Follow the leader: fund managers trading in signal‐strength sequence*

When fund managers trade sequentially in the same direction, the information confirmation hypothesis predicts the long‐term profitability of the leader trade to be increasing in the number of subsequent trades. The information cascade hypothesis predicts a non‐positive relationship. Using active equity funds’ daily trading data, we document a transition from information confirmation to information cascades as the number of followers increase. We find that highly disguised multiple‐broker packages exhibit higher market impact, higher long‐term returns and are associated with fewer followers. Our study also documents that lead fund managers face portfolio risk constraints in trading on private information.     

Expert Systems at the Customer Interface

ESCFE (Expert System for Customer Facing Environments) is an integrated expert systems architecture which supports a three-way dialogue between British Telecommunications (BT) customers, staff and its technical and commercial support systems. ESCFE is customer facing—this means that the user interface dialogue is directed explicitly at the customer, as opposed to other expert systems/help desks which have a user interface directed at staff, who then deal with the customer in whatever manner they have been trained. In dealing with the customer, BT staff require a wide range of knowledge concerning the products and services portfolio, internal BT procedures, selling opportunities, customer-care policy and contractual liabilities. This knowledge can be contained within ESCFE. The knowledge is used to support a dialogue which allows for both customer- and staff-driven interaction, and for different levels of expertise in both customers and staff.     

If I Leave Here Tomorrow: An Option View of Migration When Labor Market Quality Declines

In this article, we provide a framework for determining when it is optimal to move when labor market opportunities are declining. We model the decision to migrate as akin to owning a financial option in which the exercise price is the fixed cost of moving. We show that a higher fixed cost associated with moving and a higher standard deviation of the quality of the labor market reduce the incentive to migrate. We then empirically examine whether the standard deviation of indicators of labor market quality reduce the likelihood of migration. Our findings strongly support this hypothesis, and imply that for the relatively mobile population of high-skilled workers the counterfactual outmigration rates that would obtain if future labor-market quality were known with certainty are more than twice observed rates.     

Implicit human resource management theory: a potential threat to the internal validity of human resource practice measures

Since the publication of Huselid's (1995) paper examining the relationship between HR practices and firm performance, there has been an explosion of published papers examining the empirical relationship between HR practices and various measures of firm performance. This study examines the possibility that informants typically providing data about organizational HR practices may be biased by an implicit theory of human resource management. Our findings suggest the responses from subjects typically providing data about HR practices may be biased in their reporting by the performance of the organization. The generalizability of these results is considered and implications for future studies of the HR-firm performance relationship reviewed.     

澳大利亚水资源分配与管理原则及其对我国的启示

今天世界上许多国家都面临水资源短缺的问题,怎样对现有的水资源进行分配,如何对水资源进行有效的管理显得尤为重要。澳大利亚政府在这方面进行了卓有成效的尝试。基于此,首先介绍了澳大利亚水资源的现状,其次分析了澳大利亚水资源分配和管理的原则,最后阐述了澳大利亚在水资源分配和管理方面对我国的启示。     

Financial profiles and the disclosure of expenditures for socially responsible purposes

Recently the relationship between “socially responsible” activities and the financial performance of corporations has received attention in the business literature. Most studies have focused on the market reaction of shareholders to the disclosure of both monetary and nonmonetary corporate contributions relating to pollution control, employee welfare, affirmative action, and other activities deemed to be in the public interest. Results of this research have been mixed, with some authors finding favorable market response to socially responsible actions, and others finding no difference between the market performance of more and less responsible firms. The purpose of this paper is to examine financial performance and socially responsible activities from a different perspective. Specifically, it examines the relationship between the disclosure of monetary expenditures for various social initiatives and composite financial accounting profiles of disclosing and nondisclosing firms. Using two-group discriminant analysis, the authors conclude that management tends to disclose monetary expenditures for these generally nonproductive purposes at times when the financial statements of the firm otherwise look favorable to shareholders. Such disclosure in a sample of Fortune 500 firms in 1976 and 1977 was clearly not unrelated to financial performance, and neither did it appear to occur in order to explain relatively poor financial statements.     

The relationship between technology and science: Some historical and philosophical reflections. Part II

Dr Paul Gardner was appointed to the Faculty of Education at Monash University in 1967 and is currently a Reader in Education. After graduating from the University of Melbourne with a science degree and teacher qualifications in 1960, he taught physics and chemistry in high schools for six years. He obtained the M. Ed. degree from the University of Melbourne in 1970 for a thesis which involved experimental studies of concept attainment, and in 1972 completed a Ph.D. at Monash for an investigation of student and teacher characteristics which influence students' attitudes to physics. His major field of interest is science education, and he has published extensively on the assessment of cognitive and affective outcomes, the role of language in learning science and (his current major interest) the links between science and technology. He was a founding member of the university's Centre for Science, Mathematics and Technology Education in 1989. He is currently the Editor ofResearch in Science Education, the annual journal of the Australasian Science Education Research Association, of which he was a founding member in 1970. Early in 1993, he presented a paper on science-technology relationships at a UNESCO-sponsored conference in Jerusalem; a revised version of this paper is being published inStudies in Science Education in 1994. He teaches post-graduate courses on statistical analysis, attitude measurement, curriculum issues and science and technology education.