Brain wave analysis. An electroencephalographic technique used for evaluating the communications-effect of advertising

The results from the authors's applied research studies of communications-effect and electroencephalographic (EEG) recording, which took place over the last ten years, employing thousands of respondents, are integrated in this paper. Application of EEG methodology to ad research, rather than theory, is stressed. Brain Wave Analysis

1 Brain Wave Analysis is a service mark of NeuroCommunication Research Laboratories, Inc., for its brand of EEG service.

, an EEG technique, is described. A positive relationship determined between Brain Wave Analysis and sales is discussed, as well as various applications such as “brain typing” the target market. The application of Brain Wave Analysis in determining effective advertising frequency is discussed as it relates to Krugman's three exposure theory. The continuing development of EEG analysis is briefly discussed.     

Innovation in American retailing, 1919-39: improving inventory management

The primary purpose of this paper is to examine one of the most important innovations in American retailing, the model stock plan. Proposed by E.A. Filene in 1930, the plan provided a new way to solve previous inventory problems. Building upon past solutions and integrating ideas from 'scientific management', Filene was better able to address the issue of customer diversity and geographic dispersion. The discussion is placed in the context of 'evolutionary economics', whose framework provides an alternative to the study of retail history. The introduction of this methodology forms the secondary purpose of this study.     

MARKET BEHAVIOR OF GRAINS EXPORTERS

This article develops and tests several models of market behaviorover the 1965–81 period to identify the market behaviorof each of the five largest grain exporters in rice, wheat,and coarse grains. The results show that the United States hasexerted price leadership in the rice and coarse grains markets.The remaining major exporters in these markets have behavedin a manner consistent with a small-country exporter model inwhich their market demand is perceived to be perfectly elasticat the world price set by the dominant exporter. The resultsfor wheat suggest a shared dominance between the United States,Canada, and Australia, with the European Community and Argentinabehaving as small-country exporters. The short-run export supply curves for the five largest exportersappear to be very unresponsive to price. For rice, only Japan'sexports were found to have a significant and positive responseto an increase in the world export price. For wheat and coarsegrains, only the United States' exports were estimated to bepositively and significantly related to the export price. An important implication of the current market behavior of themajor exporters is that the opportunity exists for all otherexporters to sell all they can at the world price. However,a significant risk exists that the United States will stop supportingthe world price through its loan rate mechanism. A provisionfor such a change, the crop marketing loan provision, was includedin the Food Security Act of 1985 for wheat and coarse grainsand has already been implemented for rice.      

An empirical study of the value-relevance of using proportionate consolidation accounting for investments in joint ventures

This research examines bond risk premiums to determine whether creditors of companies with investments in joint ventures reflect legal or implicit measures of the debts of joint ventures. The legal view suggests that the amount of potential loss from an investment in a joint venture is limited to the investment. The implicit view suggests that the operations of the joint venture and the venturer are interdependent. Equity method accounting reflects the legal view and proportionate consolidation reflects the implicit view.The study examines whether bond risk premiums are more highly associated with accounting numbers from proportionate consolidation than equity method accounting. The study uses data from 10Ks, the Wall Street Journal, and Moody's Bond Record from May 1, 1995 through April 30, 1998. These 4 years are used because US interest rates were fairly stable during this period, which is an important factor when examining bond risk premiums. Additionally, the companies in the study needed to remain stable across the window of study – no mergers, acquisitions, buy-outs, or liquidations – in order to maintain a comparative sample over the entire time period. The risk premium model uses measures of default that change between equity method accounting and proportionate consolidation. Differences in the explanatory power of the model determine how creditors view the joint venture debts.The study shows that approximately half of equity investments represent investments in joint ventures. Furthermore, the average joint venture uses debt to finance about two-thirds of the assets. The results show that proportionate consolidation fails to improve the explanatory power of the model when examining the entire set of companies that invest in joint ventures. However, the data reject the null hypothesis of no improvement with proportionate consolidation when examining companies who guarantee the debt of their joint venture. The policy implication of this study indicates that a change to proportionate consolidation would provide more value-relevant information to creditors when companies guarantee the debt of the joint venture.     

A theory of negotiated equity financing

We examine the sale of equity within the context of a modelof negotiation between a firm and a less well informed purchaser.We introduce a simple form of negotiation by allowing the firmto set the price of the issue and by assuming that the purchaseis a financier-underwriter who acts strategically. This transactionis analyzed as a noncooperative game, and we identify sequentialequilibria that are consistent with observed behavior: namelythat negotiations occasionally fail, that market reactions toequity offers are not uniformly negative, and that equity placementsare often underpriced.     

A Comparison of Federal Government Office Rents with Market Rents

This study examines Federal Government office leases using data from Texas and Oklahoma during the 1981–1991 time period. The lease indifference model presented here indicates that landlords may be willing to accept lower rents from government tenants due to reduced tenant risk, but that such discounts may be offset by other premiums implicit in the lease contract. The data collected for this study reveal that rents paid by the government are significantly higher than average market rents during this time period. A time-series, cross-sectional regression analysis of the spread between market rents and office rents to government tenants in nine metropolitan markets suggests that the difference is affected in part by expense pass-throughs, lease period, amount of space leased, and local market conditions.