巴菲特退出了,你呢?

"股神"巴菲特卖出中国股票的做法显然并未博得所有人的认同。前不久,巴菲特将仍有很大获利后劲的中石油股票脱手的举动引起外界的极大关注。上周他在中国对媒体表示,投资中国股票的人应保持谨慎。     

Asymmetric effect of exchange rate volatility on India's cross‐border trade: Evidence from global financial crisis and multiple threshold nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag model

This paper examines the asymmetric effect of exchange rate volatility on India's cross‐border trade with its major trading partners: Japan, Germany, the United States, and China. We extend previous studies in two ways. First, we examine whether global financial crisis changes the asymmetric effect of exchange rate volatility on India's cross‐border trade. Next, we divide exchange rate volatility into quintiles and examine the effect of each quintile on cross‐border trade by using the multiple threshold nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (MTNARDL) model. Our findings from standard nonlinear ARDL (NARDL) indicate that the asymmetric relationship between exchange rate volatility and cross‐border trade changes as a result of global financial crisis. In addition, findings from MTNARDL indicate that in short‐run, exchange rate volatility symmetrically affects India's cross‐border trade with all sample countries whereas in long‐run it asymmetrically affects cross‐border trade. Overall, these findings are very important for policy implications and open a new dimension to exchange rate volatility and trade flows.     

Corporate social responsibility and firm financial risk reduction: On the moderating role of the legal environment

Approaching the institutional environment through its regulative component, we distinguish between shareholder‐oriented and stakeholder‐oriented countries. Identifying first this classification with the distinction between common law versus civil law countries and using a large sample of 5,716 firm‐year observations that represents 1,169 individual firms in 25 countries between 2001 and 2011, we show that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) significantly reduces firms’ idiosyncratic risk in civil law countries but not in common law countries. Using then a more direct classification based on shareholder and employee protection scores, our findings suggest that CSR negatively affects firms’ idiosyncratic and systematic risks only in less shareholder‐oriented and more stakeholder‐oriented countries, respectively. These findings are similar in the different components of CSR with two notable exceptions: a high score in corporate governance reduces firm risk only in common law countries, and community involvement increases idiosyncratic risk in more shareholder‐oriented and less stakeholder‐oriented countries, respectively. Taken together, our results strongly support the view that the relationship between CSR and financial risk is moderated by the institutional context of the firm.     

The persistence of profits of banks in Africa

This paper analyses the profit persistence of African banking sector, focusing on the role of the level of competition and banks earnings management. We apply Markov chain to analyse the extent and mobility of profit persistence, dynamic auto regressive model to assess the speed of convergence and the quantile regression technique to examine the determinants of profit persistence of banks in Africa. The results show a high level of profit persistence and relatively low speed of convergence. There is also evidence that regulation and banks earnings management affect both the level and persistence of banks profitability. We also find that competition as well as 2007/2008 financial crisis reduce the level and the speed of profit persistence.     

The nexus between sectoral FDI and institutional quality: empirical evidence from Pakistan

This study investigates short- and long-run bidirectional causality between institutional quality and sectoral-level FDI in Pakistan by using the ARDL technique. The results confirm that long-run bidirectional causality exists between institutional quality and aggregate FDI. The in-depth sectoral-level FDI analysis substantiates the presence of long-run bidirectional causality between institutional quality and FDI in services and manufacturing sectors, while no long-run causality is observed between institutional quality and FDI inflows in primary sector. Furthermore, the results in the study reveal short-run bidirectional causality only between institutional quality and manufacturing FDI and report insignificant short-run causal link between institutional quality and FDI in primary and services sectors. The overall findings of the study suggest that in the long-run institutional quality attract FDI and FDI inflows, particularly to manufacturing and services sectors, significantly enhance the quality of institutions in Pakistan.     

Hospitality crisis management practices: The case of Indian luxury hotels

This study examines hospitality crisis management practices within the context of the Indian hospitality industry. The study is a replication of a study previously conducted in Israel. The study employs a questionnaire that evaluates the importance and usage of four themes of practices: marketing, hotel maintenance, human resources and governmental assistance. The findings illustrate which practices managers consider important and which practices managers actually use during a crisis. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research and management of crises.     

The Role of Credit in the 2007–09 Great Recession

This paper examines the financial crisis of 2007/9 and the downturn in the U.S. We argue that effective demand over the 2001?C2006 expansion was maintained by credit. The role of credit in a Vector Error Correction Model and Granger-causality between aggregate spending, credit, disposable income, and profits are examined. We show that credit itself is determined by factors outside the circular flow of income. The results raise new hypotheses about the crucial relationships in macroeconomics that sustain aggregate spending. We then compute the generalized impulse responses in the VECM to demonstrate the severity of the downturn and show that legislative changes that dismantled the restrictions placed on the financial sector and the consequent structural changes after 1980 enabled the growth of new debt instruments and credit. The overexpansion of credit when profits and house prices were declining in 2005/06 and informational asymmetries on the quality of credit and its sudden withdrawal in 2007 paralyzed the economy and led to the Great Recession.     

Managerial Behavior and the Link between Stock Mispricing and Corporate Investments: Evidence from Market‐to‐Book Ratio Decomposition

We examine the impact of mispricing on corporate investments and its components: capital expenditures, research and development, acquisitions, and asset sales. By decomposing the market‐to‐book ratio into mispricing and growth components, we show that corporate investments are linked to mispricing through market‐timing and catering, after controlling for growth and financial slack. This investment‐mispricing link is more pronounced in financially constrained firms and in firms with short‐horizon shareholders. Overall, our study indicates that the sensitivity of investments to mispricing is a function of the nature of mispricing, the type of investment, and the firm's characteristics.     

Group Decision Support Using Fuzzy Cognitive Maps for Causal Reasoning

Cognitive maps have been used for analysing and aiding decision-making by investigating causal links among relevant domain concepts. A fuzzy cognitive map (FCM) is an extension of a cognitive map with the additional capability of representing feedback through weighted causal links. FCMs can be used as tools for both static as well as dynamic analysis of scenarios evolving with time. An FCM represents an expert's domain knowledge in a form that lends itself to relatively easy integration into a collective knowledge base for a group involved in a decision process. The resulting group FCM has the potential to serve as a useful tool in a group decision support environment. An appropriate methodology for the development and analysis of group FCMs is required. A framework for such a methodology consisting of the development and application phases is presented.