The Role of Index Trading in Price Formation in the Grains and Oilseeds Markets

We use both Granger‐causality and instrumental variables (IV) methods to examine the impact of index fund positions on price returns for the main US grains and oilseed futures markets. Our analysis supports earlier conclusions that Granger‐causal impacts are generally not discernible. However, market microstructure theory suggests trading impacts should be instantaneous. IV‐based tests for contemporaneous causality provide stronger evidence of price impact. We find even stronger evidence that changes in index positions can help predict future changes in aggregate commodity price indices. This result suggests that changes in index investment are in part driven by information which predicts commodity price changes over the coming months.     

Distilling the reserve for uncertain tax positions: the revealing case of black liquor

We examine the extent to which management discretion affects the reserve for unrecognized tax benefits. We analyze the financial statement disclosures of 19 paper companies that received a total of $6.4 billion in refundable excise taxes during 2009. All of these companies included the refunds in financial income, but 14 excluded all or part of the refunds from taxable income. Despite the magnitude and unprecedented nature of the exclusion, we find that only five of the excluding firms accrued a full reserve for an uncertain tax position, three firms accrued a partial reserve, and six firms did not accrue any reserve. This variation suggests managers enjoy wide latitude in applying the more likely than not standard for determining additions to the reserve. Our findings suggest that financial statement users should exercise caution when comparing tax reserves across companies. In addition, we find some evidence that income-increasing tax accrual decisions are related to characteristics generally associated with weak corporate governance.     

Fiscal Residuum and Localization of Foreign Direct Investments among Chinese Provinces

This paper examines the impact of fiscal residuum--the excess of expenditure benefits over tax burdens--on the location choice of foreign direct investments among China＇s provinces. Using data provided by the National Bureau of Statistics of China we propose two fiscal residuum indexes for China＇s provinces over the period 1998-2004. According to Buchanan＇s original definition of fiscal residuum a first index is given by the difference between government expenditure and revenue. A second index measures enterprises＇ net fiscal benefit and is calculated as the difference between public expenditure that affect business activities and taxes paid by enterprises. We found that the first index does not significantly affect the FDI localization choice while the second one positively affects it. When looking at different subsets of provinces we found that for eastern provinces the first index has a positive and significant effect. These results confirm the role of the net fiscal benefit as a determinant of FDI inflows at the provincial level.     

Management Perceptions of the Sales Effects of Shelf Space and Position

ABSTRACT

There is an increasing interest in the consumption and social meaning of food and drinks in the discipline of marketing. This article reports the findings of an exploratory research study into the motivational factors which inform the reasons why people drink wine. A qualitative research process was used to explore these factors to understand better the motivational aspect of Australian consumers' relationship with wine. The findings cover both symbolic and experiential purposes. Enjoyment, situational factors, personal historical context, and lifestyle-related issues appeared to be crucial. Additionally, cognitive dimensions, aesthetics, and memory-related factors are also significant although previously these have been less noted by researchers.     

Interaction Approach and Liabilities: A Case Analysis of Start-Up Firms

ABSTRACT

Purpose: Start-up firms have to face some key challenges due to liabilities related to processes that are external to the organization, such as establishing relationships with customers, suppliers and other relevant actors. The purpose of the article is to understand how liabilities, namely newness, smallness, foreignness and outsidership, are related to each other in start-ups, and what are the main liabilities perceived/experienced by start-ups and their counterparts, using an interactive perspective.

Methodology: The article uses a case study methodology and proposes 3 cases of start-ups firms and their counterparts. Cases are built using multiple data-sources, both primary and secondary.

Findings: The article highlights the role of “heritage” left by the membership in the network. This “network heritage” means that some aspects of the network are pre-existing, in terms of previous and long lasting relationships with other actors. In this sense, the network in which the firm connects pre-exists and mitigates the existence of liabilities that come into play in the processes of interdependence with other actors. This provides a perspective of liabilities, specifically the liability of newness, as an asset in the sense that newness depends on a “short story,” without constraints of a “longer story” as that of competitors in the network. The liability of newness is an asset in terms of flexibility, customized offer and innovative content.

Originality/value/contribution: The main contribution of the article lies in taking an interactive perspective on start-ups and liabilities, analyzing the interaction processes taking place between the new venture and the surrounding network of essential actors.

Practical implications: Liabilities arise and can be overcome in the processes of interaction, which therefore can have an ambivalent role: fertile ground for the manifestation of liabilities but also the context for its overcoming/conversion of liabilities into assets. Entrepreneurs and managers should consider newness and smallness as positive attributes for other actors in the processes of interaction, as a potential generator of value. Such a perception of newness as an asset depends on two factors: the presence or absence of an organization-mother that limits the perception of newness as a liability; the sector in which the new company develops, if dynamic and innovative or still tied to traditional and consolidated processes where the experience, “history” and “heritage” of the firm are sources of legitimacy.     

Credit and liquidity components of corporate CDS spreads

This paper investigates the role of credit and liquidity factors in explaining corporate CDS price changes during normal and crisis periods. We find that liquidity risk is more important than firm-specific credit risk regardless of market conditions. Moreover, in the period prior to the recent “Great Recession” credit risk plays no role in explaining CDS price changes. The dominance of liquidity effects casts serious doubts on the relevance of CDS price changes as an indicator of default risk dynamics. Our results show how multiple liquidity factors including firm specific and aggregate liquidity proxies as well as an asymmetric information measure are critical determinants of CDS price variations. In particular, the impact of informed traders on the CDS price increases when markets are characterised by higher uncertainty, which supports concerns of insider trading during the crisis.     

The social and ethical alchemy: an integrative approach to social and ethical accountability

In recent years there has been an explosion of interest by companies in developing approaches to instill values in their decision-making processes and to manage and report on their social performance. The emerging field of social and ethical accounting, auditing and reporting (SEAAR) is characterised by considerable differentiation not only in terminology, but also in methodology and focus. This article aims to analyse the key conceptual and methodological differences between internally focussed approaches to SEAAR, dealing with ethics (behavioural) issues, and externally focussed approaches to SEAAR, dealing with social (stakeholder) issues.
In their discussion of the benefits and potential pitfalls of exclusively internally or externally focussed approaches the authors suggest two organisational metaphors as heuristics – the Cultish and the Chameleon organisation. The authors then propose an integrative approach to SEAAR which will overcome this dissonance and initiate a mutually reinforcing process that, in the long-term, can build both internal trust and cohesiveness and external credibility. The suggested approach is characterised as social and ethical alchemy since the aim is to achieve more than the sum of the two separate parts – a business ethics programme and a social reporting process – by creating leverage and synergy between the key components.     

Beyond Sharpe ratio: Optimal asset allocation using different performance ratios

As the assumption of normality in return distributions is relaxed, classic Sharpe ratio and its descendants become questionable tools for constructing optimal portfolios. In order to overcome the problem, asymmetrical parameter-dependent performance ratios have been recently proposed in the literature. The aim of this note is to develop an integrated decision aid system for asset allocation based on a toolkit of eleven performance ratios. A multi-period portfolio optimization up covering a fixed horizon is set up: at first, bootstrapping of asset return distributions is assessed to recover all ratios calculations; at second, optimal rebalanced-weights are achieved; at third, optimal final wealth is simulated for each ratios. Eventually, we make a robustness test on the best performance ratios. Empirical simulations confirm the weakness in forecasting of Sharpe ratio, whereas asymmetrical parameter-dependent ratios, such as the Generalized Rachev, Sortino–Satchell and Farinelli–Tibiletti ratios show satisfactorily robustness.     

It's Just the City after All!

Long a site for incessant worry, revision or redemption, it is unclear what the ‘city' is today. Yet, in face of the near‐apocalyptic readjustments potentiated by human‐engineered global warming, there is an exigency about getting cities to function right. It is no wonder, then, that contemporary theories of cities and urbanization attempt to restore some common sense, to get to the heart of critical matters in a world where urbanization disrupts once‐normative assumptions about the nature of territory, scale and politics. But what is the nature of that ‘common sense'? How does one engage the very concrete efforts that constructed the city, with all the layers of physical and cultural memory that new regimes usually attempt to cover up, and all that the city does not show, either because its inhabitants are prohibited from paying attention or because whatever is considered normative or spectacular in city life has to get rid of the messy labor and politics that brought it about? Invoking blackness as an analytical method, these questions are addressed through thinking about how long histories of urban practices deployed by black residents of cities across the world might challenge and reinvent the sense of an urban commons.

相似文献   

Rhetoric on the economy: have European parties changed their economic messages?

This study analyses the determinants of dispersion of economic issue mentions in European party manifestos. We examined three main economic domains (governmental control of the economy, free market capitalism and support for the welfare state) as consequences of globalization forces, economic conditions, partisanship and electoral turnout. Employing aggregate-level Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP) data from legislative elections in 15 European countries from 1970 to 2010, we confirm that parties hold a common view of the salience of economic control of the state as a consequence of globalization pressure and economic growth levels. Partisanship of the cabinets (regardless of the political orientation) counteracted issue salience concentration in the welfare domain. Government size favoured dispersion in the free market realm. Our results do not indicate clear homogenization of parties’ economic messages in elections over the last 40 years.