Disclosure and the cost of equity in international cross-listing

In this paper, we examine the relationship between disclosure level and the cost of equity capital for a sample of international firms cross-listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Increased disclosure has the potential to reduce information asymmetry, reduce the cost of financing and increase analyst following. Using an international asset pricing model, we find that listing firms experience a decrease in both disclosure risk and systematic risk while matching firms do not. Further, we find that the magnitude of the decrease is related to three types of disclosure: accounting standards; analyst following; and exchange/regulatory investor protection. Our results suggest that increased disclosure through accounting standards is beneficial to investors and that disclosure can be accomplished through information intermediaries, e.g., analyst following. For firms with the lowest levels of disclosure prior to cross-listing, all three types of disclosure appear to be valuable.

Youssef Cassis and Ioanna Pepelasis Minoglou, eds. Entrepreneurship in Theory and History

In a paper delivered during the founding of Harvard's ResearchCenter in Entrepreneurial History, Joseph Schumpeter commented,"Personally, I believe that there is an incessant give and takebetween historical and theoretical analysis and that, thoughfor the investigation of individual questions it may be necessaryto sail for a time on one tack only, yet on principle the twoshould never lose sight of each other" [Joseph Schumpeter, "EconomicTheory and Entrepreneurial History," in Change and the Entrepreneur(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1949), p. 264]. With thenotable exception of the theoretically inspired work producedat the Research Center in the early 1950s, historians largely     

The trend in female labour force participation: what can be expected for the future?

This study investigates the increase in the labour force participation rate of women. We estimate a binary age–period–cohort model for a sample of Dutch women born between 1925 and 1986. The results indicate that the increasing level of education and the diminishing negative effect of children have played an important role. Moreover, we find important unobserved cohort effects for pre-1955 generations, which is in line with results of studies on social norms. It is shown that the growth in female participation is likely to slow down in the near future, as such cohort effects are not relevant for younger generations.     

Can experimental measures of sensitivity to social pressure predict public good contribution?

Public good contributions may be affected by the social demand to contribute that is implicit in them. Sensitivity to social pressure predicts behavior in paired dictator and money burning games; the evidence for effects on public good contribution is mixed.     

Comparative effectiveness of standard endotracheal tubes vs. endotracheal tubes with continuous subglottic suctioning on ventilator-associated pneumonia rates

Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) accounts for the majority of nosocomial pneumonias, which may increase intensive care and prolonged hospital stays. Endotracheal tubes allowing continuous subglottic suctioning may reduce VAP; however, they are more expensive than standard endotracheal tubes not allowing continuous suctioning. he objective of this study was to measure the comparative costs associated with continuous subglottic suctioning endotracheal tubes (CSS-ETT) versus standard endotracheal tubes (S-ETT) among intubated patients and whether cost differential is offset by the occurrence of VAP in patients receiving either type of intubation. A retrospective chart review was conducted for 154 intubated adult patients (77 = S-ETT; 77 = CSS-ETT). The S-ETT group had one case of VAP; the CSS-ETT group had none. The mean total hospital charges were higher for the S-ETT group ($103,600; CSS-ETT= $88,500) (p = 0.3). Although the average number of intubation days and ICU days were greater for the CSS-ETT group, there were no cases of VAP compared to the S-ETT group. ased upon the one S-ETT VAP case and the VAP attributable costs, it is cost effective to use the CSS-ETT.     

Measurement of organizational investments in social capital: The service employee perspective

This paper describes the development and validation of a measure of organizational investments in social capital (OISC). The scale development process is carried out over three stages (item generation, scale purification, scale validation), with two separate data collection phases involving a total of 735 working adults from multiple and diverse service-related workplace settings. As such, the data provide evidence for the face, content, discriminant, convergent and nomological validity, dimensionality and reliability of the OISC measure. The OISC measure is a concise, unidimensional scale that has the potential for significant usage in the development and testing of theory, as well as practical application in retail and other service provision contexts.     

The Emergence of Individual Knowledge in a Group Setting: Mitigating Cognitive Fallacies

Research in psychology has found that subjects regularly exhibit a conjunction fallacy in probability judgments. Additional research has led to the finding of other fallacies in probability judgment, including disjunction and conditional fallacies. Such analyses of judgments are critical because of the substantial amount of probability judgment done in accounting, business and organizational settings. However, most previous research has been conducted in the environment of a single decision maker. Since business and other organizational environments also employ groups, it is important to determine the impact of groups on such cognitive fallacies. This paper finds that groups substantially mitigate the impact of probability judgment fallacies among the sample of subjects investigated. The key finding of this paper is the analysis of the apparent manner in which groups make such decisions. A statistical analysis, based on a binomial distribution, suggests that groups investigated here did not use consensus. Instead, if any one member of the group has correct knowledge about the probability relationships, then the group uses that knowledge and does not exhibit fallacy in probability judgment. Having a computational model of the group decision making process provides a basis for developing computational models that can be used to simulate “mirror worlds” of reality or model decision making in real world settings.     

Challenges and Risks in the International Monetary System

SPECIAL ISSUE OF OPEN ECONOMIES REVIEW

Challenges and Risks in the International Monetary System