Credit agency regulation and the impact of credit ratings in the international bond market

The use of credit ratings in financial and other legal documents — both in the USA and Europe —, has led to a situation in which the major rating agencies have become (largely unwilling) participants in the legislative process. This situation has become partly formalized in the US (and is being repeated elsewhere in the European Union, Eastern Europe and Latin America) through the creation of officially ‘recognized’ agencies whose ratings now carry the imprimatur of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate on the necessity for formal legal status to be sustained in the market for bond credit ratings. In this context, the criteria for a credible rating agency are examined and evidence is provided on one element of the criteria which is under-researched: namely, the impact of the ratings in the market place. The influence of rating agencies in international capital markets is assessed through an analysis of the impact of ratings on the yields of bonds, represented by a comprehensive sample of actively traded debt. The sample contains analysis of ratings introductions on both new and seasoned debt and also examines the impact of ratings revisions. It is concluded that official recognition has no market-based role and it is argued that ratings are used by regulators because of the success of the major agencies in performing their market function.     

Rethinking tomorrow's cities: Emerging issues on city foresight

Rethinking tomorrow's cities now, builds our capacity to act with foresight and create resilient and liveable places. I use methods from the futures studies field, particularly macrohistory, to provoke our current patterns of city making. From macrohistory, the grand patterns of social change reveal some of the key systems dynamics influencing the rise and fall of cities in civilisation. The key urban system dynamics in the broadest sense provide a meta-framework of emerging issues shaping new urban challenges or opportunities for our towns and cities. The hope drawn from the past and present is to focus our urban interventions in the key areas to create future cities of wonder and purpose. The implications of the emerging issues (critical focus areas of city foresight) that arise from the macrohistorical analysis are discussed using the case study of the Maroochy 2025 community visioning project.2025 is a community driven project to develop shared visions and action plans for the Maroochy Shire¹ towards the year 2025, for the purpose of creating an empowering and community owned response to the challenges facing them locally and globally.     

Trust restoration: an examination of senior managers' attempt to rebuild employee trust

This article advances discussions surrounding the extent to which senior management can rebuild damaged trust relationships in a context where the founding principle of respect had been contravened. More specifically, our article is concerned with a senior management team's attempt to regain trust through addressing workplace bullying. The study draws on a quantitative methodology where the population of the case study organisation were surveyed (n = 206) at two points in time (2004 and 2007). The findings revealed that managements’ actions had a significant effect on perceptions of bullying. T‐tests, however, provided only partial support for the notion that trust had improved as a result of management actions. In particular, there were significant differences in the levels of loyalty and benevolent motives and also openness, whereas no significant changes were observed for other dimensions of trust (integrity, competence, consistency and respect).     

Economic Surplus,Social Reproduction,Nurturance and Love

This paper examines the contributions of James Ronald Stanfield to social and political economy. We start the analysis with Stanfield’s contribution to institution building through his education of PhD students, building a graduate program in political economy, and through the associations of social and political economy. Then we go on to scrutinise his creative developments and applications of the notions of economic surplus and social reproduction. This is followed by his extensive work on Karl Polanyi and the disembedded economy. Finally we explore his path-breaking analysis of the great capitalist restoration, the nurturance gap and love. Stanfield was one of the greatest institutionalists and social economists of the last hundred years, and these four areas of energetic creativity are his prime achievements in the area.

     

Insider trading and stock prices

We examine the informational content of insider trades and its value to market investors using a US dataset. Overall, our results support the view that insider actions have positive predictive power for future returns. However, these results may come with some caveats. First, it is not the actions of all insiders (directors, officers and large shareholders) that have predictive power for future returns, but typically only those of directors and officers (senior management). Second, while director actions have predictive power for firm of all sizes, officers only have predictive power for small firms. The signal emanating from buys is stronger than the signal emanating from sells. Finally, the trading actions of directors, and to a lesser extent, officers have significant effects on the trading behaviour of other groups of insiders.     

Public sector pay and comparability: Historical background and current issues

Successive Governments have tended to use their bargaining power with their own employees to set an example to private employers and trade unions. Even where such incomes policies have enjoyed statutory backing, they have borne harder upon the public sector than upon the private. Any attempt to remedy this ultimately needs the co‐operation of the private sector, employers and unions.     

Stocks of information in personal consumption: a network model with non-rival borrowing and content overlap

Stocks of information that cumulate in personal consumption and other non-market contexts have unrecognized welfare implications through properties that include non-rival borrowing and relatively low obsolescence rates. Although non-rival borrowing is emergent in agent interaction, it is typically not included in agent heuristics. Properties such as non-rival borrowing are best studied in networks. Computational studies of both regular networks and small world networks indicate the clustering that these networks tend to. In spite of its cited welfare relevance to distributional inequality, clustering in small world networks has only been examined in terms of the remoteness parameter of the network. We extend a network model of the stock of information to more explicitly represent efficiency-reducing effects that clustering can have through content duplication or overlap and demonstrate the significance these effects can have in computational results. These studies also show the efficiency-increasing effects of non-rival borrowing that continue to be evidenced and the overlap reducing effects that increasing network remoteness can have.     

Underwriting Relationships and Analyst Independence in Europe

This paper examines the accuracy of security analysts’ earnings forecasts and stock recommendations for firms in 13 European countries. We document at least three key findings. First, we find strong evidence that lead and co‐lead underwriter analysts’ earnings estimates and stock recommendations are significantly more optimistic than those provided by unaffiliated analysts. Second, we find that lead and co‐lead underwriter analysts’ earnings forecast and stock recommendations are significantly more optimistic for underwriter stocks than for those they provide for other stocks. Third, we also find evidence that these biases found within earnings forecasts and stock recommendations are not driven by one particular country. In short, these findings suggest that affiliated analysts are more optimistic perhaps to maintain investment banking relations.