Earnings Attribution and Information Transfers

Managers frequently attribute the news in their earnings forecasts to various economic events. Using textual analysis, we identify the economic factors underlying earnings news from press releases. We document a wide range of industry‐wide shocks and firm‐specific actions to which the earnings news in management forecasts is attributed. As expected, earnings attributions significantly affect peer firms’ price reactions to the earnings news. Specifically, earnings news attributed to industry‐wide trends or firm structural changes leads to positive information transfers but earnings news attributed to firm competitive moves triggers negative information transfers. Information transfers are much stronger when each economic factor is mentioned the first time in a given industry‐year. Further analysis reveals that the strength of information transfers varies with firm‐level rivalry within the industry (i.e., similar business strategies, market position, and level of competition).     

Flight‐to‐safety and the credit crunch: a new history of the banking crises in France during the Great Depression†

Despite France's importance in the interwar world economy, the scale of the French banking crises of 1930–1 and their consequences have never been fully assessed quantitatively. The lack of banking regulation severely limited the availability of balance sheet data. Using a new dataset of individual balance sheets from more than 300 banks, this article shows that the crises were much more severe than previously thought, although they did not affect the main commercial banks. By reconstructing financial flows, this study shows that the fall in bank credit was mostly driven by a flight‐to‐safety by deposits, from banks to savings institutions and the central bank. The decrease in bank deposits due to bank runs was offset by an increase in deposits with savings institutions, with the central bank, and in cash hoarding, whereas the decrease in bank credit was not offset by an increase in loans from non‐bank financial institutions. In line with the gold standard mentality, cash deposited with savings institutions and the central bank was used to decrease marketable public debt and increase gold reserves, rather than pursuing countercyclical policies. Despite massive capital inflows and rising aggregate money supply, France suffered from a severe, persistent credit crunch.     

Comparing the impacts of Internet technology and national culture on online usage and purchase from a four-country perspective

The Internet has successfully generated an ever-expanding cohort of users for all its major concomitant activities, including information gathering, communications and transactions. So far no attempt has been made to validate whether such a success is so deep as to transcend national cultures. Nor any work has been conducted to compare the internationalisation¹ performances between online usage activities. The current study addresses these two research gaps from the perspective of four countries, i.e. Britain, Germany, Japan and Taiwan. Results show that although the technological forces have been quite successful in internationalising overall online usage activities, they succumb to the cultural forces as far as only the transactions activity, or more colloquially online purchase, is concerned. This indicates the relative difficulty in internationalising online purchase vis-à-vis other online usage activities. Further research on locating a series of step functions or kick-off time points regarding the development of online purchase is suggested.     

MIGRATION,SOCIAL NETWORKS,AND CREDIT: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM PERU

We seek evidence of the causal relationship between migration, social networks, and the probability of receiving credit in a developing country where credit markets are weak and internal migration is common. Migrants may face binding asymmetric information constraints as they often lack collateral. Social networks can help mitigate these constraints. Conversely, migrants might face higher liquidity constraints and might, therefore, demand more credit than nonmigrants. The effect of migration on participation in the credit market is thus ambiguous. Compounding this, migration and credit may be jointly determined. We utilize rich data from Peru to establish the net effect of migration on credit and the role that social networks play in this relationship.     

Testing the Unstable Middle and Two Corners Hypotheses About Exchange Rate Regimes

The recent rash of international currency crises has generated considerable interest in the role that exchange rate regimes have played in contributing to these crises. Many economists have argued that efforts to operate adjustably pegged exchange rate regimes have been a major contributor to “the unstable middle” hypothesis and some have argued that this unstable middle is so broad that only the two corners of hard fixes or floating rates will be stable in a world of high capital mobility—the two corners or bipolar hypothesis. Two recent empirical studies by researchers at the International Monetary Fund reach opposing conclusions on these issues. We examine the issue further and show that conclusions can be quite sensitive to how exchange rate regimes are grouped into categories and the measures of currency crises that are used. In general we find that the dead center of the adjustable peg is by far the most crisis prone broad type of exchange rate regimes, but that countries need not go all the way to freely floating rates or hard fixes to substantially reduce the risks of currency crises.

Design and implementation of the Expanded Public Works Programme: Lessons from the Gundo Lashu labour-intensive programme

This article examines the design and implementation of the Expanded Public Works Programme, drawing from the lessons of the Gundo Lashu programme on labour-intensive construction in the road sector. The aim of the study was to examine major barriers to the design and implementation of the programme. The article is based on the analysis of data that were gathered from the Gundo Lashu programme. The data were collected using a structured questionnaire, face-to-face interviews with the project participants as well as reviewing key secondary data from the project documents. The study found that the projects under the Gundo Lashu programme have clearly demonstrated the importance of labour-intensive approaches, especially in the road sector. However, these projects were constrained by a wide range of challenges, ranging from a lack of community participation to poor product quality and inadequate planning for sustainable financing.     

Bank liquidity creation: A new global dataset for developing and emerging countries

Review of World Economics - The pre-Global Financial Crisis build-up, followed by the post-crisis collapse, in bank liquidity creation in developed countries is well-documented (Berger and Bowman,...     

Identifying the gaps in ethical perceptions between managers and salespersons: A multidimensional approach

This research examines, in a general manner, the degree and character of perceptual congruity between salespeople and managers on ethical issues. Salespeople and managers from a diversity of organizations were presented with three scenarios having varying degrees of ethical content and were asked to evaluate the action of the individual in each scenario. Findings indicate that, in every instance, the participating managers tended (1) to be more critical of the action displayed in the scenarios, (2) to view the action as violating a sense of contract or promise, and (3) to view the action as less culturally acceptable than did the salespeople.Tony L. Henthorne is Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Southern Mississippi. Dr. Henthorne has published in such journals asPsychology and Marketing andJournal of Professional Services Marketing.Donald P. Robin is Professor of Business Ethics and Professor of Marketing at the University of Southern Mississippi. Dr. Robin is coauthor with Eric Reidenbach of two recent books on business ethics. Dr. Robin has contributed several articles on business ethics in such journals asJournal of Marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, andJournal of Business Ethics. He is also a frequent lecturer on the topic of business ethics.R. Eric Reidenbach is the Director of the Center for Business Development and Research and Professor of Marketing at the University of Southern Mississippi. Dr. Reidenbach has written numerous articles for such journals asJournal of Business Ethics, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Macromarketing, andJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science. Dr. Reidenbach has coauthored two books on business ethics.