Business Cycles and Net Buying Pressure in the S&P 500 Futures Options

We analyse the cyclical behaviour and intraday pattern of net buying pressure in the S&P 500 futures options market. The results suggest that the net buying pressure of puts is counter‐cyclical and is more intense during contraction periods. The trading profits for selling put options during contraction periods thus far exceed those during expansion periods. Net buying pressure also exhibits an intraday pattern. Trading profits in the early trading sessions are higher than those for the rest of the day. In addition, we show that hourly‐basis hedging yields smaller profits than daily‐basis hedging, which suggests that the trading profits based on daily‐basis hedging may contain a risk premium associated with discretely rebalanced ‘risk‐free’ option portfolios.     

Applying epistemic logic and evidential theory to strategic arguments

This paper extends work originally reported in a previous SMJ article on strategic policy issues. To accomplish this extension, we draw on research from separate but related areas. Concepts from the application of first-order logic to organizational theory and formal methods from research in knowledge representation are combined using epistemic logic and evidential theory. It is shown that the original formulation of the policy evaluation problem fits neatly into this framework. This allows application of more formal and powerful methods for representing and evaluating the evidence offered in support of strategic policy statements. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Comparative content analysis of professional,semi-professional,and user-generated restaurant reviews

This study examines the content of professional, semi-professional, and user-generated reviews. By comparing these three review types, this study was able to identify characteristics and factors unique to each type of review. Although, the amount of discourse in a particular factor varied, food is clearly the most important review factor regardless of review type. Semi-professional reviews emphasize atmosphere and décor more than both newspaper and user-generated reviews, while price factors were more prevalent in semi-professional reviews and user-generated reviews than in newspaper reviews. Understanding the varied structures of review types provides guidance for both restaurateurs and review users.     

Globalization,recruitments, and job mobility

Previous research indicates that firms pay a premium to poach workers from exporting firms if experience working for an internationally engaged firm reduces trade costs. Because international experience is less valuable to non-exporters, we would expect to see differences in recruitments between firms that are internationally engaged and those that serve only the domestic market. Moreover, increased openness might lead to higher job-to-job mobility if more globalization raises both the share of exporters and the number of workers with skills that make them attractive for other exporters. Using linked Swedish employer–employee data for the period 1997 to 2013, we find systematic differences between the way exporters and non-exporters recruit workers: exporters have a relatively high share of recruitments from other exporters as hypothesized. We also find some suggestive evidence that increased openness correlates positively with upward mobility for occupations that play a major role in international commerce, such as professionals and managers.     

Do standards improve the quality of traded products?

We examine whether standards raise the quality of traded products. Matching a panel of French firm–product–destination export data with a data set on sanitary and phytosanitary measures and technical barriers to trade, we find that such quality standards enforced on products by destination countries: (i) favour the export probability of high-quality firms provided that their productivity is high enough, (ii) raise the export sales of high-productivity, high-quality firms at the expense of low-productivity and low-quality firms and (iii) increase the quality supplied by firms if their productivity is high enough. We then develop a simple new trade model under uncertainty about product quality in which heterogeneous firms can strategically invest in quality signalling to rationalize these empirical results on quality and selection effects.     

The price of reputation: Executive compensation of sin companies

This study examines how and why managers receive pay premiums when vulnerable to social reputation loss. We define sin companies as those operating in the alcohol, gambling and tobacco industries. We show that company managers receive a higher asymmetric pay-for-performance sensitivity in their pay in addition to receiving higher total compensation. In other words, their pay increases with firm performance at a faster rate than that of their non-sin company peers. This finding is consistent with our prediction that sin companies provide greater rewards to their managers upon satisfactory performance, generating a pay premium. We propose two explanations for the reputation pay premium associated with sin-industry managers: the limited future career opportunities and the difficulty of reconciling managers’ self-identity with the employer's social identity. We find stronger support for the latter explanation. The sin-industry pay premium is larger when managers have pro-social and religious tendencies. However, we do not find a smaller pay premium when managers are close to their retirement. Since the career concern should be reduced for managers who are near retirement, this finding is inconsistent with the career opportunity explanation. Overall, our findings are consistent with the notion that managers associate their self-image with employers’ social identities.     

RESILIENCE AND ADAPTATION IN GENTRIFYING URBAN INDUSTRIAL DISTRICTS: The Experience of Cultural Manufacturers in San Francisco and Melbourne

Recent urban scholarship shows how zoning and real estate dynamics shape ongoing processes of gentrification and deindustrialization. While studies demonstrate the impact of planning and property market pressures on the arts, less research has examined their effect on urban manufacturers in gentrifying industrial districts. Given the differential impact of zoning and real estate pressures, our research focuses specifically on how ‘cultural manufacturers’ negotiate changing land use patterns in gentrifying urban industrial areas in San Francisco and Melbourne. Our findings show how cultural manufacturers develop flexible workspace arrangements, business models and professional networks to negotiate urban restructuring and avoid displacement. Though innovative, these survival strategies provide limited ability to navigate structural barriers. Here, the presence of intermediary organizations can help coordinate a strategic response to industrial gentrification and indifferent planning policy. In our research we highlight the everyday practices of adaptation and collective action in an under-researched cultural sector to provide a counterweight to macro-scale transitional narratives. While cities have deindustrialized owing to technological and competitive pressures, to focus exclusively on this misses a range of resilience practices that have sustained manufacturers in restructuring cities.