The pricing of firms with expected losses/profits: The role of January

We examine the role of January in the relation between expected losses/profits and future stock returns. We predict and find that the relation between expected losses/profits and future returns reverses from the usual positive relation in non‐January months to a negative one in January. The reverse January relation is consistent across sample years, is observed in the United States and international markets, and is incremental to other variables associated with January returns. At least part of the reverse January relation is explained by tax‐loss selling. Further analysis shows that the reverse January relation results in a temporary price drift away from fundamental value. In other words, we find that abnormal positive (negative) future returns do not always indicate past under(over)valuation. Overall, our results illustrate the importance of controlling for the effect of January when examining how investors price expected losses/profits.     

Vietnamese Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Safe Pork in Hanoi

Abstract

Food safety is one of the main concerns and the biggest challenge for consumers due to its direct influence on human health. In order to deal with unsafe food situation, the demand for food hygiene has increased in recent years as well as the consequent increase in price accepted by consumers. This study aimed to estimate consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) and to examine the determining factors influencing their WTP for safe pork using double-bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation method (DBDC CVM). The data were collected from a survey with a sample size of 134 respondents in Hanoi, Vietnam using two sets of questionnaires on the consumption of rib and shoulder of pork. The results revealed that the percentages of the consumers willing to pay a premium for more hygiene shoulder and rib of pork were 81.75% and 73.01%, respectively. The mean WTP was 129,000 VND (US$6.07) for both safe shoulder and rib, 48.7% and 37.8% higher than the regular market price, respectively. The results showed that consumers’ awareness of the risk of unhealthy pork, household income and expenditure were the positive determinants to WTP; meanwhile, the amount of pork consumption per month negatively affected the willingness to pay more for shoulder and rib of pork.     

Dollars and pounds: the impact of family income on childhood weight

This article examines the impact of family income on childhood weight status for children in the United States using matched mother-child data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY 79). Instrumental variable (IV) models, family Fixed Effects (FE) models and family Fixed Effects IV (FEIV) models are estimated in order to control for causality. The results suggest that although the prevalence of childhood obesity is higher in low-income families in the sample, family income might be acting primarily as a proxy for other unobserved characteristics that determine the child's weight status rather having a major direct causative role in determining the child's weight status.     

On the application of the rank tests for nonlinear cointegration to PPP: The case of Papua New Guinea

Much interest has been paid recently to the nonlinear cointegrating relations existing among economic variables. Various testing procedures are already available to test for the existence of nonlinear cointegration. For example, Breitung (2001) proposes rank tests and his testing procedure has been broadly applied. In this study, we warn against a blind application of the rank cointegration tests, particularly to economic variables that evidence certain behavior. As an illustration, we employ the nominal exchange rates and relative prices of Papua New Guinea against her major trading partners with the objective of testing the validity of purchasing power parity for the country. Our simulation results also confirm our warnings. Additionally, we provide some simple solutions to the problem we encounter herein.     

Internationalization and Auditor Choice

Prior research shows that internationalization increases information asymmetry and conflicts of interest between managers and outside investors, which lead to greater agency problems. Agency theory predicts a demand for higher quality auditors when agency problems are more severe. This study investigates whether the extent of internationalization influences auditor choice and whether audit quality has performance implications for internationalization. Using a set of U.S. firms from 2003 to 2009, we find the extent of internationalization positively related to audit quality. Furthermore, higher quality audits positively moderate the relation between internationalization and firm performance. Taken together, these results suggest that higher quality audit mitigates the agency problem associated with internationalization.     

A conceptual framework for R&D strategic alliance assessment for Taiwan’s biotechnology industry

With the rapid development of technology, technology advancement is harder and harder with more and more risks in technology innovation, thus enterprises can’t carry out technology innovation program alone. The development of the emergence of the biotechnology industries provides valuable insights into the role of strategic alliances and networking that shaped the synergy between both industries. This paper provides a step by step methodology to evaluate R&D strategic alliances problem in Taiwan biotechnology Industry. The purpose of this paper is to formalize the choice of R&D strategic alliance modes for an individual multinational enterprise among Joint Venture, Franchise agreement, Licensing Agreement, Subcontract and Merger/acquisition. An illustrative example is presented to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed methodology. The proposed approach also provides a relatively simple and well suited decision making tool for this type of strategic decision making problem. This evaluation mode was identified as a workable method.     

Myth or reality? Assessing the moderating role of CEO compensation on the momentum of innovation in R&D

This study researches the influences of CEO compensation on firm behavior to examine the interactive relationship between the behavioral momentum of innovation in R&D and CEO compensation. The models presented in this study are based on evolutionary, institutional, and agency theories to test hypotheses using data from 107 companies in the high-technology sectors in the United States. The results indicate that the pre-succession innovative behavior of these high-technology firms on R&D can positively affect these firms' post-succession innovative behavior towards R&D. That is, positive momentum in R&D innovation prevails in a firm across a change of the CEO. However, for the role of CEO compensation, short- and long-term compensation does not positively moderate this behavioral momentum in R&D. Hence, the moderating impact of short- and long-term CEO compensation to enhance the momentum of innovation in R&D can be romanticized. These findings provide boards of directors with evidence as to how a CEO succession matters to a firm's behavioral momentum in R&D, and whether CEO compensation can be strategized to change a firm's innovation and momentous behavior.     

The changing transmission mechanism of US monetary policy

We examine the relative importance of the interest rate, exchange rate, and bank-lending channels for the transmission mechanism of monetary policy in the United States over the past fifty years. Our analysis is based on a structural vector autoregressive model that includes bank loans and uses sign restrictions to identify monetary policy shocks. Given these identified policy shocks, we quantify the relative importance of different transmission channels via counterfactual analysis. Our results suggest a nontrivial role for the bank-lending channel at the aggregate level, but its importance has been greatly diminished since the early 1980s. Despite the timing, we find no support for a link between this change in the transmission mechanism and the concurrent reduction in output volatility associated with the Great Moderation. There is, however, some evidence of a link to the reduction in inflation volatility occurring at the same time.     

The impact of auction characteristics on prices of agricultural products traded online: evidence from cherries

This article provides an empirical study on the relationship between auction characteristics and prices using a data set on cherry sales from the online auction site Yahoo! Kimo. Using three alternative measures of the dependent variable, results indicate that reputation variables have a statistically important association with auction prices. The extent of reputation's impact on prices varies substantially depending on the model specification and estimation technique. The article highlights the effectiveness of a nonlinear specification for both measuring and interpreting the underlying reputation variables. The use of a “Buy It Now” option, size, and country of the origin is correlated with prices at statistically significant levels. Several econometric concerns regarding the empirical modeling strategy are discussed.