A guide map to the terrain of gift value

This article integrates a broad range of gift‐giving literature into a conceptual framework that puts the all too often overlooked construct of personal value at its core. Although there have been substantial contributions from the fields of anthropology, sociology, economics, and consumer behavior, efforts to model gift giving have failed to put the value of the gift‐giving experience at the center of the exchange. Within this article, a model of the gift‐giving experience that overcomes this critical shortcoming is proposed. The model establishes clear categories for breaking the giving process into easily examinable elements, and it is argued that although the concept of value is not a simple one, it should be central to any examination of the gift‐giving phenomenon. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Towards a Comprehensive Accounting for Convertible Debt

Although convertible debt is an old and quite well-used form of finance, its accounting treatment has been almost ignored by those who set standards in the United Kingdom. The recent Technical Release TR 677 observed that there is a problem with convertible debt. The problem is that, after it has been issued by a company, the obligations of the company to third parties may change through time. This paper suggests that one approach to the problem is to follow a finance model of convertible debt, and to allow the accounting to develop from this. Accordingly, convertible debt may be considered on the basis of either equivalent straight debt or equivalent equity. The paper concludes with the suggestion that the accounting for convertible debt could be on the mixed basis or either the debt or the equity, but that this would be determined by the condition of the convertible debt at the date of the accounts.     

The Marketing of Employee Volunteerism

Employee volunteerism can be an effective strategy for increasing the effectiveness of corporate philanthropy. However, in order to be effective, volunteer initiatives should be directed by the firm to ensure a strategic fit and focus on the core competencies of the firm. Therefore, internal marketing strategies are needed to ensure managers receive employee support. Our research quantitatively extends research by Peloza and Hassay (Journal of Business Ethics 64(4), 357–379, 2006) who argued that employee volunteerism is motivated by egoistic, altruistic and organizational citizenship motives. Our findings suggest that volunteer opportunities that fulfill egoistic and organizational citizenship motives will be effective, but that the altruistic motive is not significant. We also find that formal policies concerning manager recognition or time off are not effective, providing more discretion for individual managers. Implications for managers seeking to increase the effectiveness (and therefore support the business case) of their corporate philanthropy are discussed.     

New Paradigms in Stock Market Indexing

Considerable recent interest has been shown in a new set of stock‐market indices that are weighted by fundamental factors such as sales, earnings, dividends or book values, rather than by capitalization. In this paper, we analyze the performance of Fundamental Indexing? (“FI”). First, we show that the source of FI's recent excellent performance is not from its ability to systematically arbitrage mispricing in a noisy market but from increasing the portfolio's exposure to stocks with low price‐to‐book values and with small capitalizations. We find that FI does not produce a positive alpha when its excess returns are explained by the Fama‐French three‐factor model of CAPM beta, the value premium and the size premium. Second, we show that it is possible to construct a portfolio of exchange‐traded funds with similar factor loadings that can replicate, and sometimes, even outperform FI. However, we caution investors not to expect consistent outperformance from portfolios tilted towards value and small‐cap stocks. Historical data shows evidence of mean reversion in the performance of such strategies.     

POST‐TRANSITION POVERTY TRENDS BASED ON AN ALTERNATIVE DATA SOURCE1

This paper analyses a previously unused source of data – the All Media and Product Survey (AMPS) – to arrive at alternative estimates of the post‐transition poverty path. The motivations for using this non‐official data source are twofold: concern over the comparability of the existing official post‐transition datasets – the Income and Expenditure Survey (IES) and Population Census – and a desire to extend analysis of poverty trends beyond 2001. While official data sources are generally preferred for purposes of poverty analysis, the IES and Census collect data at long (5 or 10 year) intervals, and additional years pass before these datasets become available to the public. In some cases there is also concern about data comparability between surveys. The expenditure data contained in the General Household Survey are available annually, although data are captured in a small number of categories that are not very conducive to analysis at the lower end of the income distribution. Analysis on AMPS data confirms the large decline in poverty implied by an increase of R18 billion (in 2000 Rand) in social grant payments between 2000 and 2004. The direction of this trend is consistent with recent research findings based on more frequently analysed data sources, including the work done by Agüero, Carter and May (2005), Seekings (2006 ) and Meth (2006 ).     

Environmental R&D and the uncertainty of future earnings

This paper examines whether the variability in the future earnings stream generated by the investment in environmentally-related R&D projects is different than that created by the investment in other R&D projects. To carry out this investigation, I decompose total R&D expenditures into two components: those related to R&D projects aimed at reducing the firm’s costs to comply with environmental legislation (i.e., the environmental component), and those related to all other R&D projects, which are focused on increasing the firm’s revenues and/or decreasing its other operating costs (i.e., the residual component). As predicted, I find that the environmental component of R&D expenditures contributes significantly less to the variability of future earnings than the residual component.