美国房地产泡沫的崩盘:全球经济的魔鬼?

美国的房地产投机泡沫正在破裂。这种转变将通过多种途径影响到美国经济:建筑业下滑将使美国经济增长率减少约1．5个百分点,而财富效应的逆转会造成约0．5个百分点的影响。加之其他因素．房地产泡沫破裂将使美国经济增长率降低2．0个百分点以上。而对于失衡的全球经济而言．美国房地产泡沫的破裂将会造成很大影响。     

The Practice Boundaries of Advanced Practice Nurses: An Economic and Legal Analysis

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of State regulation that determines the extent of professional independence of advanced practice nurses (APNs). We find that in States where APNs have acquired a substantial amount of professional independence, the earnings of APNs are substantially lower, and those of physicians assistants (PAs) are substantially higher, than in other States. These results are striking since PAs are in direct competition with APNs; the only real operational difference between these groups is that PAs are salaried employees who must work under the supervision of a physician. The implication is that physicians have responded to an increase in professional independence of APNs by hiring fewer APNs and more PAs. The finding that earnings of APNs decline when they attain more professional autonomy vis-à-vis physicians reinforces work by Sass and Nichols on physical therapists.The content is the responsibility of the authors and does not represent official positions of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis or the Federal Reserve SystemJEL classification: I11, I18, J31, J44, L51     

Post-industrial Canada: An econometric modelling approach

This study brings together the predominantly qualitative approach of social forecasting—as manifested by Daniel Bell's concept of the post-industrial society—and the quantitative analysis of econometric forecasting. The econometric model used here is the candide model of the Canadian national economy. The author seeks to verify the compatibility of some hypotheses of the post-industrial concept by using candide to develop a post-industrial scenario; in doing so, he obtains quantitative estimates of many critical features of the concept within the framework of a structured and reasonably consistent model.     

Conditional and Unconditional Conservatism:Concepts and Modeling

We develop a model that captures the distinct natures of and interactions between conditional and unconditional conservatism. Under unconditional conservatism, the book value of net assets is understated due to predetermined aspects of the accounting process. Under conditional conservatism, book value is written down under sufficiently adverse circumstances, but not up under favorable circumstances. The specification of earnings provided by the model yields hypotheses about how unconditional conservatism and other factors preempt conditional conservatism and so affect the asymmetric response of earnings to positive and negative share returns, both current and lagged, documented by Basu (1995, “Conservatism and the Asymmetric Timeliness of Earnings.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Rochester’ 1997, “The Conservatism Principle and the Asymmetric Timeliness of Earnings.” Journal of Accounting and Economics 24, 3–37).This revised version was published online in August 2005 with a corrected cover date.     

Too Busy to Mind the Business? Monitoring by Directors with Multiple Board Appointments

We examine the number of external appointments held by corporate directors. Directors who serve larger firms and sit on larger boards are more likely to attract directorships. Consistent with Fama and Jensen (1983), we find that firm performance has a positive effect on the number of appointments held by a director. We find no evidence that multiple directors shirk their responsibilities to serve on board committees. We do not find that multiple directors are associated with a greater likelihood of securities fraud litigation. We conclude that the evidence does not support calls for limits on directorships held by an individual.     

High-Water Marks and Hedge Fund Management Contracts

Incentive fees for money managers are frequently accompanied by high‐water mark provisions that condition the payment of the performance fee upon exceeding the previously achieved maximum share value. In this paper, we show that hedge fund performance fees are valuable to money managers, and conversely, represent a claim on a significant proportion of investor wealth. The high‐water mark provisions in these contracts limit the value of the performance fees. We provide a closed‐form solution to the cost of the high‐water mark contract under certain conditions. Our results provide a framework for valuation of a hedge fund management company.     

Unit initial public offerings: Staged equity or signaling mechanism?

We investigate the use of unit (i.e., package) initial public offerings by Australian industrial firms and conclude that their use reflects their role as a signaling mechanism (Chemmanur and Fulghieri, 1997), as distinct from the agency–cost explanation offered by Schultz (1993). From a sample of 394 IPOs between 1976 and 1994, the 66 firms making unit offerings are typically riskier, use less prestigious underwriters and have a lower level of retained ownership than other IPO firms. While these results are also consistent with Schultz's agency cost explanation, other results we report are not. We find no difference in underpricing etween unit IPOs and other IPO firms, nor are there any significant differences in the planned uses of proceeds reported in the prospectus, post–listing failure rates or secondary equity offerings of the type predicted by Schultz. We do however, report evidence consistent with a prediction unique to the signaling explanation. After controlling for the level of ownership retained by insiders, the proportion of firm value sold as warrants is increasing in IPO firms' riskiness.     

International, Local and Regional Government Alliances

Kent County Council now promotes itself as the 'European County', a message that it seeks to deliver to the heart of institutional Europe through its Brussels office. Commentators generally agree that Kent has demonstrated how British local authorities can play an influential role at the European level, but will this acknowledged success be sufficient to maintain Kent's position over the coming years in a rapidly changing Europe where large regions look set to wield the power? This article reviews how Kent formed alliances with authorities in the same region of north-west Europe. How real are these supra-national groupings and what benefits can they bring to the partner areas?