The Impact of Antitakeover Amendments on Corporate Financial Performance

Previous event studies that examine the impact of antitakeover amendments on firm value provide mixed results. Some studies support the management entrenchment hypothesis, while others support the shareholder interest hypothesis. In this study, a longitudinal approach is used to examine the impact of antitakeover amendments on several financial attributes of the firm including: operating and net income to total assets, operating and overhead expenses to sales, research and development to total sales, capital expenditures to sales, and debt relative to total assets. It is concluded that antitakeover amendments are not deleterious in terms of their impact on various fundamental firm performance measures.     

THE SEASONALITY IN CONVERTIBLE BOND MARKETS: A STOCK EFFECT OR BOND EFFECT?

There is a strong January effect in convertible bond returns that has been partially attributed to seasonality in the underlying stock. January returns for convertible bonds are positively influenced by the degree to which the bond reflects the underlying equity, which suggests that the anomaly in one asset market may carry over to its derivative asset market. Significant evidence presented here indicates that the January effect also is attributable to unique tax-loss selling in the convertible bond market. A peripheral contribution of this study is that, similar to findings in the stock market, the risk-return trade-off appears to hold only in January for convertible bonds.     

A disequilibrium model of real wages,employment and unemployment for the U.S.A. during 1930–1965

The well known Lucas-Rapping (1969, 1970) U.S. Labour market model has been estimated with a simple disequilibrium estimation method. Neither the wage rate nor the employment level are found to adjust to clear the labour market within the unit time period. The elasticity of labour supply in the short run is found to be high which is consistent with the recent theories of real business cycle. Adjustment in employment towards equilibrium is faster than the adjustment in the wages. The rate of unemployment is satisfactorily explained by the excess supply rate without the need for the lagged unemployment rate. Thus our unemployment equation is superior to the Lucas-Rapping equation based on the equilibrium framework.I am grateful Professors J. W. Nevile, V. K. Srivastava, the editor of this Journal, Professor Baldev Raj and two referees for their comments on an earlier version of this paper. I wish to thank Kris Corcoran for her excellent research assistance. The research contained in this paper is financed by a grant from the Faculty of Commerce and Economics.     

Institutional Ownership and Distribution of Equity Returns

Although there is considerable evidence of the importance of skewness and kurtosis in equity returns, much less attention has been paid to their determinants. Recent theoretical and empirical advances in the literature suggest that the information structure and other market characteristics affect the nature of return distributions. One such characteristic is the degree of institutional ownership in the stock. This study hypothesizes and documents a significant inverse relationship between the degree of institutional ownership and the standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis of equity returns.     

两者都是最棒的

Jon Roll在他还是大学生的时候就已经打算将来要做建筑师。于是，他去了一家建筑公司做了一段时间的学徒，但是在那之后，他发现在建筑这一行想晋升很难，除非自己能接到很大的设计项目。所以Jon Roll准备运用他的创造力。     

ECONOMIC SYSTEMS, POLITICAL STRUCTURES AND HUMAN RIGHTS

The paper deals with the estimation of comparable human rights ratings (defined as a composite of political rights, civil liberties and state power indices) for 154 countries, excluding territories, of the world in 1983. It then develops a theory to gauge the sensitivity of these ratings to a specific disaggregation suggested by the theory of political economy and establishes the close nexus existing between economic systems, political structures and human rights. The results indicate that increasing government intervention, whether economic or political, unequivocally tends to worsen the human rights situation. Moreover, it is seen that affluence and income distribution are significant predictors of human rights ratings across countries.     

Econometric Specification and Identification of the Behavior of Economic Agents

The present study examines the combination of economic theory, structure of the econometric model, and estimation techniques to extract the maximum possible information about the behavior of economic agents from observed decisions. The analysis is set in the framework of micro economic behavior and industrial organization. The relevant theoretical structures generally assume optimization behavior of economic agents. However, optimization models do not have a unique structure and are generally difficult to identify. Consequently, a variety of second best specification and estimation methods emerged. But they entail loss of information. Hence, greater efforts devoted to the identification of optimization models will enrich our understanding of economic behavior. Progress in this direction will eventually render a vast majority of existing econometric techniques obsolete.

     

Board Composition in New Zealand: An Agency Perspective

This paper looks at board composition determinants in New Zealand. We document that the proportion of outside board members is inversely related to insider equity ownership supporting the notion that these variables are substitute mechanisms in controlling agency problems. We also find that board composition is directly related to debt, ownership concentration, and profitability and inversely related to growth and firm size. There is evidence that firms with influential CEOs have lower outside board representation. Finally, we document that the passage of the legislation reforming company and securities laws in 1993 was associated with increased outside members on the board.     

珠海市农业现代化示范区建设成就评价

本文对珠海市农业现代化示范区建设的技术、经济、社会、生态环境等成就进行评价,从中得出政府职能转变、科技创新、产业化经营、完善的社会化服务体系对促进农业现代化建设若干有益的启示。