The impact of news,oil prices,and global market developments on Russian financial markets1

This paper analyses the impact of news, oil prices, and international financial market developments on daily returns on Russian bond and stock markets. First, regarding returns, energy news affects returns, while news from the war in Chechnya is not significant. Market volatility does not appear to be sensitive to either type of news. Second, a significant effect of the growth in oil prices on Russian stock returns is detected. Third, the international influence on Russian financial markets depends upon the degree of financial liberalization. The higher the degree of financial liberalization, the stronger is the impact of US stock returns on Russian financial markets. In addition, banking reform and interest rate liberalization efforts seem to dictate the globalization of Russian stock markets, while it is the progress in liberalizing securities markets and non‐bank financial institutions that matters more for the globalization of Russian bond markets.     

A study of several new and existing tests for heteroscedasticity in the general linear model1

Several optimum non-parametric tests for heteroscedasticity are proposed and studied along with the tests introduced in the literature in terms of power and robustness properties. It is found that all tests are reasonably robust to the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) residual estimates, number and character of the regressors. Only a few are robust to both the distributional and independence assumptions about the errors. The power of tests can be improved with the OLS residual estimates, the increased sample size and the variability of the regressors. It can be substantially reduced if the observations are not normally distributed, and may increase or decrease if the errors are dependent. Each test is optimum to detect a specific form of heteroscedasticity and a serious power loss may occur if the underlying heteroscedasticity assumption in the data generation deviates from it.     

Equilibrium in abstract economies without ordered preferences and with a measure space of agents

We report a generalization of Aumann's (1966) existence theorem to economies without ordered preferences and with externalities in consumption. Our work can alternatively be viewed as a generalization of the Shafer–Sonnenschein (1975) theorem to economies with a continuum of agents.     

What makes you click?—Mate preferences in online dating

We estimate mate preferences using a novel data set from an online dating service. The data set contains detailed information on user attributes and the decision to contact a potential mate after viewing his or her profile. This decision provides the basis for our preference estimation approach. A potential problem arises if the site users strategically shade their true preferences. We provide a simple test and a bias correction method for strategic behavior. The main findings are (i) There is no evidence for strategic behavior. (ii) Men and women have a strong preference for similarity along many (but not all) attributes. (iii) In particular, the site users display strong same-race preferences. Race preferences do not differ across users with different age, income, or education levels in the case of women, and differ only slightly in the case of men. For men, but not for women, the revealed same-race preferences correspond to the same-race preference stated in the users’ profile. (iv) There are gender differences in mate preferences; in particular, women have a stronger preference than men for income over physical attributes.     

Impact of formalisation of property rights in informal settlements: Evidence from Dar es Salaam city

This paper aims to study the responsiveness of the informal property market and management systems towards the introduction of land registration for informal settlements in Tanzania. City governments are increasingly recognising the need to strengthen legal rights for the urban poor as a means to bring them more effectively into the urban economy and ensure better provision of water, sanitation and other primary services. The research focuses on Tanzania and in particular two case studies within Dar es Salaam. The findings of the work suggest that the introduction of residential licenses whilst potentially assisting in creating legal certainty has not resulted in the financial sector accepting them as full security against loans. Accessing credit by the poor however has not yet been fully realised resulting in some further hurdles for the financial sector to overcome. Finally, and of some significance is the registration of property in the informal settlements has provided the opportunity of formal property transactions within these settlements.     

Institutional stakeholdings and better-informed traders at earnings announcements

Utama and Cready [Utama, S., Cready, W.M., 1997. Institutional ownership, differential predisclosure precision and trading volume at announcement dates. Journal of Accounting and Economics 24, 129–150] use total institutional ownership to proxy for the proportion of better-informed traders, an important determinant of trading around earnings announcements. We argue that institutions holding small stakes cannot justify the fixed cost of developing private predisclosure information. Also, institutions with large stakes generally do not trade around earnings announcements since they are dedicated investors or face regulations that make informed trading difficult. However, institutions holding medium stakes have incentives to develop private predisclosure information and trade on it; we show that their ownership is a finer proxy for the proportion of better-informed traders at earnings announcements.     

Is corporate environmental disclosure associated with firm value? A multicountry study of Gulf Cooperation Council firms

Several studies have found a relationship between corporate social and environmental disclosure and firm value (FV) or accounting profitability. Where environmental disclosure has been the focus, though, only single-country studies have been published, and most of the previous research concerns the developed world. This study examines the association between corporate environmental disclosure (CED) and FV in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, where CED has been increasing from its previous low base. Findings from a multicountry sample of 500 firm-year observations using a 55-item unweighted environmental disclosure index suggest that CED is significantly and positively related to FV as measured by Tobin's Q (TBQ). The relationship is robust to using a weighted version of the disclosure index, individual countries and environmental disclosure subindices. Some evidence of a positive relationship between CED and return on assets is also found, but even where statistically significant, the relationship is much weaker than in the case of TBQ. For empirical and theoretical reasons, we recommend that future studies pay greater attention to market-based proxies, if possible, when investigating the value relevance of CED in both developed and developing countries. Our results suggest that both managers and policymakers in GCC countries should take a positive view of expanded CED.     

Herding with collective preferences

This paper studies a simple model of observational learning where agents care not only about the information of others but also about their actions. We show that despite complex strategic considerations that arise from forward-looking incentives, herd behavior can arise in equilibrium. The model encompasses applications such as sequential elections, public good contributions, and leadership charitable giving.     

Human capital,investment and growth: Some results from an endogenous growth model

Recent theoretical literature on the sources of economic growth has emphasized the role of human capital as an internal contributing force in the growth process. Empirical results reported in this paper provide support for this theoretical proposition. Cross-country data from 32 developing countries indicate that human capital (as alternatively measured by the primary school enrollment rate or the adult literacy rate) exerts a significant positive impact upon output growth.