Are Too Many Private Equity Funds Top Quartile?

Assessing investment performance for private equity is inherently difficult due in large part to the nature of illiquid assets. Compounding this problem, investors and researchers alike are bedeviled by the existing lack of comprehensive, high‐quality data. The current state of affairs obscures answers to basic practical questions, leads to lack of standardization, and creates confusion. This paper examines measurements of “top quartile” performance, a status widely prized in the industry, especially in light of past research showing return persistence by funds raised by the same general partner. Using three popular data sources and applying metrics typically adopted in the industry, the authors demonstrate that even modest variations in methods can result in half of all funds being able to claim “top quartile” results. Sources of variation include methods of categorizing funds, definitions of vintage year, choice of the data source, specification of performance metrics, and treatment of geography and currencies.     

Vanity and public self‐consciousness: a comparison of fashion consumer groups and gender

The purpose of this study was to compare vanity and public self‐consciousness between fashion consumer groups (fashion change agents, fashion followers) and genders. Vanity has four dimensions: concern for physical appearance, a positive (perhaps inflated) view of physical appearance, concern for achievement and a positive (perhaps inflated) view of achievement. Participants (284 women; 116 men; mean age = 21.16) completed scales measuring consumer vanity, public self‐consciousness and fashion innovativeness and opinion leadership. Women scored higher on vanity physical concern, vanity achievement concern, vanity achievement view and public self‐consciousness than men. Fashion change agents scored higher on vanity physical concern, vanity physical view and public self‐consciousness than fashion followers.     

Funding Land Redistribution in Developing Countries Maintaining Fiscal Solvency in the Face of Heavy Costs

A PROPERLY CONCEIVED and Well-implemented land reform will serve to improve the escisting sodoeconomic conditions of developing countries. However, a land redistribution program is costly. It is necessary for the country to understand the actual expenses involved, as tbey affect the gov-ernment's normal financial burden.     

Carbon tax: Challenging neoliberal solutions to climate change

Public policy over the last 25 years has been dominated by neoliberal ideology which has driven solutions to emerging social, political and economic problems. Given this, it is not surprising that emissions trading schemes founded on the core tenets of neoliberalism have emerged as the prevailing response to climate change by developed countries. There have been mounting challenges to the marketization of climate policy and we join this to argue that carbon taxes are alternate policy instruments that are more likely to orient social and economic activity towards carbon pollution mitigation. A carbon tax does not require radical social or political transformation of the economy. However, it does place the state at the centre of regulating and governing solutions to climate change. This presents a challenge to the free market orientation of current neoliberal solutions to climate change.     

The Fiscal Consequences of Privatisation: Australian evidence on privatisation by public share float

Privatisation has become a common government policy in many countries. This paper summarises the salient features of privatisations by public share float in Australia during the period 1989 to 1997. The costs associated with these privatisations are examined, including both direct costs and the opportunity cost of Australian governments selling assets cheaply. Furthermore, the impact that such sales have on the net worth of the public sector is estimated. The results suggest that there is a cost of underpricing. There is also some evidence that the effect on the public sector net worth may be negative. However, in some cases where the enterprise sold is inefficient the government may realise a gain.     

Financial innovation and Divisia monetary indices in Taiwan: a neural network approach

In this paper a weighted index measure of money using the ‘Divisia’ formulation is constructed for the Taiwan economy and its inflation forecasting potential is compared with that of its traditional simple sum counterpart. This research extends an earlier study by Gazely and Binner by examining the theory that rapid financial innovation, particularly during the financial liberalization of the 1980s, has been responsible for the poor performance of conventional simple sum monetary aggregates. The Divisia index is adjusted in two ways to allow for the major financial innovations that Taiwan has experienced since the 1970s. The technique of neural networks is used to allow a completely flexible mapping of the variables and a greater variety of functional form than is currently achievable using conventional econometric techniques. Results suggest that superior tracking of inflation is possible for networks that employ a Divisia M2 measure of money that has been adjusted to incorporate a learning mechanism to allow individuals to gradually alter their perceptions of the increased productivity of money. Divisia measures of money appear to offer advantages over their simple sum counter parts as macroeconomic indicators.     

Derivation of an aggregate supply curve for U.K. beet production

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between real agricultural land prices and real rents for farmland using annual data. Taking account of inflation as a third variable there is evidence to suggest that rents and land prices are cointegrated; that is, changes in rents are mirrored in the long run by changes in land prices. It is also found that the implied real rate of return in the land market is around 3%.