Risk and the miller equilibrium: Capital structure choice with risk-averse investors

Merton Miller's (1977) tax model of equilibrium capital structure choice results in capital structure irrelevance and the existence of tax clienteles, assuming the restrictive case of risk-neutrality. Relaxation of the assumption of risk-neutrality in Miller's tax framework, allowing utility-maximizing risk-averse investors, indicates that capital structure irrelevance continues to hold under reasonable assumptions about utility. Evaluation of resulting tax clienteles shows that marginal tax rates do not restrict investors from investing in equities but do affect the tax status of purchased bonds.     

Risk Management Using Quasi–static Hedging

In this paper, we try to develop a comprehensive theory of risk management for illiquid trading instruments and exotics by examining the consequences of a quasi–static hedging strategy. In contrast to a static hedging strategy, in which an initial hedge once executed is kept in place for the life of the trade, and a dynamic hedging strategy, in which hedges are frequently adjusted over the life of the trade, a quasi–static hedging strategy utilizes hedge adjustments but tries to minimize the frequency. Almost all the examples studied in the framework introduced here take this minimization to the extreme by limiting hedge adjustments to at most one during the life of a trade. We examine the application of this approach to long–dated forwards, long–dated options and exotic options such as cliquet and barriers. The model we present for barriers is a new generation of the Derman–Ergener–Kani approach which combines the flexibility of the approach with a sizable increase in model independence.     

Modeling ethical attitudes and behaviors under conditions of environmental turbulence: The case of South Africa

This study explores the impact of environmental turbulence on relationships between personal and organizational characteristics, personal values, ethical perceptions, and behavioral intentions. A causal model is tested using data obtained from a national sample of marketing research professionals in South Africa. The findings suggest turbulent conditions lead professionals to report stronger values and ethical norms, but less ethical behavioral intentions. Implications are drawn for organizations confronting growing turbulence in their external environments. A number of suggestions are made for ongoing research. Michael H. Morris became the Fletcher Jones Chair in Entrepreneurship at the University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA in 1993. He received his Ph.D. in Marketing. He is the author of two books and over forty articles in academic journals, including the Journal of International Business Studies, the Journal of Business Research, the Journal of Management, and the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. Dr. Morris' principal research interests include entrepreneurial behavior, industrial marketing strategy, and pricing.Amy Seidel Marks has been a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the GSB UCT since 1989. She holds a Ph.D. in Marketing from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, and has worked in the areas of consumer behavior analysis and social marketing for 20 years. During her time in South Africa she has conducted numerous research projects in areas such as AIDS prevention, tobacco control and iodine deficiency, and has also served as a consultant to national projects in tuberculosis drug compliance, tobacco control and adult education.Jeff Allen received his doctorate from the University of Kentucky. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, Dr. Allen has published in various national and international academic journals on topics of social responsibility, marketing ethics, and health care marketing. Newman S. Perry, Jr. is Professor of Management, School of Business and Public Administration at the University of the Pacific in Stockton California. He has just completed Business, Government, and Society: Managing Competitiveness, Ethics, and Social Issues published by Prentice-Hall and previously coauthored a book on strategic management.     

Is Germany a model for managers?

Most American managers have a hard time making sense of Germany. The country has a fraction of the resources and less than one-third the population of the United States. Labor costs are substantially higher, paid vacations are at least three times as long, and strong unions are deeply involved at all levels of business, from the local plant to the corporate boardroom. Yet German companies manage to produce internationally competitive products in key manufacturing sectors, making Germany the greatest competitive threat to the United States after Japan. The seemingly paradoxical nature of the German economy typically evokes one of two diametrically opposed responses. The first is to celebrate the German economy as a "model" worth emulating--indeed, as the answer to declining U.S. competitiveness. The alternative, more skeptical response is to question Germany's staying power in a new, more competitive global economy. According to Kirsten Wever and Christopher Allen, the problem with both points of view is that they miss the forest for the trees. Observers are so preoccupied with praising--or blaming--individual components of the German economy that they fail to see the dynamic logic that ties these components together into a coherent system. In their review of recent research on the German business system, Wever and Allen argue that managers can learn an important lesson from Germany. In the global economy, competition isn't just between companies but between entire socioeconomic systems. Germany's ability to design a cohesive economic and social system that adapts continuously to changing requirements goes a long way toward explaining that country's competitive success.     

Economic performance and “frontier” efficiency: A product life-cycle approach

We propose to introduce some economic performance variables of the firms and relate these with the corresponding frontier efficiency measures of 13 industries of the Belgian manufacturing sector in 1978. In order to find groups of similar firms by applying a cluster technique, we assume that this relationship is of a product life cycle nature.In the light of the product life cycle scheme itself and variations of it we can consider the possible explanatory variables of technical inefficiency in each group of firms as sources which intensify or slow-down the economic performance of the firm under consideration. Some cautious characterization of the top and bottom level clusters is formulated and linked to the efficiency issue.This paper was processed by N. R. Adam     

A non-parametric approach to smoothing by aggregation over preferences

A distributional dispersion condition on C² monotone preferences, defined by unit normals to indifference surfaces, yields a C⁰ mean demand function when one integrates over such suitably diffuse consumers with convex preferences, regardless of the distribution of their initial endowments. For non-convex preferences, the dispersion condition implies that at any price vector, individual demands are finite sets for almost every agent. A stronger dispersion condition, involving both utility functions and unit normals, yields C⁰ mean demand functions with monotone non-convex preferences.     

Land use and commodity production

An agricultural land use system á la Von Thünen is adduced. Sraffa's theory of production, prices, and distribution is situated within this system. The specific inter-relations of the Von Thünen model and the Sraffa model are then discussed. The discussion is particularly focussed around the problem of the determination of land rent in relation to both production and consumption. Some final comments are appended on the process of land use change.     

Approximate equilibria in microeconomic rational expectations models

For general equilibrium models in which prices transmit information among asymmetrically informed traders, strict rational expectations approximate equilibria are defined. A state-dependent price function is an ε-equilibrium if, when agents use their own information and that conveyed by prices, aggregate excess demand (in each state of the world) does not exceed ε. For any positive ε, existence requires only very mild assumptions—continuity and compact support. Moreover, there are revealing ε-equilibria for all smooth economies satisfying a dimensionality condition. In an open neighborhood of this case, existence of maximally revealing ε-equilibria holds.     

Strategy-proofness and Arrow's conditions: Existence and correspondence theorems for voting procedures and social welfare functions

Consider a committee which must select one alternative from a set of three or more alternatives. Committee members each cast a ballot which the voting procedure counts. The voting procedure is strategy-proof if it always induces every committee member to cast a ballot revealing his preference. I prove three theorems. First, every strategy-proof voting procedure is dictatorial. Second, this paper's strategy-proofness condition for voting procedures corresponds to Arrow's rationality, independence of irrelevant alternatives, non-negative response, and citizens' sovereignty conditions for social welfare functions. Third, Arrow's general possibility theorem is proven in a new manner.