Dynamic linkages among equity markets in the Middle East and North African countries

The relaxation of security laws and regulations in emerging markets in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) provides abundant opportunities for foreign investors. These markets exhibit high-expected returns and substantial volatility. In this paper, we investigate the lead/lag relationship between the MENA countries and regions. We find no market causality or spillover from one country to another in the North Africa region. Our results for the Levant region reveal that there are linkages between stock markets in this region. The results for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region show that there is more interaction and linkage in the GCC region than in the North Africa and Levant regions. An unexpected result is that UAE's stock market leads all the markets in this region. Finally, we investigate linkages among the three regions. We find that GCC influences the other two regions.     

Overcompensation as a Partial Solution to Commitment and Renegotiation Problems: The Case of Ex Post Moral Hazard

In a Costly State Verification world, an agent who has private information regarding the state of the world must report what state occurred to a principal, who can verify the state at a cost. An agent then has what is called ex post moral hazard: he has an incentive to misreport the true state to extract rents from the principal. Assuming the principal cannot commit to an auditing strategy, the optimal contract is such that: (1) the agent's expected marginal utility when there is an accident (high‐ and low‐loss states) is equal to his marginal utility when there is no accident; (2) the lower loss is undercompensated, while the higher loss is overcompensated; and (3) the welfare of the agent is greater under commitment than under no‐commitment. Result 2 is contrary to the results obtained if the principal can commit to an auditing strategy (higher losses underpaid and lower losses overpaid). The reason is that by increasing the difference between the high and the low indemnity payments, the probability of fraud is reduced.     

Stability, Asymmetry and Seasonality of Fund Performance: An Analysis of Australian Multi‐sector Managed Funds

Using a sample of Australian Multi-sector trusts we examine selectivity and market timing performance and extend the analysis to include the relatively new measure of volatility timing. This is of particular relevance to our data set, as high levels of volatility persistence are prevalent in Australia. In addition we consider the stability, asymmetry and seasonality of the various performance and risk measures. A survivorship adjustment procedure is also employed in order to assess the impact of survivorship on selectivity, market timing and volatility timing performance.     

Competition, Contractibility, and the Market for Donors to Nonprofits

This article investigates theoretically and empirically theeffects of competition for donors on the behavior of nonprofitorganizations. Theoretically, we consider a situation in whichnonprofit organizations use donations to produce some commodity,but the use of donations is only partially contractible. Themain results of the model indicate that an increase in competition(i) decreases the fraction of donations allocated to perquisiteconsumption and (ii) increases the fraction of donations allocatedto promotional expenditures. Moreover, the effects of competitionare magnified by the ability to contract on the use of donations.These hypotheses are tested with data on the expenditures ofnonprofit organizations in a number of subsectors where competitionis primarily local. We use across–metropolitan statisticalareas' variation to measure differences in competition and proxycontractibility by the importance of tangible assets, whichare more easily observed by donors. The estimated effects ofcompetition and contractibility are consistent with our model.     

Current state of the electrification of Russia

The current progress of electrification in Russia is clearly insufficient compared with G8 countries. At the same time, economy sectors have a high potential for energy saving. The electricity consumption of households depends on their cash income and the growth rate of electricity tariffs.     

An Economic Approach to the Psychology of Change: Amnesia, Inertia, and Impulsiveness

This paper examines the effect of memory loss on the continuity of behavior. We consider a player (individual or firm) who remembers previous actions but not underlying rationales. In a stable environment, relative to a full-recall scenario, memory loss increases the probability of following old policies (inertia). In a volatile environment, memory loss can decrease this probability (impulsiveness). The model provides a memory-loss explanation for some documented psychological biases, implies that inertia and organizational routines should be more important in stable environments than in volatile ones, and provides empirical implications relating memory and environmental variables to economic decisions.     

Institutional Investors' Preferences for REIT Stocks

This article investigates the determinants of real estate investment trusts (REIT) portfolio investment and institutional REIT ownership using multivariate Tobit regressions. We contend that many institutional investors take larger positions in more liquid assets like REIT stocks, as compared with private real estate equities, because of liquidity considerations. Consistent with this contention, we find that liquidity constraints are significantly related to REIT portfolio investment by institutional investors. We also find that institutional investors have different preferences for REIT stocks than do other investors; they generally prefer larger, more liquid REIT stocks.