REGIONAL INTEGRATION OF EQUITY MARKETS IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Equity markets in developing and emerging economies have grown in number and importance as a result of financial market globalisation. However, their role in economic growth and development is enhanced if nascent markets are integrated with well‐established ones. Market integration, measured by the transmission of returns volatility, is identified across a sample of SSA countries, using a unique dataset. Evidence for potential integration between financial markets in Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) is found. Spillovers are found across markets, some unidirectional and others bi‐directional. However, continued illiquidity and incomplete institutions indicate that an integrated financial community remains premature, and considerable regulatory reform and harmonisation will be necessary for this to succeed.     

Benchmarking medieval economic development: England,Wales, Scotland,and Ireland,c.12901

Estimates are assembled for England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, and for Britain and Ireland as a whole, of the numbers of religious houses, regular clergy, parishes, towns of more than 2,000 inhabitants, and townspeople, and the value of dutiable exports and volume of currency at the watershed date of c.1290. Absolute and relative levels of economic development are then compared. A range of possible population estimates are considered and corresponding set of per capita estimates thereby derived. The results highlight significant differences in the pattern of economic development between and within these four countries.     

Time Use,Exploitation, and the Dual‐Career Household: Competing Perspectives

This article evaluates Laibman's reformulation of Marxian exploitation theory, and compares it to two preference‐based analyses of household time use (advanced by Becker and Hakim). Using a quantitative Marxist approach, and the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), we show profound dissatisfaction with working hours for members of dual‐career households, and inequality, by gender, vis‐à‐vis pure consumption time. The results support exploitation‐based theories of the household, and cast doubt on such preference‐based theories of time use.     

Work Ethic, Employment Contracts, and Firm Value

We analyze how the work ethic of managers impacts a firm's employment contracts, riskiness, growth potential, and organizational structure. Flat contracts are optimal for diligent managers because they reduce risk-sharing costs, but they attract egoistic agents who shirk and unskilled agents who add no value. Stable, bureaucratic firms with low growth potential are more likely to gain value from managerial diligence. Firms that hire from a virtuous pool of agents are more conservative in their investments and have a horizontal corporate structure. Our theory also yields several testable implications that distinguish it from standard agency models.     

Economic development and financial depth in a model with costly financial intermediation

According to Gurley and Shaw, economic development typically is accompanied by a transition from self-financed to intermediated investment activity. In their account, economic growth stimulates financial market development, and financial market development is a strong contributing factor in enhancing real growth. We model the co-evolution of the real and financial sectors during the growth process. To do so, we embed a role for liquidity provision into a conventional neoclassical growth model. Following Baumol and Tobin, we also introduce a fixed cost associated with “trips to the bank”. We describe conditions under which the development of a financial system may or may not proceed smoothly. When it does not, development traps are observed. We also discuss policy interventions that may reduce the potential for development traps to arise.     

Managerial Reputation and the Informativeness of Accounting and Market Measures of Performance*

Abstract. This study examines the influence of accounting and capital market measures of firm performance on the reputations of corporate chief executives (CEOs). The empirical tests rely on pooled time-series cross-sectional data for approximately 900 top executives in about 500 firms drawn from 36 industries over the 1975–1987 period. CEO reputation measures are derived from securities analysts' annual evaluations of executive performance as reported by Financial World magazine. The study's results document a positive incremental association between profit performance and reputation, a finding consistent with the notion that accounting earnings convey information about CEO productivity beyond that present in stock returns. However, the sensitivity of CEO reputation to stock returns and earnings performance is modest, and the earnings-reputation relation varies considerably across industry groups. Résumé. Les auteurs s'intéressent ici à l'influence qu'exercent sur la réputation des directeurs généraux de sociétés les mesures de la performance de l'entreprise relevant de la comptabilité et du marché des capitaux. Leurs tests empiriques s'appuient sur les données transversales de séries chronologiques groupées relatives à environ 900 cadres supérieurs de quelque 500 entreprises provenant de 36 secteurs d'activité, relevées entre 1975 et 1987. Les « mesures » de la réputation des directeurs généraux de sociétés sont dérivées de l'évaluation annuelle de la performance des cadres, produite par les analystes en valeurs mobilières, dont fait état le magazine Financial World. Les résultats obtenus révèlent une association prenant la forme d'un écart marginal positif entre la performance, en termes de profits, et la réputation, constatation qui corrobore la notion selon laquelle les bénéfices comptables livrent, au sujet de la productivité des directeurs généraux de sociétés, de l'information que ne livre pas le rendement des actions. La sensibilité de la réputation des directeurs généraux de sociétés au rendement de l'action et aux bénéfices est cependant modérée, et la relation bénéfices-réputation varie largement selon les groupes sectoriels.     

More on Estimation Risk and Simple Rules for Optimal Portfolio Selection

For the risk-averse investor, consideration of estimation risk is important in selecting an expected-utility-maximizing portfolio. It has previously been shown that the composition of the tangency portfolio is unaffected by the recognition of estimation risk if the Full Covariance Model is used. Alternatively, if the Market Model is used, the composition of the tangency portfolio has been shown to be affected by the recognition of estimation risk. However, as is demonstrated in this paper, the effect will generally not be as substantive as previously believed and in many situations can be safely ignored.     

Managerial Opportunism during Corporate Litigation

Using a large sample of litigation events involving publicly listed defendants, we document a surprising fact. The resolution of litigation through a court's decision dominates settlement of litigation from the shareholders' point of view, even when the firm loses. We develop a model using agency costs within the firm to explain why the market views settlement as a negative outcome on average and find empirical evidence supporting the implications of the model. Specifically, firms with weak corporate governance settle litigation more quickly, and the market reacts more negatively to settlements involving firms with higher agency costs.     

Bias and Accuracy of Management Earnings Forecasts: An Evaluation of the Impact of Auditing*

This paper assesses how the bias and accuracy of managers' earnings forecasts in prospectuses were affected by a 1989 regulation that required the forecasts to be audited by public accountants. Theory suggests that auditors' association with the forecasts would reduce positive (optimistic) bias, by reducing moral hazard. Regulators expected that the audit requirement would also improve the accuracy of the forecasts. Both predictions were tested using management earnings forecasts disclosed in prospectuses of Canadian initial public offerings. The results show that audited forecasts contained significantly less positive bias than reviewed forecasts, but there was only a marginally significant improvement in accuracy.