Earnings characteristics and analysts’ differential interpretation of earnings announcements: An empirical analysis

This study provides empirical evidence on factors that drive differential interpretation of earnings announcements. We document that Kandel and Pearson's forecast measures of differential interpretation are decreasing in proxies for earnings quality and pre‐announcement information quality. This evidence yields new and useful insights regarding which earnings announcements are less likely to generate newfound disagreement among analysts and investors. Recent research suggests that investor disagreement can increase investment risk, increase the cost of capital, and cause stock prices to deviate from fundamental value. Therefore, our results support prior intuition that increasing the quality of earnings and pre‐announcement information can improve the efficiency of capital markets.     

Ex ante performance from ex post models of global equity market correlations

Analysis of ex post returns reveals the time series properties of correlations, but ex ante correlations are required for efficient diversification. We find that a time-varying parameter model offers the best fit to ex post global equity market correlations, suggesting changing mean correlations and changing rates of adjustment back to the means. Nevertheless, we do not find improved forecast performance from time-varying parameter models in holdout periods. The added complexity of time-varying models does not translate into lower forecast errors.     

Volatility Decomposition and Correlation in International Securitized Real Estate Markets

This study contributes to the literature in international securitized real estate market volatility in three ways. Each market’s conditional volatility is decomposed into a “permanent” or long-run component and a “transitory” or short-run component via a component-GARCH model. Even though with the same number of common factors derived from the “permanent” and “transitory” volatility series, their loadings are not similar and consequently the long-run and short-run volatility linkages for some markets are different. Finally there are significant volatility co-movements between real estate and stock markets’ “permanent” and “transitory” components suggesting that real estate markets are at least not segmented from stock markets in international investing.     

Wage and employment effects in the EU of international trade with the emerging economies

The paper investigates whether significant HOS effects are present in the EU from trade liberalization with the emerging economies. Regarding wage inequality, there is only evidence of a trade-induced technological change, but biased towards thelower-skilled-labor-intensive sectors. Relative wages in the EU member states are not affected differently. Trade liberalization under ‘European assumptions’, however, could affect primarily relative factor demand. A flexible cost function approach shows that import competition from the emerging economies influenced relative labor demand in favor of the higher skilled, implying an intrasectoral rather than an intersectoral specialization in skill-intensive activities. JEL no. F11, F14     

Gender and Perceived Fundamental Moral Orientations: An Empirical Study of the Turkish Hotel Industry

Recent history is replete with scandalous acts and charitable acts within the business community. Unfortunately, scandalous acts seem to occur with greater frequency than charitable acts – at least as reported in the broadcast and print media. An interesting corollary to the incidence of scandalous and charitable acts is the apparent differential involvement of men and women, particularly in scandals. This article explores a possible explanation for the apparent gender differential in involvement in scandals and acts of charity. Drawing on a conceptual framework of three Fundamental Moral Orientations (FMOs) – selfishness, self-fullness, and selflessness – and relevant literature on gender effects, this article explores whether men and women are perceived as differing fundamentally in how they approach moral dilemmas. This phenomenon is examined with a sample of personnel (n = 682) from the hotel industry in Turkey. Results of the study indicate that gender has some effect on the perceived adoption of FMOs, and that these gender effects are generally consistent across age, educational level, and organizational rank categories. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

A Comparison of Induced Value and Home-Grown Value Experiments to Test for Hypothetical Bias in Contingent Valuation

This study tests the hypothesis that hypothetical bias may not be related to value elicitation; rather it may be a value formation problem. When participants are asked to indicate their willingness to pay for an induced value good, we find no evidence of hypothetical bias for three different commodity types (public good, private good, and publicly provided private good). However, when these same subjects are asked to value homegrown goods with no pre-assigned induced value using the same elicitation mechanism, hypothetical values are roughly double actual payments in all three cases. These results support the hypothesis that the process of forming values in a homegrown setting may be a key contributor to hypothetical bias.     

Diet transformation in Africa: the case of Ethiopia

Africa's food systems are changing fast amid rapid economic growth, emerging urbanization, and structural transformation. In this study, we use four rounds of nationally representative data from Ethiopia to document changes in household food consumption patterns over a period of unprecedented economic growth. We find that while the share of food in the total consumption basket is declining, food quantities and calorie intakes have considerably increased between 1996 and 2011. A decomposition analysis suggests that this was mostly driven by improvements in household incomes—a finding that is consistent across the calorie distribution. Also, the content of the food basket is changing with a gradual shift toward high‐value foods such as animal products, fruits and vegetables and processed foods. Overall, this diet transformation has important implications for the food security debate and for agricultural and food policy in the country.     

Do Morning Classes Improve Student Learning of Microeconomics Principles?

This article analyzes the impact of class time on students’ grades by using data from Middle Tennessee State University. The data cover a period of six years and are based on a sample of 5803 individuals who enrolled in 133 sections of principles of microeconomics. To identify the causal impact of class time on students’ grades, I used a bootstrapping method which allowed assigning measures of accuracy to sample estimates. For males, the estimated coefficients were negative and statistically significant at the 10% level, and the coefficients suggested that a male student in an afternoon class could expect to earn a letter grade that is 0.029 points lower than he would have earned by taking the class in the morning. For females, the estimated coefficients were not statistically significant.