School Holidays and Stock Market Seasonality

Using school holiday data from 47 countries, we find a strong link between school holidays and market returns. Stock market returns in the month after major school holidays are 0.6% to 1% lower than in other months. This explains, but is not limited to, the “September effect.” In the United States, September is the only month that exhibits a negative average return over the past century. The postschool holiday effect remains even with monthly fixed effects. We explore the explanation that the effect is due to investor inattention during school holidays, which slows the incorporation of (negative) information in security prices.     

Are Stars’ Opinions Worth More? The Relation Between Analyst Reputation and Recommendation Values

Using 1994–2009 data, we find that All-American (AA) analysts’ buy and sell portfolio alphas significantly exceed those of non-AAs by up to 0.6 % per month after risk-adjustments for investors with advance access to analyst recommendations. For investors without such access, top-rank AAs still earn significantly higher (by 0.3 %) monthly alphas in buy recommendations than others. AAs’ superior performance exists before (as well as after) they are elected, is not explained by market overreactions to stars, and is not significantly eroded after Reg-FD. Election to top-AA ranks predicts future performance in buy recommendations above and beyond other previously observable analyst characteristics. Institutional investors actively evaluate analysts and update the AA roster accordingly. Collectively, these results suggest that skill differences among analysts exist and AA election reflects institutional investors’ ability to evaluate and benefit from elected analysts’ superior skills. Other investors’ opportunity to profit from the stars’ opinions exists, but is limited due to their timing disadvantage.     

Transmission of Stock Returns and Volatility between the U.S. and Japan: Evidence from the Stock Index Futures Markets

In this paper, we examine the nature of transmission of stock returns and volatility between the U.S. and Japanese stock markets using futures prices on the S&P 500 and Nikkei 225 stock indexes. We use stock index futures prices to mitigate the stale quote problem found in the spot index prices and to obtain more robust results. By employing a two-step GARCH approach, we find that there are unidirectional contemporaneous return and volatility spillovers from the U.S. to Japan. Furthermore, the U.S.'s influence on Japan in returns is approximately four times as large as the other way around. Finally, our results show no significant lagged spillover effects in both returns and volatility from the Osaka market to the Chicago market, while a significant lagged volatility spillover is observed from the U.S. to Japan. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Leader support for gender equity: Understanding prosocial goal orientation,leadership motivation,and power sharing

We focus on how interpersonal characteristics should influence leader support for gender equity in organizations. Recognizing gender disparities in organizations and the “labyrinth” that women face when they advance in their careers (cf. Eagly & Carli, 2007), we develop a model for how interpersonal characteristics of leaders, both men and women, influence power construal and thus their use of empowerment, mentoring, and performance feedback, ultimately affecting career opportunities for women in organizations. The model proposes that leaders who are high on communal goal orientation, a prosocial characteristic, are more likely to construe power through a responsibility lens and behave in ways that ultimately support gender equity in organizations. In contrast, leaders with an exchange goal orientation are more likely to construe power through a freedom lens and behave in ways that are self-serving. Prestige motivation will increase the extent to which leaders, especially those who are communally oriented, share power. Dominance motivation will increase the extent to which leaders, especially those who are exchange oriented, act in self-interest and retain power, ultimately imposing barriers to women's career advancement. Organizations can potentially increase leader power sharing by encouraging and reinforcing leaders' prosocial characteristics of communal orientation and prestige motivation. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Red Flag Canal——The Totem of China

After 4 hours＇ train, we left Beijing behind us and set foot on the land of Central China＇s Henan province.     

Antecedents of intention to use CUSS system: moderating effects of self-efficacy

The current research attempts to examine the antecedent factors of personal innovativeness, switching costs, and switching barriers affecting flight passengers’ attitude toward the common-use self-service (CUSS) usage which in turn affects their behavioral intention. This research also tests the moderating effect of self-efficacy on the relationships between the antecedents and attitude toward CUSS usage. The results from a survey of 523 respondents from the Taiwanese Taoyuan International Airport indicate that the antecedent factors of personal innovativeness and switching barriers have positive and negative influences, respectively on attitude toward CUSS usage which in turn positively affects the behavioral intention. In addition, self-efficacy plays an important moderating role on the relationships between switching barriers and switching costs on attitude toward CUSS usage. In this article, personal innovativeness is investigated on affecting consumer behavior in the acceptance of IT related innovations. Implications for future research are discussed and limitations noted.     

User preferences for web site attributes: A study of the Hong Kong Disneyland

The Hong Kong Disneyland will be open in 2005 and the theme park is very likely to have an official web site. In order to determine the nature of a model/ideal official web site that would serve the promotional purpose, this study is conducted with two objectives. First, the study makes an attempt to understand the information types that the target markets, namely local Hong Kong residents, Western visitors and Chinese visitors, would like to have on the future Hong Kong Disney web site. Secondly, this research examines whether e‐ticketing is feasible for the web site. Using a questionnaire and a convenience sampling method, 198 responses were received. Empirical results indicate that the respondents all agreed that the suggested attributes should be listed in the web site. In addition, no significant difference was found among different groups of respondents on homepage information. However, significant differences were found among the interviewees’ views regarding products/services information, and ticketing information. To communicate effectively, the adoption of EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) is recommended in a value‐chain system for achieving successful e‐commerce.