Fragmentation and Embeddedness: An Alternative Approach to the Analysis of Rural Financial Markets

Political economy approaches to analysing the efficiency of rural financial markets have focused on the role of power and social relations. Neo-classical institutional economics, on the other hand, has used information and transaction costs to explain performance. Recognizing the limitations of both approaches, this paper presents an alternative that focuses on the institutional form of financial intermediaries, that is, the governance structure of rules, monitoring and enforcement mechanisms that enable them to operate. This structure is supported by both formal and informal rules, norms and sanctions. As a result, the ways in which transaction costs are affected by governance structures can be identified and the embeddedness of financial intermediaries in social relations can be theorized. The application of this approach in Central Kenya demonstrates the insights that it offers into explaining borrower preferences in the financial market.     

Homeownership and mixed-asset portfolio allocations

Homeownership represents both a consumption and an investment decision for individuals. Considering the investment benefits of the home, we estimate the total returns and risk associated with the investment in single-family homes. Then, using a mean–variance utility function, we consider the impact of homeownership and mortgage loan financing on the optimal asset allocation decisions of individuals and contrast this with advice that does not include the home as part of the portfolio. While optimal portfolio weights are dependant upon both the degree of risk aversion of the individual investor and the relative importance of the home in the overall net worth picture, we show that, in general, the higher the home-to-net worth ratio, the higher the optimal portfolio allocation to stock. For most investors, including the home in the optimization decision leads to higher allocations to risky stock than suggested by traditional advice that ignores the home.     

Examining the Third‐Person Effect of Baseline Omission in Numerical Comparison: The Role of Consumer Persuasion Knowledge

Marketers often use numerical comparisons in promotional claims to signal superior product offerings. A potentially misleading practice involves omitting the reference point deliberately in order to make the focal claim more appealing—a persuasion tactic referred to as “baseline omission” in the present research. In two experiments, this research demonstrates that consumers tend to perceive this tactic as more effective on others than on themselves. The self‐others difference is more salient among consumers with more persuasion knowledge. Consumers’ concerns about its effectiveness on themselves, rather than on others, better predict their supportiveness to regulate the use of baseline omission.     

In search of E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Company: the perils of archival research

The purpose of this paper is to describe the pitfalls of archival research into the bookkeeping records of a specific firm, E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., and how it may lead to misinterpretation and misdirection. Traditionally, the bookkeeping records of an individual or organization have provided a great deal of information to researchers who use the records for many different research projects. Such research is costly, however. The researcher is concerned with the analytical techniques of the historian, or even the detective; the time-consuming, methodical routine of familiarization with the records; and the analysis and interpretation of the significance of the techniques and trends evident in the data base. The sources for this traditional archival research project were many, varied, and often contradictory. For the record books of the DuPont Company, an early 19th century gunpowder manufactory, the process of understanding, interpreting, and validating the record keeping led to a number of misleading, confusing, and time-consuming issues which had to be resolved. These issues may have implications for other accounting historians since the need to search for the 'story' behind a particular research project will in all likelihood be encountered in the course of other research. Researchers must understand that they are able to rely on secondary sources, when they exist, only as long as they remain circumspect when depending on the secondary interpretation of primary sources, and that even the primary sources themselves may lead the researcher astray.     

The differential futures of ski tourism in Ontario (Canada) under climate change: the limits of snowmaking adaptation

The international ski tourism industry is highly vulnerable to inter-annual climate variability and climate change. Accordingly, there is a strong need to advance our understanding of climate risk for this multi-billion tourism market that is so important to mountain regions around the world. This study addressed major limitations in the ski tourism literature, while concurrently supporting priority information needs of ski tourism stakeholders. An improved version of SkiSim 2.0 is applied to all 34 alpine ski areas in southern Ontario (Canada) to examine potential changes in the capacity of this regional marketplace. Model improvements include differential snowmaking capacities of individual ski areas, updated snowmaking decision rules, as well as a new indicator, termed ‘terrain-days’, to estimate changes in system capacity. The results project two fundamentally different futures for this ski tourism marketplace under climate change. If the international community succeeds in achieving the?+?2°C Paris Agreement policy goal, then losses in system capacity can be limited to less than 10% in the mid- and late-century. In contrast, a high-end emission scenario (RCP 8.5) would severely disrupt this ski tourism market by mid-century, with system capacity losses between 28% and 73%.     

Insider trading in credit derivatives

Insider trading in the credit derivatives market has become a significant concern for regulators and participants. This paper attempts to quantify the problem. Using news reflected in the stock market as a benchmark for public information, we find significant incremental information revelation in the credit default swap market under circumstances consistent with the use of non-public information by informed banks. The information revelation occurs only for negative credit news and for entities that subsequently experience adverse shocks, and increases with the number of a firm's relationship banks. We find no evidence, however, that the degree of asymmetric information adversely affects prices or liquidity in either the equity or credit markets.