Testing for structural breaks in factor loadings: An application to international business cycle

This paper proposes the implementation of the SupWald test of Andrews (1993) to detect structural breaks in the loadings of a static factor model. The procedure is illustrated by testing for structural breaks in the common factors of GDP growth series for a sample of advanced countries from 1950 until 2006.     

Tests of technical trading strategies in the emerging equity markets of Latin America and Asia

This study examines the potential profit of ten Variable Length Moving Average (VMA) technical trading rules in ten emerging equity markets in Latin America and Asia from January 1982 through April 1995. The average difference in buy − sell returns after trading costs for each rule and country are compared to a buy and hold strategy. Taiwan, Thailand and Mexico emerge as markets where technical trading strategies may be profitable. We find no strong evidence of profitability for the other markets. However, we find that 82 out of the 100 country–trading rule combinations tested in ten emerging markets, disregarding their statistical significance, correctly predict the direction of changes in the return series. These findings may provide investors with important asset allocation information.     

Education for sustainable development: current discourses and practices and their relevance to technology education

Technology education is a well-established field of knowledge whose applications have many ramifications. For example, technology education may be used as a tool in meeting the challenges of sustainable development. However, the usefulness of technology education to the sustainability debate as a whole and to education for sustainable development in particular, has largely been overlooked in the past. Indeed, there is a paucity of academic studies which examine the contribution technology education may provide to education for sustainable development. On the basis of the need to address this knowledge gap, this paper reviews the state of affairs in relation to education for sustainable development and considers its links and appropriateness to technology education. A further objective of this paper is to present examples of initiatives and existing practices around the world, drawing partly from the results of the 1st European Conference on Education for Sustainable Development held in Greece in October 2007, as well as from other initiatives undertaken in Europe and North America. Finally, some measures that may be adopted in order to enhance the contribution of technology education to education for sustainable development are outlined.     

Online advertising disclaimers in unregulated markets: use of disclaimers by multinational and local companies in the Brazilian toy industry

ABSTRACT

Researchers have documented whether and how companies use advertising disclaimers in regulated markets. We complement the extant work by analysing a sample of 449 online toy advertisements targeting children in Brazil, a largely unregulated market. Results show that multinational corporations are more likely to include disclaimers in their online ads than local Brazilian companies. Further analyses reveal, however, that advertising disclaimers used by multinational subsidiaries have more distractors that reduce viewer comprehension. Our research contributes to the fields of advertising and institutional theory by being the first to document whether and how multinational subsidiaries use disclaimers in online ads targeting an unregulated market.     

Pair-copulas modeling in finance

This paper concerns itself with applications of pair-copulas in finance, and bridges the gap between theory and application. We provide a broad view of the problem of modeling multivariate financial log-returns using pair-copulas, gathering together for this purpose theoretical and computational results from the literature on canonical vines. From the practitioner’s viewpoint, the paper shows the advantages of modeling through pair-copulas and makes clear that it is possible to implement this methodology on a daily basis. All the necessary steps (model selection, estimation, validation, simulations, and applications) are discussed at a level easily understood by all data analysts.     

Individual investors repurchasing behaviour: evidence from the Portuguese stock market

We study the repurchasing behaviour of individual investors and identify-related stock- and investor-specific attributes that affect the preference to repurchase stocks previously owned. Using a unique database of Portuguese individual investors, we find that investors prefer to repurchase stocks that were associated with a gain during their previous roundtrip (i.e. prior winners) and have suffered price declines subsequent to their last sale. Consistent with the extant literature based on the US market, our results suggest that different market characteristics do not seem to affect investors’ preference regarding stock repurchases. Moreover, we find that this preference increases with the magnitude of the prior gain or the decline in price following the last sale. We also demonstrate that larger and more visible domestic stocks are more likely to be repurchased and that less active, under-diversified and home-biased investors are more likely to engage in such behaviour. Finally, we find that repurchased stocks yield poor post-performance – approximately 267 basis points less than newly purchased stocks. Our main conclusion is that repurchases are essentially emotionally driven and penalize investor’s performance.     

Institutional determinants of downsizing

This study analyses the institutional determinants of downsizing in an economy with a highly rigid labour market: Spain. Our focus is first placed on the impact that the system of severance payment has on downsizing adoption. In particular, we analyse whether the regulatory environment can explain variations in employers' downsizing use. In addition, we analyse how organisations imitate one another in implementing downsizing, presumably in a quest for legitimacy. The evidence provided indicates that low levels of severance payments incurred by downsizers in the past promotes downsizing in the present, but too high severance payments discourages downsizing. Therefore, firms in Spain are constrained by regulatory forces stemming from labour law. Our results also reflect the importance of rational myths in downsizing because companies imitate the decisions on downsizing widely used in their industry and, particularly, those adopted by industry leaders.     

Socially responsible downsizing: Comparing family and non‐family firms

This study seeks to investigate whether family firms are more likely to downsize their workforce than their non‐family counterparts. Drawing on socioemotional wealth approach, we first explore the effect of family presence on workforce downsizing. Furthermore, we examine the moderating role of R&D activity on the family presence–downsizing relationship. Our sample covers a panel of manufacturing SMEs in Spain over the 1993–2014 period. We find that family firms are less likely to downsize than non‐family firms. Our results also reveal a negative association between R&D activity and workforce downsizing. Finally, the relationship between family presence and downsizing is contingent upon R&D activity, that is, family firms engaged in R&D activities are less likely to downsize than non‐innovative family firms.