Business Ethics in a Transition Economy: Will the Next Russian Generation be any Better?

This study investigated students’ perceptions of ethical organizational climates, attitudes towards ethical issues, and the perceived relationship between ethical behavior and success in business organizations. Comparisons were made between the attitudes of these future managers with previously published studies of Russian managers’ attitudes. A survey of 100 business students in three Moscow universities showed that their attitudes toward ethical behavior were more negative than those of Russian managers. No significant differences were found in the perceptions or attitudes of students who had attended an ethics course and those that did not. The implications for both managers and researchers were reported.     

Treasury Bond risk and return, the implications for the hedging of consumption and lessons for asset pricing

All consumption-based models of asset pricing imply that the relation between the conditional mean and conditional volatility of any asset reflects the effectiveness of holding that asset as a hedge against intertemporal variation in the marginal utility of consumption. For Treasury Bonds of various maturities, we find significant positive relations. Our empirical findings support the conclusion that investors must sell bonds short to hedge shocks to marginal utility, because realized bond returns tend to be high (low) when investors least (most) desire an additional dollar of consumption. Implications for special cases of the general consumption-based model are also discussed.     

Thinking Through Dualisms in Urban Policy Mobilities

The growing use of the notion of ‘policy mobilities’ to conceptualize how policy is made and moved across and among cities and urbanized regions has led to worthwhile insights, but has also encouraged some critiques. Many of these address certain dualisms that seem to undergird the policy mobilities approach. This essay engages with three of these apparent dualisms—success/failure, presence/absence and mobilities/immobilities—and argues that while they must be treated with care, they should not be dismissed or expunged a priori. Rather, we argue that there is utility in conceptualizing urban policy mobilities through relational dyads, rather than oppositional dualisms. If studies of policy mobilities, urban or otherwise, are to maintain their momentum, success, failure, presence, absence, mobilities and immobilities should be understood as being intertwined, mutually constituting and reinforcing elements of policymaking.     

Winners in the spotlight: Media coverage of fund holdings as a driver of flows

We show that media coverage of mutual fund holdings affects how investors allocate money across funds. Fund holdings with high past returns attract extra flows, but only if these stocks were recently featured in the media. In contrast, holdings that were not covered in major newspapers do not affect flows. We present evidence that media coverage tends to contribute to investors? chasing of past returns rather than facilitate the processing of useful information in fund portfolios. Our evidence suggests that media coverage can exacerbate investor biases and that it is the primary mechanism that makes fund window dressing effective.     

Firm survival, performance, and the exchange rate

Abstract .  This paper examines the impact of exchange rate movements on firm survival and sales. We exploit detailed Canadian firm-level data from 1986 to 1997, a period in which the Canadian dollar appreciated approximately 30% in the first six years and depreciated 30% in the later six years. We find that survival and sales are negatively associated with appreciations in the Canadian dollar. The impact on survival is less pronounced for more productive firms. The magnitude of the impact of exchange rate changes on firm survival and sales was comparable to the effect of CUSFTA-mandated tariff changes.     

CAPITAL STRUCTURES IN EMERGING STOCK MARKETS: THE CASE OF HUNGARY

This paper studies developments in the Hungarian capital markets during 1992–95 and investigates the determinants of the capital structures of companies listed on the Budapest Stock Exchange. Hungarian companies had very low leverage ratios. Empirical findings indicate that the negative relationship between leverage and proportion of tangible assets was primarily caused by the lack of long‐term debt financing. The relationship between leverage and the size of the company provides some indication of the importance of trade credits for the companies. The more profitable companies had less debt than less profitable ones. This is attributed to the firms’financial incentives aggravated by the segmentation of Hungarian credit markets and credit rationing within the financial environment. Manufacturing firms and firms with the state among their major shareholders enjoyed higher levels of debt financing relative to other companies.