International currency speculation,market stability and efficiency in the 1920s: A time series approach

Vector autoregressive time-series modelling methodology is applied to the 1920s exchange-rate data for France, Germany, the U.S.A., Belgium, and Holland. A Wald test is found to conclusively reject the hypothesis that the forward rate is an unbiased predictor of the future spot rate for all five currencies. Details are given of various external shocks that may have influenced the exchange rates and these are dealt with by a set of dummy variables. The data series exhibit some rapid depreciations and nonstationarities of interest to econometricians and time series analysts.     

Evidence of Stock Returns and Abnormal Trading Volume: A Threshold Quantile Regression Approach

This paper presents a capital asset pricing model‐based threshold quantile regression model with a generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedastic specification to examine relations between excess stock returns and “abnormal trading volume”. We employ an adaptive Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo method with asymmetric Laplace distribution to study six daily Dow Jones Industrial stocks. The proposed model captures asymmetric risk through market beta and volume coefficients, which change discretely between regimes. Moreover, they are driven by market information and various quantile levels. This study finds that abnormal volume has significantly negative effects on excess stock returns under low quantile levels; however, there are significantly positive effects under high quantile levels. The evidence indicates that each market beta varies with different quantile levels, capturing different states of market conditions.     

Agency Conflicts and Risk Management

This paper analyzes the relation between agency conflicts andrisk management. In contrast to previous contributions, ouranalysis incorporates not only stockholder-debtholder conflictsbut also manager–stockholder conflicts. We show that thecosts of both underinvestment and overinvestment are essentialin determining the firm's hedging policy. In particular, firmsthat derive more of their value from assets in place (lowermarket-to-book ratios), although having lower costs of underinvestment,generally display larger costs of overinvestment. Thus, theymay be more likely to hedge to control these overinvestmentincentives. Our analysis explains why large profitable firmswith fewer growth opportunities tend to hedge more (Bartramet al., 2004). It also provides a number of new predictionsrelating the benefits associated with risk management to variousdimensions of the firm's economic environment.     

Forward Discount Bias: Is it Near-Rationality in the Foreign Exchange Market?*

A risk-averse US investor adjusts the shares of a portfolio of short-term nominal domestic and foreign assets to maximize expected utility. The optimal strategy is to respond immediately to all new information which arrives weekly. We develop a model to estimate the cost of optimizing less frequently and find that it is generally very small. For example, if the investor adjusts portfolio shares every three months, an average expected utility loss of 0.16 per cent p.a. is incurred. Hence, slight opportunity costs of frequent optimization may outweigh the benefits. This result may help explain forward discount bias.     

Buyer-seller relationships in the procurement of logistical services

This study presents a two-phase model of interfirm exchange in the logistical supply industry. The first phase uses transaction cost analysis to identify conditions leading to market-based transactions, unilateral agreements, and bilateral alliances. The second phase illustrates how formal controls and relational norms yield performance in market, unilateral, and bilateral governance systems. A test of the model with data from 189 logistical supply relationships suggests that bilateral alliances emerge through the interaction of user investments in the logistics supplier, supplier logistical services, and marketplace uncertainty. Bilateral alliances attain desired outcomes through participative management and flexibility. By contrast, market-based transactions yield desired outcomes through formalization and solidarity. Unilateral agreements gain performance through formalization, participation, information sharing, and solidarity. Implications for logistics management and theory are discussed. He received his Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Cincinnati. His research interests include relationship marketing and marketing channels. His articles have appeared in theJournal of Retailing, Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, Marketing Letters, Omega: The International Journal of Management Science, and elsewhere. She received her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Her research has concentrated on business-to-business marketing relationships, with a focus on means to improve coordination, and on sales management, with an emphasis on ways to enhance diversity, improve performance, and reduce turnover. Her articles have appeared in theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, Journal of Business Research, Marketing Letters, Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing, and elsewhere. He is also the director of the Warehousing Research Center (WRC). He received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University. Industrial marketing strategy, marketing and logistics interfaces, logistics and warehousing management are his primary areas of expertise and interest. He has published articles in theJournal of Marketing, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Business Logistics, Industrial Marketing Management, and elsewhere. He has also written a leading industrial marketing text and a variety of warehousing and logistics monographs.     

The role of relationship quality in the stratification of vendors as perceived by customers

Companies implement preferred supplier programs to reduce their vendor relationships to a reasonable few. Consequently, vendors who do not effectively manage their customer-based relationships are strong candidates for deletion from a customer’s list of long-term suppliers. The emergence of preferred supplier programs suggests that businesses are beginning to formally recognize and reward differences between their qualified vendors. Vendor stratification is proposed as a framework for understanding the evolution of preferred vendor programs. With the growing interest in relationship marketing, a study was conducted to empirically examine the extent to which businesses use relationship quality perceptions to differentiate their qualified vendors. The findings support the notion that relationship quality is a higher-order construct that can be used as a basis for developing vendor stratification systems. The article concludes with a discussion of the managerial and research implications of the study findings. Michael J. Dorsch (Ph.D., University of Arkansas) is an associate professor of marketing at Clemson University. His research has been published in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Business Research, and theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, among others. His research interests include issues concerning relationship marketing and marketing research methods. Scott R. Swanson (Ph.D., University of Kentucky) is an assistant professor of marketing at East Carolina University. He previously spent 9 years as a purchasing executive and his research interets include issues related to services marketing, atmospherics, and marketing ethics. His research has been published in theJournal of Business to Business Marketing, theInternational Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, AMA Educators’ Proceedings, andRetailing: Theories and Practices for Today and Tomorrow. Scott W. Kelley (D.B.A., University of Kentucky) is an associate professor of marketing. His research has been published in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Retailing, theJournal of Business Research, theJournal of Advertising, and theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, among others. His research interests include issues concerning services marketing and marketing ethics.     

The asymmetric information and price manipulation in stock market

The interaction between asymmetrically informed traders has been mostly investigated in theoretical frameworks. Not only there are relatively few empirical studies but, if any, the mostly focus on cross-sectional analysis and use very short samples. In this study, we blend theoretic with empirical, and propose a new signalling system of turning points in the economy to examine the extent of volatility of these markets relative to their tranquil periods. The signalling system proposed here is based on the Markov-switching model. Differing from the existing literatures, the study employs three phases and time-varying transition probability, and captures the states of volatility. After examining the causality between high volatility and foreign portfolio investment (FPI) by using moving average and generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity, the portfolio's profitability of FPI and individual investors in different periods are compared. Finally, the investigation of FPI's leading effect is studied.     

The effects of technological turbulence and breadth on supply chain technology acceptance and adoption

The current empirical study examines the intention to use and subsequent implementation of a supply chain technology. Specifically, the authors extend the technology acceptance model (TAM) to incorporate the state of the technology environment (technological turbulence) and the extent to which other supply chain technologies have already been adopted by the firm (technological breadth). A series of seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) were used to analyze survey data from 195 respondents. The results show that in technologically turbulent environments, the relationships between the firm's perceived usefulness and ease of use and the firm's intention to use a supply chain technology are stronger. The study also finds that the relationship between the firm's intention to use a supply chain technology and the implementation of the technology is weaker in firms with greater technological breadth.