The source of value of voting rights and related dividend promises

This paper examines the relative share pricing of 98 firms with two classes of common stock trading in the United States from 1984 to 1999. The firms feature common stock classes with differential voting rights and, in some cases, differential rights to dividends. The observed voting premiums are higher than those reported in previous studies of U.S. firms and are dependent on the form of dividend promise to the low-vote shareholder. The voting premium is higher in the presence of a control threat, when insiders do not hold controlling voting power, and during periods of poor firm performance.     

James Buchanan's contributions to social and economic thought: Citation counts,self-assessment,and peer review

This paper demonstrates James Buchanan's impact on socio-economic thought through citation analysis of his published works, a discussion of Buchanan's own views of what his work means and is, and summary discussions of the assessments of other scholars. Thus the central themes of his work are illuminated as well. These themes include a deep distrust of government interference in the economy and in the personal lives of members of the polity, and his absolute conviction that collective decisionmaking should take place only within the framework of a contractual agreement, the fundamental principles of which have been derived through near unanimity.     

DETECTING ABNORMAL RETURNS USING THE MARKET MODEL WITH PRE-TESTED DATA

The current literature suggests various alternative procedures for increasing the power of tests to detect abnormal returns in event studies. Using randomly constructed portfolios, we simulate events and compare the results of tests using three alternative procedures: traditional, cross-sectional, and cross-sectional with standardized residuals. For each test, we compare results when all observations are included with results when the observations with high trading volume are omitted from the estimation period. The simulation results indicate that both the traditional approach with omitted observations and the cross-sectional approach using standardized residuals with all observations yield approximately the correct test sizes and significantly improve the power of tests to detect abnormal returns. However, the cross-sectional approach using standardized residuals is clearly dominant among the three procedures.     

Youseff Cassis. Capitals of Capital: A History of International Financial Centres, 1780-2005

The book presents a history of the most influential financialCenters, "the capitals of capital." Youseff Cassis evaluatesthe significance of these Centers by examining their concentrationof financial services, their capacity to process surplus capital,particularly its export, and their role in the intermediationof financial transactions. Their history, from 1780 to the presentday, is covered chronologically in six chapters. Each chapterestablishes a hierarchy of Centers and reasons for changes inthe hierarchy are analyzed as the story unfolds.     

Applications of corporate social monitoring systems; types,dimensions, and goals

This article discusses the development and application of various types of corporate social monitoring systems. Boycotts are a relatively simple form of social monitoring system which aim to produce changes in corporate social behavior. Boycotts may be organized by a single group, or by a number of groups simultaneously. Rating systems may be organized around a single issue, such as the Sullivan Principles rating scheme, or may include multiple companies and multiple issues, such as shopping guides or ethical investment systems.Monitoring systems may be unidimensional or multidimensional, qualitative or quantitative, and absolute or relative. Consumers and investors appear to be the groups most likely to be targeted in these schemes. The importance of these monitoring systems appears to be increasing as both consumers and investors become more interested in using social criteria in decision-making.Karen Paul is Professor of Business & Society at Florida International University. She has been a Senior Fulbright Research Fellow and Peace Fellow of the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College at Harvard University. She has done extensive research on the use of the Sullivan Principles and other corporate codes of conduct in South Africa, and on corporate issues involving environmental ethics.Steven D. Lydenberg has extensive experience in corporate social monitoring at the Council for Economic Priorities and Franklin Research and Development Corp., and currently as Director of Research at the ethical investing firm of Kinder, Lydenberg, Domini, and Co., Inc. in Cambridge, Mass. He is the senior author ofRating America's Corporate Conscience.     

Urban growth and uninsured rural risk: Booming towns in bust times

Rapid urbanization also happens when economic growth and urban job creation are absent, such as in Africa and Latin America during the eighties. Why do some countries urbanize faster while having worse economic growth? This paper finds that higher aggregate agricultural risk induces rural-urban migration, providing an additional channel to explain the urbanization trend. Uninsurable expected risk will lead to rural-urban migration as a form of ex-ante insurance if households are liquidity constrained and cannot overcome adverse shocks. The effect is robust to controlling for the traditional view of urbanization driven by industrialization, and to several alternative explanations such as government spending.     

Factors determining awareness and knowledge of aquatic invasive species

Public perceptions of invasive species may influence policies and programs initiated by public and private stakeholders. We investigate the determinants of the public's awareness and knowledge of invasive species as few studies have examined this relationship. We focus on aquatic invasive species (AIS) and employ survey data from property owners in a lake district. A major contribution is that we estimate a mixed trivariate binary-ordered probit regression model that accommodates correlations among unobserved characteristics, produces statistically more efficient estimates, and allows a more proper investigation of the probability of knowledge conditional on awareness. Our results provide insights for invasive species education and management programs. We find that individuals are more likely to be aware of AIS if they participate in water-based recreation, visit lakes outside their area, have a boat, belong to a lake association, or are college educated. This has a policy implication: Given high levels of AIS awareness by those most involved in activities around lakes and those with a higher education, it may be beneficial to target informational campaigns at those who do not display these characteristics, so that they can better make informed decisions about whether to support and expend money on invasive species management programs.