Real options as a component of the market value of stocks: evidence from the Spanish Stock Market

This paper aims to examine how investors’ expectations about the value of a firm's real options are reflected in the price of its stocks. If the real-option approach is correct, then the efficient-market hypothesis predicts that stock prices will reflect the available information relative to the real options held by firms and their ability to identify, acquire, maintain and exercise them. The role of investment irreversibility, operating and financial flexibility, business and geographical diversification, and size are examined as indicators of a firm's real option strategy. The empirical analysis of a panel of 101 companies listed on the Spanish Stock Exchange during the period 1991–1997 provides evidence consistent with predictions. The market value of the real option portfolio is significantly and positively related to business diversification, asset irreversibility and operating leverage, and negatively related to size. In addition, financial leverage and geographical diversification are not significantly related to our proxies for the market value of real options. These results are robust even after controlling for industry, and alternative measures of investment flexibility and business diversification.     

Intertemporal preference parameters for some European monetary union countries

In the European Monetary Union, the estimation and analysis of preference parameters in its members is of special interest because possible differences could help us to understand why a common monetary policy could have different effects on the different economies involved. In this article, we have focused our attention on the elasticity of intertemporal substitution, one of the key preference parameters in intertemporal macroeconomic models. Several studies have shown a possible underestimation of such elasticity for different countries. It is common practice to estimate the parameter using only nondurable goods and services consumption data, without referring to the flow of services generated by durable consumption. This is only admissible if the intratemporal utility can be separated among the different consumption components. Our first objective is, therefore, to test the assumption of intratemporal separability for a selection of European countries (Germany, Spain and France), and then to analyse the effect of durable consumption on the estimated values of the intertemporal elasticity of substitution of these countries, our ultimate goal. Knowledge of such elasticity will enable us to characterise how saving in these economies reacts to variations in the real interest rate.     

Tourism and representation: a scale for measuring gendered portrayals

This paper analyses the nature of the images of women and men represented in tourism marketing and discusses the wider socio-cultural impact of such imagery. It begins by briefly discussing the gendered nature of tourism experiences and then reviews work on tourism, gender and representation. The paper's substantive contribution to tourism gender research, however, is its adaptation and development of a content analysis technique which facilitates the quantitative analysis of gender representations. A case study of a range of UK tour operators' brochures is presented which confirms that tourism representation relies heavily on the use of women as sexualized product adornments. The value and limitations of the content analysis research tool are discussed, as is its further applicability as a measurement of representations in tourism marketing.     

Policy evaluation in leisure services — The Northern Ireland case

This paper discusses the socio-cultural processes that shape homosexual leisure space, specifically examining the experiences of lesbians. In doing so, it seeks to contribute to the emergent body of tourism research focusing on gendered and sexualized leisure. Its primary contribution to gender tourism research, however, is to provide further support for the conceptualization of leisure processes and spaces as both heterosexist and androcentric. The paper thus begins by briefly discussing the socio-cultural construction of gay space and the powerful dynamics that underpin its emotional geography. It then briefly discusses the study's methodological approach before presenting and discussing the findings of the research conducted with lesbians in Manchester's gay village - one of the UK's first and most successful gay and lesbian quarters. The paper reveals how sexuality and gender combine to constrain women's consumption of public leisure space and suggests that, whilst homosexual spaces have emotional and psychological importance as empowering places in a heterosexual world, in the case of the Manchester gay village, this homosexual space does not empower lesbians because of the homo-patriarchic power dialectics characterizing its socio-cultural construction. The women interviewed in the study do have territorial ambitions in the village - their own space is important to them, it confirms their place in the village and it supports the development of social networks for lesbians in a hostile, hetero-patriarchic world. Yet, it emerges that lesbian space is an exceptionally difficult homosexual space to claim since the more powerful and more established gay male community in that area does not particularly welcome women.     

Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz—Statistician,Economist and a European Intellectual

Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz (1868–1931) was a European statistician. His scientific work covered theoretical economics, stochastics, mathematical statistics and radiology; today, we would call him a cross‐disciplinary scientist. With his clear views on mathematical principles with their applications in these fields, he stood in conflict with the mainstream economic schools in Germany at the dawn of the 20th century. He had many prominent students (Gumbel, Leontief and Freudenberg among them), and he carved out the path of modern statistical thinking. He was a true European intellectual with a career path from St. Petersburg via Göttingen to Straßburg and finally the Berliner Universität, now Humboldt‐Universität zu Berlin. He is known for the precise calibration of insurance claims applying the—at that time hardly known—Poisson distribution to Prussian horse kick and child suicide data. He proposed a simple solution to the Marxian transformation problem and wrote numerous articles and books on the mathematical treatment of statistical (including radiological physical) data. In this article, we sketch his life and work and point out the prominent role that he has in today's statistical thinking.     

Dividend Taxes and Income Shifting

In this paper, we analyze whether a dividend tax cut for owner‐managers of closely held corporations encourages income shifting, income generation, or both. We use rich Swedish administrative micro data from 2000 to 2011 comprising detailed firm‐ and individual‐level information. We find robust evidence of extensive income shifting across tax bases in response to the 2006 Swedish dividend tax cut. Owner‐managers of closely held corporations reclassify earned income as dividend income but do not increase total income. The response is more pronounced for owner‐managers with tax incentives and with easier access to income shifting through a high ownership share.