Macroeconomic News and Mortgage Rates

The study analyzes the influence of macroeconomic news announcements on (a) interest rates for commercial mortgages, residential mortgages, 10-year Treasury notes, and Baa-rated corporate bonds; and (b) corresponding mortgage spreads. It is both interesting and highly relevant from a policy and portfolio management standpoint to examine the implications of the influence of macroeconomic news announcements on mortgage markets. Some important results are reported. First, consistent with the notion of market integration, mortgage rates are found to be co-integrated with other capital market instruments. Second, of the 22 types of periodic macroeconomic news releases considered, 13 of them have a significant influence on at least one of the interest rates, and notably changes in hourly earnings and housing starts significantly influence all debt-security yields. More generally, macroeconomic news that conveys higher inflation and/or economic growth has a positive influence on mortgage and other interest rates. Finally, this study finds several announcements including durable goods orders, new home sales, personal consumption, non-farm payroll, trade balance and Treasury budget to have a significant influence on mortgage spreads.     

An empirical analysis of the interrelationships among equity markets under changing exchange rate systems

The purpose of this article is to investigate the interrelationships between seven stock markets (Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, the United Kingdom and U.S.A.) over the period 1969–1976. The impact of flexible exchange rates on the various correlation coefficients is shown to be rather low. The results show a trend towards higher segmentation between the various stock exchanges, which means larger opportunities for international diversification. Finally the relationships between stock index variations and exchange rate fluctuations are analyzed.     

Segmentation in direct marketing channels: a transaction-patterns based method

This paper presents a method designed to segment a customer file for direct marketing using behavioral data. The results of this method are tested against the traditional Recency-Frequency-Monetary Amount segmentation model, as well as other parameters of consumer behavior. Strategic applications and future research orientations are suggested.     

Prices, wages and fertility in pre-industrial England

To shed light on the economic-demographic mechanisms operating in the epoch of pre-industrial economic stagnation, a two-sector Malthusian model is formulated in terms of a cointegrated vector autoregressive model on error correction form. The model allows for both agricultural product wages and relative prices to affect fertility. The model is estimated using new data for the pre-industrial period in England, and the analysis reveals a strong, positive effect of agricultural wages as well as a nonnegative effect of real agricultural prices on fertility. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that there is strongly decreasing returns to scale with respect to labour in the agricultural sector and approximately constant returns to scale in the manufacturing sector. The analysis provides evidence in favour of the usual Malthusian model, as invoked by unified growth theories such as e.g. Galor and Weil (Am Econ Rev 90:806–828, 2000).     

The Importance of Attributional Complexity for Transformational Leadership Studies

Attributional complexity refers to the capability of discriminating and integrating dimensions related to social judgment in order to understand social behaviour. While previous leadership research has examined the role of leader attributions, it has neglected the role of attributional complexity. We theorize and find support for a relationship between higher attributional complexity and transformational leadership behaviours, based on a sample of 100 leaders and their direct reports. Leaders who were more complex in their social judgments, attributing complex external and internal causes to others' behaviours and actions, were seen as more transformational by their direct reports. Our findings suggest that attributional complexity is a construct that warrants consideration in future research on both transformational leadership and leadership attributions.     

Tracing the Effects of WTO Accession on Policy‐making in Sovereign States: Preliminary Lessons from the Recent Experience of Transition Countries

We examine in this paper the effects of WTO Accession on policy‐making and institutional reforms in transition countries. This is done by looking at the experience of those transition countries which are already Members of the WTO and/or which have recently acceded. We start by trying to distinguish between effects of accession negotiations and from those which are the results of autonomous policy initiatives. The areas of domestic policy‐making which are considered in the analysis include market access, governance, government budget, structural reforms, trade and investment arrangements with regional partners and macroeconomic management. We find that no precise blueprint of accession conditions can be ascertained and argue that the WTO played a role, albeit not an exclusive one, in the process of liberalisation. We also find that the costs of WTO Accession are not negligible, but that the benefits of WTO Membership are significant in terms of improved, more predictable, market access and its stability, improved governance and a recourse to better economic policies without significant loss to government revenues.