The Exploitation of Inside Information at the Wall Street Journal: A Test of Strong Form Efficiency

The study examines if tradings on stocks based on the inside information about the “Heard on the Street” column of the Wall Street Journal could generate abnormal returns. We found significant abnormal returns on days t =?1 and t= 0 (publication date) for the stocks related to insider trading. For a comparable control group of noninsider traded stocks, the abnormal returns were not significant on day t=?1 but were significant on day t= 0. The abnormal returns for the insider trade group on days t=?1 and t= 0 were greater than the returns for the control group. The results indicate that the inside information was the cause for the differences.     

Exchange-rate volatility, trade and “fixing for life” in Thailand

At the outset of the 1997 financial crisis, the quest to find a more suitable exchange-rate policy has become an urgent task facing the East Asian economies. One of the key policies agreed under Thailand’s August 1997 Letter of Intent (LOI) with the IMF was the adoption of a more flexible exchange-rate policy. However, the country re-adopted its pre-1997 crisis rigid exchange-rate policy in early 1999. To grasp this “fixing for your life” phenomenon, we test the impact of the exchange-rate volatilities of Thailand’s baht against the yen and the US dollar on the performance of the country’s bilateral trades with the two key partners.     

UNIFORM TECHNICAL PROGRESS: CAN IT BE HARMFUL?

Abstract.  In a model incorporating trade in final goods, intermediate goods and capital, we show how 'uniform' technical progress across sectors can lead to immiserization. The condition for immiserizing technical progress crucially depends on the pattern of specialization. Our results tend to hold in a more general specification of the basic structure.     

Cash holdings of politically connected firms

Politically connected firms benefit from soft-budget constraints and are unlikely to suffer from liquidity constraints. This argument suggests that politically connected firms should hold less cash than non-connected peers. Another view posits that these firms exhibit acute corporate governance problems. In this setting, politically connected firms are more likely to hold more cash than non-connected firms. Using a sample of 50,119 firm-year observations from 31 countries, we find that politically connected firms hold more cash than their non-connected peers. We put forth two explanations for this result. Firstly, politicians use politically connected firms as “cash cows” to advance their political agendas. Secondly, political connections are conducive to agency problems. In additional analyses, we find that the positive relationship between political connections and cash holdings is stronger when corporate governance is weak.     

Is quality management a prime requisite for globalization? Some facts from the sports industry

Countries have progressed during the decades through internationalization of their products. Pakistan is also trying hard to internationalize its products and has succeeded as far as the textile and sport ware industries are concerned. Pakistani Sports industry, though always relying on high quality products, lacked a formal quality management program till 1990’s. It was during this decade that most sports industries adopted a formal quality management program in the shape of ISO-9000. This paper encompasses different aspects of quality management and establishes its role in internationalization. Research findings presented in this paper are carried out in two phases. In phase-I, the detailed analysis of 6 sports industries is done, whereas in phase-II, a survey of one hundred industries was conducted and the role of quality management was established based on obtained results. It was found that 85% companies adopted ISO-9000 as a formal quality management program. The quality impact on internationalization was probed and it was found that the following quality management programs increased the sale, exports, profitability and the well being of the owner and the workers.     

What Drives TBL Reporting: Good Governance or Threat to Legitimacy?

This paper provides two complementary explanations for the adoption of triple bottom line (TBL) reporting by Australian companies. The first explanation is that companies adopt TBL reporting to legitimise their relationship with society because of adverse publicity from the media. The second explanation is that TBL reporting is adopted because of the company's desire to achieve high‐quality reporting and transparency inferred by strong corporate governance. Companies with TBL reporting had significantly more adverse media coverage before implementing TBL reporting than non‐TBL companies. TBL reporting is also significantly and positively related to the existence of an environmental or sustainable development committee and the frequency of meetings of the audit committee.     

An Investigation of Market Orientation (MO) and Tourism Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises’ (SMEs) Performance in Developing Countries: A Review of the Literature

This paper aims to build a structured literature review of the field of market orientation and its impact on tourism small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) performance in developing countries. This literature review will present a comprehensive survey of market orientation (MO) published articles to facilitate good understanding of MO. It serves as an archive and aims to help the scholars and practitioners to explore, analyse, and develop a clear understanding about the different research points and methodologies implemented in previous studies related to MO and its impact on tourism SMEs’ performance. The paper systematically reviews and categorizes the published literature implementing a three-stage methodology, and thereafter analyzes and reviews this literature methodologically. The review covered many areas and identified some factors that drive/hinder market-oriented activities within tourism SMEs. Furthermore, suggestions have been made to understand more thoroughly how market orientation influences tourism SMEs performance in developing economies. A research gap in the area of market orientation and tourism SMEs performance in developing countries was identified. The study provides great benefits for owner-managers, government policy makers, scholars, and educators by clarifying the concept of market orientation and its relationship with performance in the context of tourism SMEs.