An investigation of the weekend effect during different market orientations

Studies of stock returns over short horizons indicated irregularities in returns, the weekend effect, and consequently the notion of market efficiency has been questioned. Despite extensive research on the weekend effect, little research has been conducted to define the prominence of the seasonal anomaly in Bear markets versus non-Bear markets. In the paper the weekend effect is investigated for daily returns in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), the S&P 500, and the NASDAQ for Bear and non-Bear markets. Results support a weekend effect but only during non-Bear market orientations and a possible day-of-the-week effect during Bear and non-Bear markets.     

EX ANTE INVESTMENT,EX POST REMEDIES,AND PRODUCT LIABILITY*

A firm can increase product safety through ex ante investment and can remedy quality problems after sales. An increase in product liability raises returns to ex ante investment through higher consumer demand, but may also negatively affect the investment incentive due to more ex post remedial activities. The trade‐off between these “output” and “substitution” effects can result in an inverted U‐shaped relationship between product liability and ex ante investment. We find that the firm prefers full liability, but consumer surplus can be higher under partial liability. We further identify conditions under which full liability or partial liability is socially optimal.     

Equity recognition of mandatory accounting changes: the case of transitional goodwill impairment losses

This study investigates if and how the use of the retroactive method to account for a mandatory accounting change affects a firm's measurement and recognition choices. We examine if reporting incentives and constraints are associated with the magnitude of transitional goodwill impairment losses reported by Canadian firms implementing Section 3062 on purchased goodwill. Our results indicate firms have an incentive to both overstate and understate transitional goodwill impairment losses. We also show that financially literate and independent audit committees constrain managerial opportunism. Copyright © 2008 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Satire and Geopolitics: Vulgarity,Ambiguity and the Body Grotesque in South Park

Humour and laughter have become the subject of recent geopolitical scrutiny. Scholars have explored the affirmative and liberatory possibilities of humour, and the affective bodily dimensions of laughter as tools for transformative action in critical geopolitics. Humour that is vulgar and politically ambiguous is yet to be explored as a potent geopolitical avenue of enquiry. Studies of satire have suggested that rather than contesting entrenched geopolitical beliefs, satirical shows can serve to further divide audiences both amenable and antagonistic to the satire in question. I argue that this should not involve a wholesale rejection of satirical shows, as humour that uses irony, subversion, and other discursive techniques is just one way satirical media becomes an effective commentator on political issues. I examine the show South Park and argue its satire combines bodily and scatological humour with more traditional satirical techniques to produce a comedy that ridicules contemporary issues by reducing complex politics to the most basic and crass condition possible. This is defined in a Bakhtinian sense of the body grotesque, a social inversion through reference to the common bodily functions of all human beings.     

A Dynamic-Programming Approach to Multiperiod Asset Allocation

Academicians and practitioners recently have focused a great deal of attention on the issue of retirement asset allocation. However, research on the academic side typically has assumed a static allocation of a fixed amount over the investor's lifetime, while the advice on the practitioner side has been largely ad hoc in nature. Moreover, both academics and practitioners often fail to link allocations to the individual's attitude toward risk. This paper uses several performance measures that incorporate the individual's aversion to risk and finds the allocations in the year before retirement that maximize the expected value of those performance measures. It then uses a dynamic programming procedure to roll back one year at a time to determine optimal allocations for previous years as well. We find that the traditional advice that young investors should invest more heavily in equity (with a gradual shift to more debt as they near retirement) indeed is correct, and in fact the optimal equity allocation is even higher than commonly suggested. Deviations of the growth in an individual's income from a long-term national average did not seem to significantly affect the optimal allocations. The optimal allocations, however, vary widely as a function of (1) investor attitudes toward risk and (2) accumulated savings to date. These results suggest greater care should be taken to assess and incorporate these factors into the asset-allocation decision.     

The economics of managing carbon via forestry: Assessment of existing studies

The purpose of this paper is to assess the existing studies on the economics of using forests as a means of mitigating atmospheric carbon build-up. This assessment addresses conceptual and empirical issues and provides a basis for a comprehensive and cost efficient forest management strategy. Critical needs and opportunities for future research are identified.