Competition and Fan Substitution Between Professional Sports Leagues

Review of Industrial Organization - A peculiarity in professional sports is the fact that leagues regularly hold monopoly power within their sports. However, whether and to what extent these...     

External Financing,Growth and Stock Returns

In this paper we investigate the relation of the value/growth anomaly with the anomaly on corporate financing activities. We confirm and expand earlier results that value/growth and external financing indicators are, to some degree, related predictors of stock returns in the cross section. We show that external financing indicators are incrementally informative since they pick up stock returns associated with earnings quality. Portfolios that combine information from both these indicators generate significantly higher returns than portfolios containing each individual indicator. More importantly, our analysis strongly suggests that the external financing anomaly is, to some extent, distinct from the value/growth anomaly, in that it may also reflect investors’ misunderstanding of the effects of opportunistic earnings management.     

The Hong Kong Umbrella Movement as a non-profit organization: An empirical study on the use of visual branding practices for social change

In this article, we draw our attention to the growth of a new social movement, as a non-profit organization which aims to effectively communicate its collective identity and messages to larger audiences. Initially, we provide a critical discussion on the interrelationships between marketing theory/practice and protest groups' promotional tactics. Afterwards, we focus on the interface between visual branding practices and new social movement's strategies to create a visual branding identity around their protest symbols and aims. In order to do so, we adopted a moderate participant observation approach to explore how the 2014 Hong Kong Umbrella Movement employed forms of visual branding to engage local and global audiences and induce social change. Drawing on a close examination of field notes and a visual analysis of digital archives and images from the protest sites, we identify and discuss the presence of several visual branding techniques for the imaginative promotion of the movement's demands and causes. Our findings suggest that the 2014 Umbrella Movement protesters coordinated and acted as non-profit organization which employed innovative and creative visual branding methods to enhance the movement's unity and trigger emotional responses from diverse audiences. We conclude the article with suggestions for future research around the interrelationships between social movements' protest symbols, transnational visual branding practices and non-profit organizational practices.     

Do subjective expectations explain asset pricing puzzles?

The structural uncertainty model with Bayesian learning, advanced by Weitzman (AER 2007), provides a framework for gauging the effect of structural uncertainty on asset prices and risk premiums. This paper provides an operational version of this approach that incorporates realistic priors about consumption growth volatility, while guaranteeing finite asset pricing quantities. In contrast to the extant literature, the resulting asset pricing model with subjective expectations yields well-defined expected utility, finite moment generating function of the predictive distribution of consumption growth, and tractable expressions for equity premium and risk-free return. Our quantitative analysis reveals that explaining the historical equity premium and risk-free return, in the context of subjective expectations, requires implausible levels of structural uncertainty. Furthermore, these implausible prior beliefs result in consumption disaster probabilities that virtually coincide with those implied by more realistic priors. At the same time, the two sets of prior beliefs have diametrically opposite asset pricing implications.     

THE FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH NEXUS: A META‐ANALYSIS

We conduct a meta‐analysis of the literature of financial development and economic growth. We cover a large number of empirical studies and estimations that have been published in journal articles. We measure the degree of heterogeneity and identify the causes of the observed differentiation. Among the most significant factors behind this heterogeneity is the choice of financial‐variable proxies, the kind of data used as well as whether a study takes into account the issue of endogeneity. Our results suggest that the empirical literature on the finance–growth nexus is not free from publication bias. Also, a genuine positive effect exists between financial development and economic growth.     

Determinants of Hazard Confronting New Entry: Does Financial Structure Matter?

This paper attempts to identify the determinants ofhazard confronting 219 new manufacturing firmsestablished in 1982–84 and followed up to1992 using a Cox regression model. Three sets ofvariables are combined in the analysis: firm, sectorand cohort specific. Financial, firm specificcharacteristics such as larger initial financialcapital size, conservative borrowing, heavier fixedasset commitment and lower diversification in terms ofholding other firms' assets are estimated to reducefirm hazard. Higher sectoral entry and lower sunk costsectoral requirements by increasing marketcontestability increase risk of failure together withcyclical variations.     

Money,inflation, and output growth: Does the aggregate demand-aggregate supply model explain the international evidence?

Money, Inflation, and Output Growth: Does the Aggregate Demand-Aggregate Supply Model Explain the International Evidence? - Using annual post-war data for 32 countries, it is shown that output and the price level are positively related along the aggregate supply and negatively related along the aggregate demand curve. This implies that the negative correlation between inflation and growth simply means that the price level has been countercyclical as aggregate supply shocks domi-nated aggregate demand shocks. It is also shown that money growth has positive and permanent effects on inflation, but may affect output only in the short run: in the long run, money is probably neutral.     

The Market Performance of Socially Responsible Investment during Periods of the Economic Cycle – Illustrated Using the Case of FTSE

The debate about socially responsible investment (SRI) portfolio performance compared with its non‐SRI counterparts remains inconclusive. This paper contributes to the debate by adding a new approach, examining the issue of a full economic circle through economic boom, recession and recovery. We compare stock performance of two value‐weighted investment portfolios: FTSE4Good (SRI portfolios) and FTSE 350 (conventional portfolios) from 2004 to 2011 including 2007 to 2009 financial crash. The results indicate the SRI portfolio performed better and recovered its value quicker in post‐crisis than the non‐SRI portfolio, indicating that SRI portfolios are more resilient to economic turmoil and market shocks. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Trade openness and the effectiveness of fiscal policy: some empirical evidence

Is the potency of fiscal policy lower for more open economies, as suggested by economic theory? Using annual data from the period 1951?C2007, for 62 developed and developing economies, the paper??s empirical findings show that the effectiveness of fiscal policy is indeed reduced by an economy??s trade openness, and that the effect is quantitatively substantial. In particular, the paper??s estimates suggest that an increase in trade openness by 10% of GDP reduces the magnitude of the long-run fiscal multiplier by 5?C6%.