The economics of quality in the specialty coffee industry: insights from the Cup of Excellence auction programs

This study estimates price determinants for specialty green coffee auctions using records from the 2004–2010 Cup of Excellence programs hosted by the Alliance for Coffee Excellence. While some literature on coffee has focused on certifications and sustainability labels, the discussion of price determinants has been limited. This article replicates one of the first publications on price determinants and formulates a new model to more accurately describe the market. We include the necessary additional variables and estimate the model using a truncated maximum likelihood estimation technique. While sensory quality has a strong effect on price, the highest premiums stem from obtaining a top rank compared to other coffees from the same country, and North American buyers are more responsive to sensory quality than buyers in Asian and European markets.     

Firm Value and the Quality of Sustainability Reporting in Australia

This paper investigates the relationship between firm value and the quality of Australian listed corporations’ sustainability reporting. We examine whether firms that make higher‐quality sustainability disclosures exhibit systematically higher equity prices, through either (or both) cost of capital or expected future performance effects. Using proprietary data obtained from a specialist responsible investment research firm, we document a significant negative association between quality sustainability reporting and the cost of equity capital for ASX 200 firms from 2003–2005, and a significant positive association between expected future performance and the quality of sustainability reporting. We also test for industry‐specific associations and find that our main results are driven heavily by the reporting behaviour of, and market response to, firms in environmentally sensitive industries.     

Standards and export decisions: Firm-level evidence from developing countries

Standards and technical regulations set in importing countries have become a rising concern to exporters, especially to those in developing countries. This paper examines the importance of various types of standards in developing-country firms' export decisions. Drawn from the World Bank Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Survey database, we find that different types of standards exhibit sharply distinct relations with firms' intensive and extensive margins of exports. Quality standards are positively correlated not only with firms' average export volume across markets and products but also their export scope, measured by the number of export markets and products. A similar relationship is found between labeling requirements and export scope. Certification procedures, however, are associated with a significant decline in the number of export markets and export products. Our results suggest that different approaches should be taken to address each type of technical regulations. Not all standards need to be negotiated away to boost trade, but negotiations on certification procedures with the aim of reaching Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRAs) can help firms improve economies of scale and scope.     

Private equity portfolio company performance during the global recession

We assess the recent economic and financial performance of U.K. private equity (PE) backed buyouts. Our empirical evidence, which is based on thousands of transactions, reveals that PE-backed buyouts achieved superior economic and financial performance in the period before and during the recent global recession, relative to comparable firms that did not experience such transactions. Our regression results imply positive differentials of 5–15% in productivity and approximately 3–5% in profitability for buyout firms, relative to non-buyout firms. Another key finding is that revenue and employment growth for PE- backed firms were positive during the sample period.     

The East Asian Crisis and International Capital Markets

This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical evidence about international capital mobility. The authors find that its potential benefits depend on certain assumptions about market structures and institutions. Many of these conditions were absent in the economies worst affected by volatile capital movements. The main features of the recent East Asian financial crisis are described, and the principal distortions that led to the crisis. In some instances, these distortions were due to government policies; in others, they stemmed from market failures that had not been adequately addressed either by individual governments or by international financial institutions.     

Accruals Quality,Stock Return Seasonality,and the Cost of Equity Capital: International Evidence

Mashruwala and Mashruwala (2011) argue that inconsistent earlier findings regarding whether accruals quality (AQ) is priced in equity markets (Core, Guay, and Verdi 2008; Kim and Qi 2010) may be explained by seasonality in returns deriving from tax‐loss selling. Finding no evidence of annual AQ premia for U.S. firms, Mashruwala and Mashruwala report that significant monthly premia concentrate in January, with the remainder of the year demonstrating negative or insignificant returns to AQ and attribute this strong seasonality to tax‐loss selling by investors, rather than information risk. However, the end of the tax year for U.S. investors coincides with the calendar year and the financial year for the majority of firms, which may suggest alternative explanations for seasonal variation in returns. We extend Mashruwala and Mashruwala's study, using an international sample including countries where incentives for tax‐loss selling exist, but in which the standard tax and financial years differ (Japan and the United Kingdom), and where the tax and financial years conclude in a month other than December (Australia), as well as employing a longer U.S. sample. We find some evidence of an AQ premium in the United States, which although dominated by January returns, remains significant annually. However, these findings are sensitive to the inclusion of low price stocks and the choice of asset pricing test. In Japan, the United Kingdom, and Australia we document consistent evidence that an AQ premium exists on average throughout the year, and in samples excluding the first month of the tax year. The sensitivity of our U.S. results to the January period may reflect the conflation of numerous seasonal influences on returns, not all of which necessarily reflect mispricing.