Index composition changes and the cost of incumbency

This paper provides evidence of information effects and portfolio rebalancing effects that occur when stocks are added to or excluded from the S&P 500 index and finds that incumbents in the index realize negative excess returns when S&P revises the composition of the index. We also find that for incumbents that are in the same industry as the added firm, the price-pressure effects are mitigated by positive industry-level information and momentum effects. For index exclusions, the magnitude of the loss sustained by incumbents from the same industry as the excluded firm is larger than that realized by the non-industry incumbents, as the negative information and momentum effects reinforce the price-pressure effects. Our results suggest that changes in the composition of the index are not information-free events; however, the portfolio rebalancing effects dominate the industry information effects.     

Direct and indirect transmission of avian influenza: results from a calibrated agent-based model

Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination - This paper develops an agent-based model of the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza in a regional poultry sector. Spatially located flocks...     

Information Gathering and Marketing

Consumers have only partial knowledge before making a purchase decision, but can acquire more‐detailed information. Marketing makes it easier or harder for these consumers to do so. When consumers are ex ante heterogeneous, the firm might choose an intermediate marketing strategy for two quite different reasons. First, as a nonprice means of discrimination—it can make information only partially available, in a way that induces some, but not all, consumers to acquire the information. Second, when the firm cannot commit to a given investment in ensuring quality, the marketing and pricing strategy can act as a commitment device.     

Corporate voluntary greenhouse gas reporting: Stakeholder pressure and the mediating role of the chief executive officer

The study sheds light on the extent to which various stakeholder pressures influence voluntary disclosure of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and how the impact is explained and moderated chief executive officer (CEO) characteristics of 215 FTSE 350 listed U.K. companies for the year 2011. The study developed a classification of GHG emission disclosure based on the guidelines of GHG Protocol, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Global Framework for Climate Risk Disclosure using content analysis. Evidence from the study suggests that some stakeholder pressure (regulatory, creditor, supplier, customer, and board control) positively impacts on GHG disclosure information by firms. We found that stakeholder pressure in the form of regulatory, mimetic, and shareholders pressure positively influenced the disclosure of GHG information. We also found that creditor pressure also had a significant negative relationship with GHG disclosure. Although CEO age had a direct negative effect on GHG voluntary disclosure, its moderation effect on stakeholder pressure influence on GHG disclosure was only significant on regulatory pressure.     

INDUSTRY DYNAMICS AND THE MINIMUM WAGE: A PUTTY‐CLAY APPROACH

We document two new findings about the industry‐level response to minimum wage hikes. First, restaurant exit and entry both rise following a hike. Second, there is no change in employment among continuing restaurants. We develop a model of industry dynamics based on putty‐clay technology that is consistent with these findings. In the model, continuing restaurants cannot change employment, and thus industry‐level adjustment occurs gradually through exit of labor‐intensive restaurants and entry of capital‐intensive restaurants. Interestingly, the putty‐clay model matches the small estimated short‐run disemployment effect of the minimum wage found in other studies, but produces a larger long‐run disemployment effect.     

Australian Experiments in Wage Policy

Industrial conciliation and arbitration have been pivotal in pay determination in Australia throughout the twentieth century. This paper examines how these institutions influence macroeconomic performance, paying special reference to their impact on cost inflation. It goes on to evaluate the contribution of the Accord (incomes policy) in the last decade. Consensus and participation within the institutional framework are shown to be essential for effective wage policy.     

Spatial Dependence and House Price Index Construction

Accurate estimation of prevailing metropolitan housing prices is important for both business and research investigations of housing and mortgage markets. This is typically done by constructing quality-adjusted house price indices from hedonic price regressions for given metropolitan areas. A major limitation of currently available indices is their insensitivity to the geographic location of dwellings within the metropolitan area. Indices are constructed based on models that do not incorporate the underlying spatial structure in housing data sets. In this article, we argue that spatial structure, especially spatial dependence latent in housing data sets, will affect the precision and accuracy of resulting price estimates. We illustrate the importance of spatial dependence in both the specification and estimation of hedonic price models. Assessments are made on the importance of spatial dependence both on parameter estimates and on the accuracy of resulting indices.