POST-MERGER PERFORMANCE AMONG HOMOGENEOUS FIRM SAMPLES

This paper analyzes the post-merger performance of acquiring firms. The sample is transformed to a few homogenized subsamples along the various critical dimensions of the merger event. Those clusters with high growth or active acquisitions, active utilization of debt capacity, and low liquidity showed performance superior to the market. The results provide support for the hypothesis of financial synergism or at least the hypothesis that aggressive growth strategies are rewarded by the market.     

中国房地产业重见曙光

2007年4季度以来，由于政府的严厉措施、尤其是货币供应的收紧，大多数城市的住房成交量有所下降。市场对于2008年过度紧缩的忧虑导致了近几个月房地产股的大跌。然而，近期的迹象表明，住房部门受到的约束正在放松。这种情况下，上海市场开始回暖，出现了量价齐升的局面。     

IS THE REAL INTEREST RATE REALLY UNSTABLE?

If nominal interest rates have a unit root, but inflation and inflation forecast errors do not, ex-ante real interest rates are argued to have a unit root and are therefore nonstationary. I show that empirical tests for nonstationarity of real interest rates using such a deductive method can be misleading when the stationary inflation forecast errors are large relative to the variation of nominal interest rates.     

AN EXAMINATION OF MERGER SYNERGISM

The empirical research discussed in this paper measures the synergistic effects of mergers on the stockholders of the acquiring and acquired firms. Synergism is defined as the incremental wealth to the shareholders of both merging firms due to the merger—net of any potential gains achievable through investors' personal diversification over the common stocks of the merging firms. Three types of mergers are identified and studied—nonconglomerate, conglomerate with increasing financial leverage, and conglomerate with decreasing financial leverage. The results indicate that these types of mergers are affected differently by the combination. Moreover, the evidence suggests operational and/or financial synergism.     

It's Not All Relative: The Effects of Mental and Physical Positioning of Comparative Prices on Absolute versus Relative Discount Assessment

In the context of three experiments, the authors examine the manner in which consumers compare a sale price to an explicit reference value. They find that a comparison of sale price to regular price may be more likely to involve an absolute (dollar amount) assessment, whereas a comparison of sale price to a competitor's price may be more likely to involve a relative (percent) assessment. The authors also find that vertical (i.e., columnar) placement of prices may result in a greater tendency to estimate discounts in relative terms. Conversely, horizontal (i.e., side-by-side) placement may result in a greater tendency to compute absolute numerical difference. The results provide important implications for retail managers in terms of framing and communicating price discounts.     

Frontline service employees’ customer-related social stressors, emotional exhaustion, and service recovery performance: customer orientation as a moderator

This study investigates the structural relationships among customer-related social stressors (disproportionate customer expectation, ambiguous customer expectation, disliked customers, and customers?? verbal aggression), emotional exhaustion, and service recovery performance, with customer orientation (CO) serving as a moderator between customer-related social stressors and emotional exhaustion as well as emotional exhaustion and service recovery performance. The study uses data collected from a survey of 1,014 frontline service employees in Korea??s tourism service sectors. The results indicate that customer-related social stressors positively influence emotional exhaustion; emotional exhaustion negatively influences service recovery performance; and CO acts as a moderator. CO moderates both the effects of customer-related social stressors on emotional exhaustion and those of emotional exhaustion on service recovery performance, by weakening the effects for higher CO employees. This study contributes to both theory and practice by combining the four constructs of customer-related social stressors, emotional exhaustion, service recovery performance, and CO in addition to examining their relationships while focusing on customer-related factors.     

Competition in the Korean Internet Portal Market: Network Effects, Profit, and Market Efficiency

Internet portals serve as platforms for coordinating advertisements, content, and user markets. We model portal structure with South Korean market data to explain network effects and other competition factors. We also analyze network effects on profit and market efficiency. The results indicate a negative network effect from banner advertisements in the user market, which is countered by a network effect from content provision. In the advertising market, the network effect from user demand is positively identified, which explains profit making through increased user visits. Furthermore, we show that network effects due to market concentration result in increases in consumer surplus.     

Linear programing models for portfolio optimization using a benchmark

We consider the problem of constructing a perturbed portfolio by utilizing a benchmark portfolio. We propose two computationally efficient portfolio optimization models, the mean-absolute deviation risk and the Dantzig-type, which can be solved using linear programing. These portfolio models push the existing benchmark toward the efficient frontier through sparse and stable asset selection. We implement these models on two benchmarks, a market index and the equally-weighted portfolio. We carry out an extensive out-of-sample analysis with 11 empirical datasets and simulated data. The proposed portfolios outperform the benchmark portfolio in various performance measures, including the mean return and Sharpe ratio.