Franz Mueller,eminent social economist

Taken from the remarks made at the presentation of the Divine Award at the ASE Presidential Breakfast, December 29, 1987, Chicago.     

Facebook posting activity and the selective amplification of earnings disclosures

This study examines the determinants of Facebook activity levels with a particular focus on Facebook activity around earnings announcements. Facebook activity is generally higher for firms with higher levels of analyst following, individual ownership, and trading volume, indicating that it is responsive to investor demand effects. Facebook activity also increases around earnings announcements, with the increase being largely attributable to posts containing earnings news. In general, therefore, firms use Facebook posts to amplify earnings news. Such activity is selective, however; it is lower for firms with high levels of information asymmetry, for firms reporting earnings that exactly meet the consensus analyst forecast amount, and when the earnings news is negative but the accompanying price movement is positive. Hence, firms appear to use Facebook to manage the level of attention paid to earnings news.     

Financial Market Fragmentation and Reforms in Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, and Tanzania

This article reports the findings from surveys of formal andinformal institutions and their clients in Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria,and Tanzania. It investigates the hypothesis that reformingfinancially repressive policies would not be sufficient to overcomefragmentation of financial markets because of structural andinstitutional barriers to interactions across different marketsegments. The four countries have substantially fragmented financialmarkets, with weak linkages between formal and informal segmentsand interest rate differentials that cannot be adequately explainedby differences in costs and risks. Nevertheless, the relativelylow transaction costs and loan losses of informal institutionsindicate that they provide a reasonably efficient solution toinformation, transaction cost, and enforcement problems thatexclude their clients from access to formal banking services.The findings imply that financial liberalization and bank restructuringin the African context should be accompanied by complementarymeasures to address institutional and structural problems, suchas contract enforcement and information availability, and toimprove the integration of informal and formal financial markets.     

Imbalance of power

Too many companies have run into trouble because their boards won't stand up to management. Good governance requires a balance of power between the board and the CEO, and a healthy tension between them, says former Medtronic CEO William George.