiment in which we manipulate risk and the potential to sell non-audit services and then observe the impact of these variables on auditors’ client acceptance and subsequent staffing decisions. Specifically, audit partners received client information and were asked to make an acceptance decision and propose a staffing plan for a potential engagement. We find that a higher (lower) level of risk decreased (increased) the likelihood of acceptance and this relation did not vary with the potential to provide non-audit services. These results do not support the regulators’ claims but are consistent with the firms’ claims. Further, we found that more experienced auditors were assigned to the prospective client whose management had lower integrity. This staffing plan is consistent with a risk adaptation strategy for the client with lower integrity. The prohibition of certain non-audit services has been justified on the grounds that auditors might engage in systematic opportunistic behavior. However, our results do not find such behavior which should inform the current PCAOB deliberation over whether additional services should be banned. Alternatively, different justification must be found for the prohibitions.     

Adjusting Choice Models to Better Predict Market Behavior

The emergence of Bayesian methodology has facilitated respondent-level conjoint models, and deriving utilities from choice experiments has become very popular among those modeling product line decisions or new product introductions. This review begins with a paradox of why experimental choices should mirror market behavior despite clear differences in content, structure and motivation. It then addresses ways to design the choice tasks so that they are more likely to reflect market choices. Finally, it examines ways to model the results of the choice experiments to better mirror both underlying decision processes and potential market choices. Co-chairs. Author order is alphabetical.