The impact of international listings on risk : Implications for capital market integration

In this paper, we examine the impact of international listing on common-stock risk. While previous research has used event study methodology, our research focuses on permanent shifts in risk. Different measures of risk are estimated to test for intertemporal shifts in risk attributable to an overseas listing. No significant shifts in risk from international listing are documented. The results are robust with respect to the location and year of listing. These findings suggest that: (1) markets are already reasonably well integrated; or (2) listing is an ineffective mechanism for reducing segmentation.     

Pollution and reforms of domestic and trade taxes towards uniformity

This paper builds a small open economy trade model where there is pollution from the production and consumption of goods. In the presence of production and consumption pollution, we examine a piecemeal consumer-price-neutral reform of the tariff and consumption tax and a piecemeal producer-price-neutral reform of the export and production taxes on a specific good. The paper identifies sufficient conditions under which the above tax reforms improve welfare and increase government tax revenues.     

Developing Dividend and Financing Policies with a Computer Terminal

This study examines the value relevance of mandated disclosures by UK firms of the investor‐firm share of liabilities of equity‐accounted associate and joint venture investees. It does so for the six years following the introduction of FRS 9: Associates and Joint Ventures, which forced a substantial increase in such disclosures by UK firms. Since the increased disclosure requirements were partly motivated by concern that single‐line equity accounting concealed the level of group gearing, and in light of previous US results, it is predicted that the mandated investee‐liability disclosures have a negative coefficient in a value‐relevance regression. The study also examines whether value‐relevance regression coefficients on investee‐liability disclosures are more negative for joint ventures than for associates and whether they are more negative in the presence of investor‐firm guarantees of investee‐firm obligations than in the absence of such guarantees. The study reports that the coefficient on all investee‐liability disclosures taken together has the predicted negative sign, and is significantly different from zero. It finds little evidence that the negative valuation impact of liability disclosures is stronger for joint venture investees overall than for associate investees overall, or stronger for guarantee cases overall than for non‐guarantee cases overall. There is, however, some evidence that the impact for joint venture guarantee cases is stronger than that for joint venture non‐guarantee cases and stronger than that for associate guarantee cases.     

Predictive safety analytics: inferring aviation accident shaping factors and causation

This paper illustrates the development of an object-oriented Bayesian network (OOBN) to integrate the safety risks contributing to an in-flight loss-of-control aviation accident. With the creation of a probabilistic model, inferences about changes to the states of the accident shaping or causal factors can be drawn quantitatively. These predictive safety inferences derive from qualitative reasoning to conclusions based on data, assumptions, and/or premises, and enable an analyst to identify the most prominent causal factors leading to a risk factor prioritization. Such an approach facilitates a mitigation portfolio study and assessment. The model also facilitates the computation of sensitivity values based on perturbations to the estimates in the conditional probability tables. Such computations lead to identifying the most sensitive causal factors with respect to an accident probability. This approach may lead to vulnerability discovery of emerging causal factors for which mitigations do not yet exist that then informs possible future R&D efforts. To illustrate the benefits of an OOBN in a large and complex aviation accident model, the in-flight loss-of-control accident framework model is presented.     

Can a Shorter Workweek Induce Higher Employment? Mandatory Reductions in the Workweek and Employment Subsidies

This paper presents a unified model of the impact on employment of a mandatory reduction in work hours in combination with an employment subsidy to reduce quasi-fixed costs of employment, while attempting to maintain worker's take-home pay or welfare level. Achieving the dual policy objectives of enhancing employment and maintaining worker income is not necessarily feasible. Nevertheless, a reduction in the legal workweek may induce a degree of downward wage flexibility, while an employment subsidy to firms accommodates downward wage rigidity. It may be possible, therefore, to increase employment with a policy that combines a reduction in the workweek with an employment subsidy. In general, however, the long run employment outcome is ambiguous, and a decline in output cannot be ruled out. More direct policy measures whose impact can be assessed with greater certainty—in particular, removing structural rigidities in the labor market—should be given priority to decrease long term unemployment.     

Agent Employment Horizons and Contracting Demand for Forward-Looking Performance Measures

In this paper, the principal rewards an agent's farsighted effort both in the short and long term, with the short-term reward based on a noisy, forward-looking performance measure and the long-term reward based on a potentially less noisy, trailing performance measure. The main result is that optimal contracting weights depend on the agent's employment time horizon: the shorter the agent's employment horizon the greater the emphasis on the forward-looking performance measure and vice versa. This implies that contracting on forward-looking performance measures can be valuable in mitigating any adverse long-term effects of employees myopically focusing on short-term trailing performance measures.