Should Africa’s emerging markets still be considered as a separate asset class?

This article examines the correlation of Africa’s emerging markets regionally and globally using the Continuous Morlet Wavelet (CMW) transform. The superiority of this technique is that it is able to estimate correlation in a time-varying manner and derive all information about structural changes in the data through a phase difference technique. We find that Africa’s emerging equity markets are partially segmented regionally and globally. Although correlations may have increased over time, we suggest that emerging markets in Africa should still be considered as a separate asset class.     

Measuring Core Inflation in South Africa

Measures of core inflation convey critical information about an economy. They have a direct effect on the policymaking process, particularly in inflation‐targeting countries, and are utilised in forecasting and modelling exercises. In South Africa, the price indices on which inflation is based have been subject to important structural breaks following changes to the underlying basket of goods and the methodology for constructing price indices. This paper seeks to identify a consistent measure of core inflation for South Africa using trimmed means estimates, measures that exclude changes in food and energy prices, dynamic factor models, and wavelet decompositions. After considering the forecasting ability of these measures, which provide an indication of expected second‐round inflationary effects, traditional in‐sample criteria were used for further comparative purposes. The results suggest that wavelet decompositions provide a useful measure of this critical variable.     

Job Satisfaction,Work Time,and Well-Being Among Married Women in Japan

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between paid work time and other time use of working married women with children in Japan and two aspects of well-being: job satisfaction and stress. The study demonstrates that rather than the amount of daily paid work time, both the gap between actual and desired work time and the intrinsic utility derived from paid work as an activity appear to be the key time-related variables affecting Japanese women's job satisfaction. The paper also shows that paid work time has multiple spillover effects on stress. It discusses the tradeoffs that married women with children in Japan make to stay in employment and the consequences for employer strategies and public policy.     

The impact of execution delay on the profitability of put‐call‐futures trading strategies—Evidence from Taiwan

This study examines the impact of execution delay on the profitability of put‐call‐futures quasi‐arbitrage strategies using trade and quote data in the Taiwanese market. Assuming order execution at the next immediate price following a mispricing signal, the execution of individual components is traced and a substantial delay resulting from the late execution of an option is reported. A fill‐or‐kill strategy that directly restricts such a delay is unsatisfactory because unwinding already acquired positions involves added transaction costs. Ex ante performance is significantly improved for combined strategies that execute the less liquid asset first, while shortening the time before acquisition of the first position. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 27:361–385, 2007     

Domestic monopoly and redundant tariff protection

This paper examines the redundancy of tariff protection when there is a single domestic monopolist producer. The cases where the monopolist exports in free trade and where he confronts import competition are distinguished and a general rule characterizing water-in-the-tariff in protected equilibrium is derived.     

Determinants of university student registration by department

This study attempts to explain the observed distribution of students among university departments. A general model describing the student's initial choice of department is constructed. The decisions made by a sample of student's were then explained by multiple regression analysis, where students' socio-economic characteristics are the explanatory variables. Although the statistical results are weak, some conclusions regarding educational planning can be drawn.     

Constraints facing tourism entrepreneurs in South Africa: a study in the Gauteng and Mpumalanga provinces,South Africa

The current study is an investigation into tourism entrepreneurship of small, medium and micro enterprises in Gauteng and Mpumalanga. Through Principal Factor Analysis, the paper identifies a three-factor instrument that could be used as a diagnostic tool to investigate how government policies and support, the tourism industry's products and services, and perceptions about South Africa could advance or constrain the development of small, medium and micro tourism in South Africa. Such a tool can be used to identify problematic areas in order to take remedial action to manage sustainable tourism in South Africa and prevent the leakage of profits.     

Price Impact Asymmetry of Block Trades: An Institutional Trading Explanation

This article develops a theoretical model to explain the permanentprice impact asymmetry between buyer- and seller-initiated blocktrades (the permanent price impact of buys is larger than thatof sells). The model shows how the trading strategy of institutionalportfolio managers creates a difference between the informationcontent of buys and sells. The main implication of the modelis that the history of price performance influences the asymmetry:the longer the run-up in a stock's price, the less the asymmetry.The intensity of institutional trading and the frequency ofinformation events affect the asymmetry differently dependingon recent price performance.     

Toward a Theory of Activist-Driven Responsible Innovation: How Activists Pressure Firms to Adopt More Responsible Practices

Accounts of stakeholder influence on corporate social responsibility (CSR), situated in the CSR domain, have recognized that activists mitigate information asymmetries between firms and consumers. However, depictions of activists as information disseminators do not explain how they perform their quintessential role – pressuring resistant firms to engage in responsible innovation that emphasizes the creation of socioenvironmental value. Drawing from social movement theory that identifies claims as the instrument of such pressure, we examine four activist organizations’ use of claims across six campaigns to drive firms to adopt more socially and environmentally responsible practices, a form of responsible innovation. Our core contribution is an empirically grounded theory of activist-driven responsible innovation (ARI) that proposes how activists use claims to drive firms to engage in responsible innovation, as well as how features of the two sides may shape this outcome. Our ARI theory primarily enriches accounts of stakeholder influence on corporate social responsibility in the CSR domain and, in doing so, secondarily enriches accounts of the influence of activists’ claims on firms in the social movement domain. These contributions also speak to the resolution of grand challenges, a core interest of the special issue.