Regional innovation and small high technology firms in peripheral regions

This paper highlights the difficulty of developing HT firms in a peripheral region of Spain. Although the endogenous development of HT firms in these regions is possible, their evolution depends on more central regions. The firm's geographical location and the type of HT production are the most important endogenous factors governing the firm's success.     

Managerial Equity Ownership and the Demand for Outside Directors

This paper examines the linkage between the use of outside directors and managerial ownership. We conjecture there are two linkages: the standard incentive‐alignment demand for monitoring when managers own little stock and an entrenchment‐amelioration demand when managerial stock ownership is high. As a consequence, we predict the association between managerial ownership and board composition will be nonlinear (U‐shaped if the entrenchment effect is sufficiently pronounced). Using UK data, we find that both quadratic and logarithmic models outperform the simple linear relationship assumed in prior research and that the substitution between managerial ownership and board composition is stronger than hitherto supposed.     

AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION INTO THE IMPACT OF PROFIT SHARING SCHEMES OF EXECUTIVIES ON THE CONTENT OF CORPORATE SUBMISSIONS ON PROPOSED ACCOUNTING STANDARDS

This paper examines the comments submitted by UK companies on 20 proposed accounting standards to test the hypotheses that executives favor standards that increase, or dampen the variance of, accounting profit numbers on which their incentive remuneration is based. Test results were generally as hypothesised but only the profit variance outcomes were statistically significant. Allowing for political environment changes affected only the profit variance results. There was no evidence that the relative monetary size of bonus payments was a significant lobbying factor. No significant differences were found between the lobbying preferences of companies with or without executive incentive schemes.     

CAN INEFFICIENT TRADERS CREATE VALUE?

I examine the aggregate expected profit generated by informed traders of diverse ability in a competitive market. I assume that efficient traders get perfect information on asset values whereas inefficient traders get noisy information. In the presence of order size restrictions, I show that the aggregate expected profit generated by efficient and inefficient traders together can be higher than that generated by efficient traders alone. Thus, inefficient traders can create value in a constrained trading environment.     

Condorcet efficiency of two stage constant scoring rules

Previous research has developed a representation for the Condorcet efficiency of plurality and negative plurality rules on three candidates for large electorates under the impartial culture condition. This study considers the two stage voting rules on three candidates, plurality elimination and negative plurality elimination. A representation is obtained for the Condorcet efficiency of each for large electorates under impartial culture. The Condorcet efficiencies of both rules are equal and are shown to be substantially greater than the Condorcet efficiency of plurality and negative plurality.     

An Analysis of Differences in Earnings Between Small and Large Commercial Banks

This paper introduces a simple, yet rich, measure of efficiency changes based on the revenue-generating-ability (RGA) principle. Using this principle, we explain the connections between efficiency changes and the variables, such as pretax profits, interest expense, non-interest expense, profit margins, loan loss provision, and asset quality. These connections are used to explain earnings differences between small and large commercial banks.     

Strategic interaction between futures and spot markets

We study an oligopolistic industry where firms are able to sell in a futures market at infinitely many moments prior to the spot market. A kind of Folk-theorem is established: any outcome between perfect competition and Cournot can be sustained in equilibrium. We then find that the Cournot outcome can be sustained by a renegotiation-proof equilibrium. However, this is not true for the competitive outcome. Furthermore, only the monopolistic outcome is renegotiation-proof if firms can buy and sell in the futures market. These results suggest, contrary to existing literature, that the introduction of futures markets may have an anti-competitive effect.