The Effect of Executive Stock Option Plans on Stockholders and Bondholders

Executive stock option plans have asymmetric payoffs that could induce managers to take on more risk. Evidence from traded call options and stock return data supports this notion. Implicit share price variance, computed from the Black-Scholes option pricing model, and stock return variance increase after the approval of an executive stock option plan. The event is accompanied by a significant positive stock and a negative bond market reaction. This evidence is consistent with the notion that executive stock options may induce a wealth transfer from bondholders to stockholders.     

OPTIMAL BANKING STRUCTURE: IMPLICATIONS FOR INTERSTATE BANKING

This paper assesses the implications for the banking industry of relaxing interstate branching prohibitions. Theoretical models suggest that the number, size distribution, and specialization of firms in an industry are determined so as to minimize costs of production. Analysis presented here shows that interstate branching prohibitions, or their removal, are likely to affect costs only if the "convenience" of office location is important and if significant economies of scale are associated with office expansion. These conditions apparently do not hold in either retail banking or wholesale banking. The paper concludes that productive efficiency alone will not force a major consolidation of the banking system when branching restrictions are eliminated. To the extent that a consolidation does occur, it likely will reflect factors not considered in our model. These factors include (1) possibilities for increased diversification with greater size, (2) scarce managerial resources, (3) managerial incentives to maximize the organization's size, and (4) demand for multi-office banking.     

Strategies and Tactics in Union Organizing Campaigns

This study assesses the effects of employer and union organizing tactics on union election wins versus losses, the percentage of votes, and the time between election and first contract signing. The data were obtained from the organizing staff of a large international union. The results showed that some tactics resulted in expected election outcomes, but others resulted in unexpected outcomes.     

An Analysis of Countercyclical Policies of The FHLBB

Three policies of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, the Specially Priced Advances Program in 1970–1, a program of advances at a reduced interest rate in 1974, and changes in the minimum liquidity ratio, are analyzed. A model of portfolio allocation is developed and estimated for savings and loan associations. Most of the net increase in advances borrowed under the first two programs have not been lent in the mortgage market. Reductions in the minimum liquidity requirement have resulted in an increase in mortgage lending, but substantial effects are not felt until a year after the liquidity requirement is reduced.     

HAS THE QUALITY OF IMMIGRANTS DECLINED? EVIDENCE FROM THE LABOR MARKET ATTACHMENT OF IMMIGRANTS AND NATIVES

This is an investigation of the labor market activities of U.S. immigrants who arrived from the 1960s through the 1980s. Relative to natives, upon arrival male immigrants who arrived during the 1980s are more likely to be persistently jobless than are male immigrants who arrived during the 1960s. The increased disengagement of immigrant arrivals from the U.S. labor market appears solely in the form of labor market withdrawal and has not manifested itself in increased institutionalization. Though the "new immigration" apparently does not increase fiscal burdens on the penal system, it nonetheless is expanding the dependent population. The greater labor market idleness of today's immigrants relative to pre-1970 arrivals is consistent with a growing body of economic evidence suggesting a deterioration of U.S. immigrants' labor market capital and success during the post war period.     

Tax Arbitrage and the Existence of Equilibrium Prices for Financial Assets

In models where both investors and securities are subject to differential taxation, there may be no set of prices that rule out infinite gains to trade, or “tax arbitrage.” This paper characterizes the joint restrictions on financial-asset returns and investors' tax schedules that preclude tax arbitrage in the absence of short-sale constraints. The authors show that, if there exists any configuration of marginal tax rates on investors' tax schedules that rule out infinite gains to trade, then “no-tax-arbitrage” prices will exist. They also show that the existence of “no-tax-arbitrage” prices ensures the existence of equilibrium prices.     

On the Cross-sectional Relation between Expected Returns and Betas

There is an exact linear relation between expected returns and true “betas” when the market portfolio is on the ex ante mean-variance efficient frontier, but empirical research has found little relation between sample mean returns and estimated betas. A possible explanation is that market portfolio proxies are mean-variance inefficient. We categorize proxies that produce particular relations between expected returns and true betas. For the special case of a zero relation, a market portfolio proxy must lie inside the efficient frontier, but it may be close to the frontier.     

Exploring factors influencing addictive buying behaviour in the U.S.A.

This study proposes two models of addictive buying behaviour. The first model assumes that childhood experiences of parental discord influence depression and low self-esteem which, in turn, increase addictive buying behaviour in adulthood. The data were obtained from questionnaires completed by 149 subjects (college students, Chicago residents, and members of Debtors Anonymous). Testing the first model indicates that parental discord is indeed positively related to depression and addictive buying, and that depression is related negatively to self-esteem and positively to addictive buying. The second model indicates that addictive buying is positively related to depression and low self-esteem.