Market reaction to public information: The atypical case of the Boston Celtics

The publicly traded Boston Celtics Limited Partnership shares provide a unique means of studying the impact of information on equity prices. The results of the Celtics’ basketball games significantly affect partnership share returns, trading volume, and volatility. Controlling for the expectedvalue of the signal using betting-market point spreads has little effect on these relations. Investors respond asymmetrically to wins and losses, and playoff games have a larger impact on returns than regular-season games. Opening prices do not fully reflect game results, consistent with previous findings that significant volatility is caused by traders acting on private information.     

EXPLAINING PREMIUMS AND DISCOUNTS ON CLOSED-END EQUALITY COUNTRY FUNDS

Over the past decade or so, the surge of interest among U.S. investors in international investing has led to the creation of numerous foreign equity country funds. Like U.S. closed-end mutual funds, the prices of such closed-end country funds fluctuate widely in relation to their underlying net asset values (NAVs).
In this paper, the authors summarize the major findings of their recent study of the performance of 28 country funds relative to their NAVs over the period 1978–1995. While 20 of the 28 funds traded at average discounts to their net asset values, the discounts for the country funds were smaller than those of the average U.S. fund, and over a quarter of the funds sold at premiums.
In an attempt to explain such premiums or discounts, the authors examined primarily three factors: (1) the sensitivity of country-fund returns (relative to that of local market indices) to U.S. returns; (2) the possible effects of local government investment restrictions; and (3) the impact of exchange rate changes. Although most of the eight funds that traded at average premiums represented countries with significant restrictions on capital flows and foreign ownership, there were also a number of funds with similar restrictions trading at significant discounts. In exploring the reasons for such discounts, the authors noted that the returns to the country funds were "surprisingly sensitive" to U.S. market conditions, thus reducing the extent of their diversification benefits for U.S. investors. The article also raises the possibility that if such country funds are not "priced at the margin" by globally diversified investors, U.S investors' "country-risk sentiments" could cause such funds to trade at discounts.     

Innovation and economic change

The MIT System Dynamics National Model represents the physical and human processes involved in the long-term growth of a national economy and can provide a theoretical explanation for the generation of long waves. The phases of the long-wave cycle strongly influence the climate for innovation: towards the end of a boom minor improvement innovations in established industries tend to predominate, but managerial and political innovations in a depression can ultimately lead to an upsurge of radically new technologies. A balance between human population and environment may now be the most fundamental requirement for political and social innovation, taking precedence over the proliferation of technical innovation for its own sake.     

Make your company a talent factory

Despite the great sums of money companies dedicate to talent management systems, many still struggle to fill key positions - limiting their potential for growth in the process. Virtually all the human resource executives in the authors' 2005 survey of 40 companies around the world said that their pipeline of high-potential employees was insufficient to fill strategic management roles. The survey revealed two primary reasons for this. First, the formal procedures for identifying and developing next-generation leaders have fallen out of sync with what companies need to grow or expand into new markets. To save money, for example, some firms have eliminated positions that would expose high-potential employees to a broad range of problems, thus sacrificing future development opportunities that would far outweigh any initial savings from the job cuts. Second, HR executives often have trouble keeping top leaders' attention on talent issues, despite those leaders' vigorous assertions that obtaining and keeping the best people is a major priority. If passion for that objective doesn't start at the top and infuse the culture, say the authors, talent management can easily deteriorate into the management of bureaucratic routines. Yet there are companies that can face the future with confidence. These firms don't just manage talent, they build talent factories. The authors describe the experiences of two such corporations - consumer products icon Procter & Gamble and financial services giant HSBC Group -that figured out how to develop and retain key employees and fill positions quickly to meet evolving business needs. Though each company approached talent management from a different direction, they both maintained a twin focus on functionality (rigorous talent processes that support strategic and cultural objectives) and vitality (management's emotional commitment, which is reflected in daily actions).     

The economics of politically-connected firms

Political connections between firms and autocratic regimes are not secret and often even publicly displayed in many developing economies. We argue that tying a firm’s available rent to a regime’s survival acts as a credible commitment forcing entrepreneurs to support the government and to exert effort in its stabilization. In return, politically-connected firms get access to profitable markets and are exempted from the regime’s extortion. We show that such a gift exchange between government and politically-connected firms can only exist if certain institutional conditions are met. In particular, the stability of the regime has to be sufficiently low and the regime needs the power to exploit independent firms. We also show that building up a network of politically-connected firms acts as a substitute for investments in autonomous stability (such as spending on military and police force). The indirect strategy of stabilizing a regime via politically-connected firms gradually becomes inferior when a regime’s exploitative power rises.     

INTERNATIONAL ANTITRUST ENFORCEMENT AND MULTIMARKET CONTACT*

This article analyzes cartel formation and international antitrust enforcement when multinational firms operate in several jurisdictions with local antitrust authorities. We are concerned with how the sustainability of collusion in one local market is affected by the existence of collusion in other markets when they are linked by a negative demand relationship. The interdependence of cartel stability across markets leads to potential externalities in antitrust enforcement across jurisdictions. Local antitrust enforcement equilibrium enforcement may exhibit a nonmonotonicity in the degree of market integration. We compare it with globally optimal antitrust enforcement policy and discuss the role of international antitrust coordination.     

Customer Information Sharing: Strategic Incentives and New Implications

We study oligopolistic firms' incentives to share customer information about past purchase history when firms are uncertain about whether a particular consumer considers the product offerings as complements or substitutes. We show that both the incentive to share customer information and its effects on consumers depend crucially on the relative magnitudes of the prices that would prevail in the complementary and substitute markets if consumers were fully segmented according to their preferences. This paper has important implications for merger analysis when the primary motive for merger is the acquisition of another firm's customer lists. Our analysis also suggests a new role of middlemen as information aggregators.     

Goodbye,Good Luck,See Ya Next Week——BusinessWeek talks to Bill Gates as his final day at Microsoft approaches

It's been one of the most carefully orchestrated transitions in corporate his- tory.Microsoft Chairman William H. GatesⅢannounced two years ago he would walk away from his day-to-day duties at the company he co-founded to spend more time working on philan-