Do Mothers Matter? A Comparison of Models of the Influence of Mothers' and Fathers' Educational and Occupational Status on Children's Educational Attainment

The first objective of this article is to clarify which model best captures the structure and trend of the influence of social origin on children's education. The second objective is to analyse how general conclusions on historical trends in educational reproduction change if we add mother's status background to the model. Six contrasting hypotheses are derived fromthe body of literature dealing with models on families' socioeconomic status. All hypotheses are translated into empirical models and their explained variance is compared. A pooled data set is used that contains data from the Netherlands, West Germany, and the USA. The Modified Dominance Model, that distinguishes the influence of the highest from thelowest status parent, has the best model fit. Regarding the second objective we see that adding the mother's influence to that of the father's does not change general conclusions on trends in educational reproduction. Over time the influence of both parents decreases continuously. However, the influence of the mother's education and occupational status on children's educational attainment is substantive.     

The Determinants of Enterprise Risk Management: Evidence From the Appointment of Chief Risk Officers

Enterprise risk management (ERM) has captured the attention of risk management professionals and academics worldwide. Unlike the traditional "silo-based" approach to corporate risk management, ERM enables firms to benefit from an integrated approach to managing risk that shifts the focus of the risk management function from primarily defensive to increasingly offensive and strategic. Despite the heightened interest in ERM, little empirical research has been conducted on the topic. This study provides an initial attempt at identifying the determinants of ERM adoption. We construct a sample of firms that have signaled their use of ERM by appointing a Chief Risk Officer (CRO) who is charged with the responsibility of implementing and managing the ERM program. We use a logistic regression framework to compare these firms to a size- and industry-matched control sample. While our results suggest a general absence of differences in the financial and ownership characteristics of sample and control firms, we find that firms with greater financial leverage are more likely to appoint a CRO. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that firms appoint CROs to reduce information asymmetry regarding the firm's current and expected risk profile.     

Costs of financial instability, household-sector balance sheets and consumption

Extant work on costs of financial instability focuses on fiscal costs and declines in aggregate GDP following banking crises. We estimate effects of banking and currency crises on consumption in 19 OECD countries, showing consumption plays an important role in the adjustment following a crisis, and effects are not captured solely by the impact of crises on standard consumption determinants, income and wealth. Additional effects, attributable to factors such as time-varying confidence, uncertainty and credit rationing, are aggravated by high and rising leverage, despite financial liberalisation easing liquidity constraints. High leverage implies that banking crises taking place now could have greater incidence than in the past.     

Finance as a Barrier to Entry: Bank Competition and Industry Structure in Local U.S. Markets

This paper tests how competition in local U.S. banking markets affects the market structure of nonfinancial sectors. Theory offers competing hypotheses about how competition ought to influence firm entry and access to bank credit by mature firms. The empirical evidence, however, strongly supports the idea that in markets with concentrated banking, potential entrants face greater difficulty gaining access to credit than in markets in which banking is more competitive.     

Regulatory Monitoring and the Impact of Bank Holding Company Dividend Changes on Equity Returns

This paper examines the impact of announcements of dividend changes by bank holding companies (BHCs) on equity returns. Many empirical studies of dividend behavior reveal positive market responses to dividend increases, which have been interpreted as confirmation of the signalling theory of dividend behavior. These studies typically focus on “large” changes, however. We argue that BHCs allow for a stronger test of signalling theory because regulatory monitors, in effect, “certify” dividend signals. Consequently, even “small” dividend increases should result in positive abnormal equity returns. Using the event study methodology, our results generally confirm this hypothesis for a sample covering the period 1973–1987.     

A conceptual model of corporate moral development

The conceptual model presented in this article argues that corporations exhibit specific behaviors that signal their true level of moral development. Accordingly, the authors identify five levels of moral development and discuss the dynamics that move corporations from one level to another. Examples of corporate behavior which are indicative of specific stages of moral development are offered.R. Eric Reidenbach is Professor of Marketing and Director of the Center for Business Development and Research at the University of Southern Mississippi. He has written extensively on business and marketing ethics.Donald P. Robin, Professor of Business Ethics and Professor of Marketing at the University of Southern Mississippi, is coauthor with R. Eric Reidenbach of two recent books on business ethics with Prentice-Hall. He is a frequent lecturer on business ethics and is the author of several articles on the subject.     

A note on the relationships between some risk‐adjusted performance measures

Assuming portfolio returns are normally distributed, it is shown that both Sortino ratio (SR) and upside potential ratio (UPR) are monotonically increasing functions of the Sharpe ratio. As a result, all three risk‐adjusted performance measures provide identical ranking among investment alternatives. The effects of skewness and kurtosis are then evaluated within the Edgeworth‐Sargan density family. For the Sortino ratio, the above conclusion remains valid in the presence of negative skewness or excessive kurtosis. Similar results apply to the UPR with modifications. For all other cases, both SR and UPR provide exactly opposite ranking among investment alternatives to that suggested by the Sharpe ratio when the Sharpe ratio is large. Applications to futures hedging are discussed. Specifically, it is found that the Sharpe ratio may frequently lead to a smaller futures position than the other two ratios. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 22:483–495, 2002