Public Perceptions of Billboards: A Meta-Analysis

While outdoor advertising is currently the fastest-growing traditional advertising medium, the value of billboards to the public has long been debated. Drawing on a conceptual framework developed by Farris and Albion (1980), contrasting two schools of thought about advertising's economic and societal role, this study reports a meta-analysis of more than 100 surveys of U.S. public opinion toward billboards, covering almost eight decades of findings from more than 100,000 participants. Variables analyzed include the degree to which the public believes billboards are informative, entertaining, irritating, and helpful to the economy; in need of more regulation; and beneficial overall. Results suggest that, both historically and currently, consumers view billboards positively, and a strong majority do not support billboard bans. Moreover, the overall results are more supportive of the notion that the public subscribes to the Advertising = Information school of thought as opposed to the Advertising = Market Power school.     

Advertising and recruitment: Marketing to minorities

Growing diversity, increasing multinationalism, and a need to better understand minority consumers make recruiting minority professionals to the workplace exceedingly important. This study examines the influences of a frequently used tool in organizational recruitment, the recruitment advertisement. Specifically, this research examines the influence of the racial composition of employees portrayed in these advertisements on a diverse sample of job‐seeker reactions. These reactions include perceptions of organizational attractiveness, perceived compatibility to the organization, and evaluations of organizational image. In addition, it was expected that the race of the perceiver, the job seeker, would moderate these relationships. Mixed support for the hypotheses was found. Implications for advertising, marketing, and recruitment research given emerging domestic diversity are offered. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

A common-trends and error-correction approach to forecasting corporate bond returns

It is found that one unit root, common trend, is shared by the monthly price indices of the top four ratings of corporate bonds. Addition of an index of low-grade bonds to the vector time series results in two common trends. Consistent results are provided by dynamic factor analyses. The returns for the system of cointegrated indices can be represpnted by an error-correction model using past returns and cointegrating vectors. This model can provide more accurate forecasts than a common VAR that omits the cointegrating vectors. The common-trends analysis provides specific linear combinations, or cointegrating portfolios, of the index price levels that are stationary. The cointegrating portfolios associated with the two common trends have returns that are related to T-bill returns and unanticipated inflation.     

Using Forecasts of Earnings to Simultaneously Estimate Growth and the Rate of Return on Equity Investment

We develop a method for simultaneously estimating the cost of equity capital and the growth in residual earnings that are implied by current stock prices, current book value of equity, and short-term forecasts of accounting earnings. We demonstrate the use of our method by calculating the expected equity risk premium. Our estimate is higher than estimates in extant studies that are based on the same earnings forecast data. The main difference between our study and these papers is that while they provide arguments supporting an assumed rate of growth beyond the forecast horizon, we estimate this rate.     

How global brands compete

It's time to rethink global branding. More than two decades ago, Harvard Business School professor Theodore Levitt argued that corporations should grow by selling standardized products all over the world. But consumers in most countries had trouble relating to generic products, so executives instead strove for global scale on backstage activities such as production while customizing product features and selling techniques to local tastes. Such "glocal" strategies now rule marketing. Global branding has lost more luster recently because transnational companies have been under siege, with brands like Coca-Cola and Nike becoming lightning rods for antiglobalization protests. The instinctive reaction of most transnational companies has been to try to fly below the radar. But global brands can't escape notice. In fact, most transnational corporations don't realize that because of their power and pervasiveness, people view them differently than they do other firms. In a research project involving 3,300 consumers in 41 countries, the authors found that most people choose one global brand over another because of differences in the brands'global qualities. Ratherthan ignore the global characteristics of their brands, firms must learn to manage those characteristics. That's critical, because future growth for most companies will likely come from foreign markets. Consumers base preferences on three dimensions of global brands--quality (signaled by a company's global stature); the cultural myths that brands author; and firms' efforts to address social problems. The authors also found that it didn't matter to consumers whether the brands they bought were American--a remarkable finding considering that the study was conducted when anti-American sentiment in many nations was on the rise.     

The Impact of Statutory Sanctions on the Level and Information Content of Voluntary Corporate Disclosure

This article examines the effect of statutory civil and criminal sanctions on voluntary corporate disclosures by firms listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX). Apart from direct investigation of the quantity of voluntary disclosure, we also investigate several possible consequences of altered corporate disclosure policies, namely properties of analysts' forecasts, the degree to which share prices anticipate the information content of periodic earnings reports, and the relationship between volatility and corporate disclosures. Results suggest that, post-sanctions, any increase in voluntary disclosure is confined to smaller firms and those which performed relatively poorly. Moreover, analysts' earnings forecasts did not become more accurate or less diverse following the introduction of statutory sanctions, and there was no statistically significant increase in the weight placed on each disclosure's ability to explain return volatility. There is some evidence that share prices have anticipated earlier the value relevant components of annual periodic accounting data, although this result is again confined to smaller firms. Although the tests used are not independent and have a limited time period post-sanctions, the results cast doubt on the extent to which the imposition of substantive civil or criminal sanctions affects corporate disclosure policy.     

Prediction and social change: The need for a basis in theory

The author argues that social changes cause personality changes, and that personality changes cause social changes. This mutual feedback effect lies at the heart of the problems of social forecasting. Any valid system of forecasting requires a study of social changes ; but such a study itself necessitates an investigation of personality structures and individual values. The weak links in the causal chain of social change are the source of changes in values and the effect of values upon social goals. The author describes the limited evidence that research into values has provided, and examines critically the methodology employed. He suggests an alternative-but potentially complementary-approach and describes specific problem areas ; finally he reasserts his ultimate goal of a theory of social change.     

Time Diversification: Empirical Tests

This paper investigates the relationship between the performance of equity and the length of the investment horizon used by investors. We examine optimal portfolio time diversification and two definitions of ex ante time diversification. Using almost two centuries of US and UK data we find some support for the hypothesis that equity represents a significantly better investment over long investment horizons than over short investment horizons. Where this result holds, the likely explanation is mean-aversion in fixed-income asset returns. However, these results are sensitive to changes in investor risk preference, changes in utility function specification, changes in the sample period used, changes in investor constraints, and the definition of time diversification adopted. They also differ between the US and UK markets.     

Prospectus Earnings Forecasts: Evidence And Explanations

Recent changes to prospectus regulations have generated considerable controversy. While the legally enforceable definition of “required information” may be uncertain, it seems clear that earnings forecasts are expected to play an important role. However, we find that the accuracy of these forecasts is questionable, as are many of the explanations offered for differences with the actual results. This calls into question the methods used for estimating future earnings and, ultimately, the usefulness of such forecasts. Laws relating to liability for prospectus information make this an issue of some concern for investors, as well as accountants and other professional advisers.