Forecasting Foreign Exchange Markets Using Google Trends: Prediction Performance of Competing Models

Abstract

Foreign exchange markets affect a variety of humans and businesses worldwide and there is a wide array of literature aimed at providing more accurate forecasts of their movement. In an attempt to quantify human expectations, Google query search terms related to foreign exchange markets are used to help explain and predict foreign exchange rates between the United States’ dollar and ten other currencies during the time period of January 2004 and August 2018. We find evidence that, while Google Trends can be helpful in prediction, it is necessary to implement some sort of shrinkage or sparsity scheme on the coefficients.     

Discussion of “The Consequences of Audit‐Related Earnings Revisions”

We organize our discussion of Haislip, Myers, Scholz, and Seidel (2017) (hereafter HMSS) around three areas: managing auditor business risk, a lack of auditor competence as an alternative story to auditors acting independently for their results, and drawing inferences from archival vis‐à‐vis experimental studies. We conclude our discussion by arguing that the investigation by HMSS sets the stage for future research concerning why earnings revisions occur and why auditors and CFOs appear to bear adverse consequences when they do occur.     

Spanish and American Business Professionals' Ethical Evaluations in Global Situations

More ethics research needs to explore the global differences in ethical evaluations. This study explored the relationships among nationality, teleological evaluations, ethical judgments, and ethical intentions using a sample of 222 American and Spanish business professionals. The path analysis indicated that teleological evaluations were related to ethical judgments and that both ethical judgments and teleological evaluations were related to ethical intentions. Executive nationality was related to teleological evaluations and ethical intentions with American individuals having higher teleological assessments and intentions to act ethically than the Spanish individuals. These findings have implications for global companies, which are presented along with the study's limitations and future research suggestions.     

Restricted electricity use among poor urban households

For a variety of reasons, this article argues, electricity must be seen by policy‐makers in South Africa not as the sole provider of all future household energy needs, but rather as one component of an energy mix which includes such ‘transitional’ fuels as coal, gas and paraffin. The reasons for this are that electricity is expensive for poor households; it is subject to power failures and disconnections for non‐payment; the poor find it difficult to monitor and to control their consumption; appliances are expensive and several are required to make best use of electricity; people prefer other fuels because they are familiar and have strong personal and cultural associations, and because Eskom is not trusted owing to its past ties to illegitimate local authorities and misunderstanding of electricity and how its use is monitored and charged for. Further, it is mistaken to equate ‘development’ with total electrification: most developed countries have fuel mixes which include gas and coal, particularly for cooking and heating. Accepting an affordable fuel mix for the poor in particular would focus attention on the problems currently associated with paraffin, gas and coal, namely fires, poisoning and air pollution.     

The Impact of Self-Esteem, Machiavellianism, and Social Capital on Attorneys' Traditional Gender Outlook

Utilizing a national sample of 106 attorneys and hierarchical regression analysis, this study identified several individual tendencies that could adversely affect women attorneys' career experiences. The findings indicated that self-esteem was negatively associated with a traditional gender outlook, and that Machiavellianism was positively associated with conservative beliefs about gender. Tolerance for diversity was negatively related to a traditional gender outlook, while work-based social agency was positively related to the preference for established gender roles. The results imply that confidence brings about greater acceptance of women's organizational roles, and that self-serving tendencies lower individuals' tolerance of women's employment. Diversity tolerance appears to prompt a nontraditional gender outlook, while social agency seems to prompt a traditional gender outlook. The organizational implications of the results are discussed along with the research limitations and recommendations for future inquiry.     

Market Interaction and Pro-Social Behavior: An Experimental Study

When actions generate negative externalities for third parties, incentives exist to pass these “morally costly” decisions to others. In laboratory experiments, we investigate how market interaction affects allocations when the right to divide a sum of money between oneself and a passive recipient is commoditized. Allocation to recipients is reduced by more than half when determined by subjects who purchase or keep the right to make the division as compared to a control where subjects are directly assigned the right. Sellers report accurate beliefs about recipient allocations and do not report feeling less responsible the more often they sell the allocation right. The market allocates the right to make divisions more frequently to buyers who allocate more to recipients, but sellers who allocate less to recipients tend to sell less often. Selection cannot solely explain the results, suggesting market interaction itself may directly impact behavior.     

MUTUAL FUND MORTALITY, 12B‐1 FEES,AND THE NET EXPENSE RATIO

The Securities and Exchange Commission is currently reviewing Rule 12b‐1, which governs how fund advisors may pay for the distribution of fund shares. We provide evidence that even after adjusting for economies of scale, funds with 12b‐1 fees have higher expense ratios net of the 12b‐1 fees than do funds without such fees. This finding suggests that 12b‐1 fees are more than just a deadweight cost. We also demonstrate that 12b‐1 fees are highest for funds that ultimately fail, that the proportion of funds with 12b‐1 fees is increasing over time, and that the level of those fees is also increasing over time.     

Recreational benefits from a marine protected area: A travel cost analysis of Lundy

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have been proposed in many countries as a means of conserving parts of the marine environment. In some cases, MPAs may also confer recreational benefits. In this paper, a travel cost model is used to estimate the non-market recreational benefits arising from the Lundy Island Marine Nature Reserve (MNR). The estimated mean consumer surplus for visiting Lundy was found to range from £359 to £574 per trip. The designation of No Take Zone (NTZ) has also contributed to higher consumer surplus values. This result provides a strong economic justification for the designation of MPAs for recreational as well as conservation purposes.     

Corporate Community Involvement: a case for regulatory reform

The central thesis of this paper is that Corporate Community Involvement (CCI) is not a neutral activity with positive and mutual benefits for all involved. Rather, it is a much more complex activity which may also have negative impacts. Using Donaldson and Preston's (1995) explanatory model of the stakeholding concept as a framework, this paper explores: (1) the practice of CCI in the UK (with some reference to US experience from which UK firms have drawn extensively), (2) the grounds on which it is justified, and (3) the material consequences of such activity for corporate governance. It concludes by arguing that there is a case for a review of the law on CCI to assess the need for fuller public disclosure so as to allow shareholders and other interested groups the opportunity to assess the impact and effectiveness of CCI more thoroughly.