Project Labor Agreements' Effect on School Construction Costs in Massachusetts

This paper investigates the impact of Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) on school construction cost in Massachusetts. Although simple models exhibit a large positive effect of PLAs on construction costs, such effects are absent from more completely specified models. Further investigation finds sufficient dissimilarity in schools built with and without PLAs that it is difficult to distinguish the cost effects of PLAs from the cost effects of factors that underlie the use of PLAs.     

Voluntary Disclosure and Equity Offerings: Reducing Information Asymmetry or Hyping the Stock?*

We examine corporate disclosure activity around seasoned equity offerings and its relationship to stock prices. Beginning six months before the offering, our sample issuing firms dramatically increase their disclosure activity, particularly for the categories of disclosure over which firms have the most discretion. The increase is significant after controlling for the firm's current and future earnings performance and tends to be largest for firms with selling shareholders participating in the offering. However, there is no change in the frequency of forward‐looking statements prior to the equity offering, something that is expressly discouraged by the securities law. Firms that maintain a consistent level of disclosure experience price increases prior to the offering, and only minor price declines at the offering announcement relative to the control firms, suggesting that disclosure may have reduced the information asymmetry inherent in the offering. Firms that substantially increase their disclosure activity in the six months before the offering also experience price increases prior to the offering relative to the control firms, but suffer much larger price declines at the announcement of their intent to issue equity, suggesting that the disclosure increase may have been used to “hype the stock” and the market may have partially corrected for the earlier price increase. Firms that maintain a consistent disclosure level have no unusual return behavior relative to the control firms subsequent to the announcement, while the firms that “hyped” their stock continue to suffer negative returns, providing further evidence that the increased disclosure activity may have been hype, and suggesting that the hype may have been successful in lowering the firms' cost of equity capital.     

Migrants Encounter Migrants in the City: the Changing Context of ‘Home’ for Second‐Generation Greek‐American Return Migrants

This article looks at the ‘return’ migration of second‐generation Greek Americans to their parents’ homeland, Greece. It is based on interviews with, and written accounts supplied by, 40 participants in the research, all now living in the Athens region. The article addresses two main sets of questions. First, why do they relocate to Greece, what are they looking for, and how do they cope with difficulties and disappointments? Second, and more specifically, how do they react to the fact that Greece is no longer a homogenous hellenistic society, but has become in recent years a de facto multicultural one due to the presence of hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers and their families? Three hypotheses are proposed for this inter‐migrant encounter: returnees, shocked by the ‘new immigration’, view it negatively as upsetting the ‘pure Greek’ homeland they had hoped to find; returnees are more sympathetic because of their own families’ history as immigrants in multicultural America; and returnees differentiate themselves as ‘good’ migrants from Greece’s immigrants who are constructed as ‘bad’ migrants. Evidence from the migrants’ testimonies is found to support all three hypotheses; however, there is more support for the second one. In addition, a fourth outcome was voiced: that of discrimination against Greek Americans who are made to feel, in certain circumstances, outsiders by the ‘true’ Greeks. Suggestions are made for further comparative research.     

The Effects of Delays on the Stability and Rate of Convergence to Equilibrium of Oligopolies*

The stability of oligopolies is investigated using the Cournot strategy and a general output adjustment procedure. Information delays are incorporated in the adjustment procedure and their specific effects upon the dynamic stability of oligopolies is investigated. The stability of equilibrium for discrete models is unaffected by information delays and remoteness of planning horizons; however the rate of convergence to equilibrium may be slowed. For continuous models with delays, some restraints are required for stability.     

Optimal Financial Structure, Cost of Capital, and the Lease-or-Buy Decision

This note comments on the doubtful application of an economic concept of personal income to the non-personal business enterprise situation.
This paper presents a series of models which we believe properly reflect the relevant relationships in the lease or buy evaluation. The models present the proper cash flow variables for such an analysis and they present the impact on asset net present value of cost of capital and market risk assessment. Finally, the models reflect the simultaneous effect on asset and financial structure of the acceptance of a particular investment opportunity.