Is the Aggregate Investor Reluctant to Realise Losses? Evidence from Taiwan

We ask whether the typical investor and the aggregate investor exhibit a bias known as the disposition effect, the tendency to sell investments that are held for a profit at a faster rate than investments held for a loss. We analyse all trading activity on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) for the five years ending in 1999. Using a dataset that contains all trades (over one billion) and the identity of every trader (nearly four million), we find that in aggregate, investors in Taiwan are about twice as likely to sell a stock if they are holding that stock for a gain rather than a loss. Eighty‐four percent of all Taiwanese investors sell winners at a faster rate than losers. Individuals, corporations, and dealers are reluctant to realise losses, while mutual funds and foreigners, who together account for less than 5% of all trades (by value), are not.     

What Works at Work: Six Lessons for the Classroom

The main purpose of this article is to help teaching faculty discover ways to improve the design and delivery of their courses. University faculty can learn much about the practice of teaching from their human resources development counterparts in business and industry who are responsible for designing and conducting training programs for working adults. The primary emphasis of the article is therefore directed toward specific training techniques and how they have been applied in actual training and classroom situations. The article's basic structure is organized around 'lessons.' Every lesson is followed by one or more suggestions for its application.     

A Comparative Analysis of Different IV and GMM Estimators of Dynamic Panel Data Models

It is well known that the usual procedures for estimating panel data models are inconsistent in the dynamic setting. A large number of consistent estimators however, have been proposed in the literature. This paper provides a survey of the majority of mainstream estimators, which tend to consist of IV and GMM ones. It also considers a newly proposed extension to the promising Wansbeek–Bekker estimator (Harris & Mátyás, 2000). To provide guidance to the applied researcher working on micro-datasets, the small sample performance of these estimators is evaluated using a set of Monte Carlo experiments.     

Some Alternative Definitions of Youth Unemployment: A Means for Improved Understanding and Policy Formulation

Abstract . Current definitions of unemployment are inadequate for analyzing and understanding the problem of youth unemployment in the United States. By focusing on alternative definitions of youth unemployment, this study seeks to better understand the nature of the problem. Alternative rates of unemployment using data disaggregated by age, race, and gender from 1971 to 1983 are presented. Some findings: (1) all of the rates taken together provide a much better understanding of the youth unemployment problem; and (2) more effort should be devoted to developing, analyzing, and applying alternative concepts of satisfactory or unsatisfactory status for young people. Further, detailed studies of the activities, needs, and goals of a diverse population of young people and of societal preferences are clearly warranted. Without such efforts, youth unemployment policies will most likely be misdirected.     

MANAGEMENT CONTROL: THE ROLES OF RULES,MARKETS AND CULTURE[1]

This paper addresses the question of efficacy of Management Control Systems in organizations. It shows that control systems are based on a combination of three underlying approaches — markets, rules and culture — in order to obtain desired behaviours from organizations’ members. These three approaches are then discussed in terms of Hofstede's work-related values characterization. It is shown that each firm or organization defines its own balance among the three bases of control identified above. This balancing is dynamic and organizations must continuously adapt their Management Control Systems to changes in the overall culture(s), in technology and in the competitive forces. The general evolution of Management Control Systems is seen to be towards a lessening of the importance of rules-based controls and towards an increased reliance on controls imbedded in the organizational culture. ^{[2] [2]} We are grateful to Kavasseri V. Ramanathan, Richard B. Peterson, Jeremy Dent, to the participants of the EIASM ‘Accounting and Culture’ Workshop, and to Geert Hofstede for their advice, encouragement and cogent criticism. Financial Support of the Accounting Development Fund at the University of Washington is gratefully acknowledged.
     

BASTIAT VERSUS BLAIR

Bastiat describes the ideal of a free society with government limited to protecting life, liberty and property. Thatcherism approached Bastiat's ideal more closely than any other twentieth-century government. Despite the rhetoric of the 'Third Way,' in some respects New Labour has gone beyond Thatcherism, for example in its education and health policies and in giving independence to the Bank of England. However, New Labour has increased taxes, extended regulation and shows authoritarian tendencies.     

Keynesian Policy in Disarticulated Economies

Keynesian theory is, for several reasons, a weak basis for development policy. This paper argues fundamental obstacles to the construction of a coherent Keynesian development theory are the disarticulation of developing economies and the problem of economic sovereignty.