The use of the comparable firm approach in valuing Australian IPOs

Despite the difficulty of finding comparable firms in a less populated market, we provide evidence on the usefulness of the comparable firm approach using 275 Australian industrial IPOs from 1993 to 2000. We show that, without adjustments, IPO price-earnings (P/E) and market-to-book (P/B) multiples based on management forecasts of earnings and book values of equities provided in prospectuses are strongly associated with the average P/E and P/B multiples of two comparable firms (matched on industry, growth and size). Additional tests show that the value estimated using the comparable firm approach (in the form of a P/V ratio, where P is the offer price and V is the estimated firm value) is associated with IPO underpricing.     

INNOVATIONS IN PARTITIONING A SHARE OF STOCK

This paper presents a synthesis of innovations in the slicing and dicing of cash flows of a share of a firm's common stock. It begins by discussing PRIMEs and SCOREs, then Unbundled Stock Units (USUs), and finally three proposed hybrid equity options called DIVS, OWLS, and RISKS.
Decomposing a share of stock into components that can be traded separately allows investors to choose between the different investment attributes constituting the underlying share. An investor who desires only cash dividend income may buy only DIVS, and another who values capital appreciation but not current income can purchase only the residual claim.
Derivatives seem to go through a developmental process that is analogous to the biological phenomenon of natural selection and adaptation. The engines that drive this evolutionary process are changing domestic and international market conditions, international tax and regulatory arbitrage, and, of course, the financial innovators who learn from their own mistakes, and from the experience of others. These innovators continually develop new products that represent improvements over the old, if only by their ability to adhere more closely to the guidelines laid down by the regulators. The histories of PRIMEs and SCOREs, of USUs, and, most recently, of DIVS, OWLS and RISKS together provide a nice illustration of this developmental process.     

Import Competition, Employment Risk, and the Job-Search Outcomes of Trade-Displaced Manufacturing Workers

This study examines the underlying relationships that exist among import competition, employment risk, and worker earnings. In addition, we consider how such competitiveness and risk experienced on a prior job will affect, under both equilibrium and disequilibrium interpretations of the labor market, alternative postdisplacement job-search outcomes. Econometric models of predisplacement earnings and postdisplacement outcomes (jobless duration, reemployment, and earnings) provide insights on these relationships and in turn on the comparative job-search success of trade-displaced and "other" displaced workers.     

Research returns redux: a meta-analysis of the returns to agricultural R&D

A total of 289 studies of returns to agricultural R&D were compiled and these provide 1821 estimates of rates of return. After removing statistical outliers and incomplete observations, across the remaining 1128 observations the estimated annual rates of return averaged 65 per cent overall — 80 per cent for research only, 80 per cent for extension only, and 47 per cent for research and extension combined. These averages reveal little meaningful information from a large body of literature, which provides rate-of-return estimates that are often not directly comparable. This study was aimed at trying to account for the differences. Several features of the methods used by research evaluators matter, in particular assumptions about lag lengths and the nature of the research-induced supply shift.     

Doing business in Malaysia

The importance of international trade to the Malaysian economy can hardly be exaggerated. Trade represents a lifeline for the Malaysian economy. Export‐oriented industrialization in the 1990s converted the labor‐surplus economy into a labor‐deficit one and then back to a labor‐surplus one in 2000 and beyond. The incidence of poverty has fallen by half since the early 1980s. Trade has also contributed much to the structural transformation and modernization of the economy. Had Malaysia been a closed economy, Malaysia would have shared the same fate as some other less developed countries that remain economically backward. Its external trade policy has paved the way for greater inflows of foreign direct investment, as foreign direct investors are not so much interested in serving the small domestic market as serving the vast external market. The large inflows of foreign direct investment have conferred positive effects on the domestic economy. This has meant significant improvements in the overall living standards for the Malaysians. Internationalization has provided employment opportunities, thereby raising their living standards through higher and more stable earnings. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Motivators of market mavenism in the retail environment

This study examines relationships between market mavenism and five other consumer characteristics. We conceptualize three of these characteristics as broad marketplace concepts at the same (or higher) level of abstraction as mavenism. The remaining two variables are involvement with specific product categories: mobile phones and clothing. The data come from a survey of 258 US student consumers. The results show that mavenism is positively associated with brand engagement in self-concept, status consumption, and materialism. Mavenism is also positively associated with involvement with mobile phones and with clothing. This pattern of relationships enriches the nomological network of market mavenism by describing possible motivators and consequences of this unique aspect of consumer behaviour.