The relationship between agricultural commodity prices,crude oil prices and US dollar exchange rates: a panel VAR approach and causality analysis

This study examines the relationship between crude oil prices, US dollar exchange rates and 30 selected international agricultural prices and five international fertilizer prices in a panel framework. The study uses panel VAR methods and Granger causality tests on panel data sets of agricultural commodity prices (as well as specific agricultural commodity sub-groups) and fertilizer prices with monthly observations of the period from June 1983 to June 2013. The empirical results of the present study indicate that crude oil prices as well as US dollar exchange rates affect international agricultural commodity and fertilizer prices. Furthermore, contrary to the findings of several studies in the literature, the present study supports bidirectional panel causality effects between crude oil prices and international agricultural prices as well as between US exchange rates and international agricultural prices.     

The Dividend Substitution Hypothesis: Australian Evidence

In a perfect capital market firms are indifferent to either dividends or repurchases as payout mechanisms, suggesting that the two payout methods should be perfect substitutes. Empirical research at the single country level, as well as cross country studies, provide evidence that dividends and repurchases act as substitutes (the dividend substitution hypothesis), and that the tax treatment of dividends versus capital gains affects this relation. Australia, which operates under a full dividend imputation system, has two types of repurchases: on‐ and off‐market. On‐market repurchases are taxed as capital gains while off‐market repurchases comprise a large dividend component carrying valuable tax credits. Australia thus provides a natural setting to investigate how the tax treatment of proceeds affects the dividend substitution hypothesis. Dividend substitution is found to exist for on‐market repurchases but not for off‐market repurchases, thus providing further support for the idea that the tax treatment of proceeds affects the substitutability of repurchases and dividends.     

Industry concentration,excess returns and innovation in Australia

This paper examines market concentration and stock returns on the Australian Securities Exchange. We find that dominant companies operating in concentrated industries in Australia are able to generate significant risk‐adjusted excess stock returns. Our results for Australian data are opposite to that found by Hou and Robinson (2006) for United States market data. Hou and Robinson reason that United States firms which operate in concentrated industries are insulated from competitive pressures, have lower levels of innovation (Arrow, 1962) and therefore experience lower profitability and stock returns. By contrast, the Australian data show a significant and positive relationship between concentration and innovation expenditure. Therefore, the excess stock returns of dominant companies in Australia are consistent with previous research linking innovation expenditure with excess stock returns. We hypothesize that the apparent contradiction of our results compared with Hou and Robinson (2006) for the United States market is resolved by an examination of the differences in size and competition in United States and Australian industries and the consequent differential ability of dominant companies in the two countries to generate monopoly rents and invest in ‘Schumpeterian’ (Schumpeter, 1942) innovation.     

Trust in financial services: Retrospect and prospect

Fostering and maintaining high levels of trust in the financial services sector is seen as crucial because of the characteristics of many financial service and in order to promote consumer engagement in the sector. In this article, we report evidence from a body of work and other commentary to provide an insight into trends in consumer trust in the sector as a whole, in comparison with other organisations and how different types of financial services provider have performed relative to each other. We show that the financial services sector as a whole is trusted more than some comparator institutions, and that aggregate levels of trust in the sector have fluctuated a relatively small amount subsequent to the financial crisis. However, important differences between provider types are apparent and these differences have become more profound in the recent past. We provide suggestions as to how trust in the sector may be improved and provider an analysis of current initiatives to improve trust levels in the sector in general and in banking in particular.     

Choice and the Internet: From Clickstream to Research Stream

The authors discuss research progress and future opportunities for modeling consumer choice on the Internet using clickstream data (the electronic records of Internet usage recorded by company web servers and syndicated data services). The authors compare the nature of Internet choice (as captured by clickstream data) with supermarket choice (as captured by UPC scanner panel data), highlighting the differences relevant to choice modelers. Though the application of choice models to clickstream data is relatively new, the authors review existing early work and provide a two-by-two categorization of the applications studied to date (delineating search versus purchase on the one hand and within-site versus across-site choices on the other). The paper offers directions for further research in these areas and discusses additional opportunities afforded by clickstream information, including personalization, data mining, automation, and customer valuation. Notwithstanding the numerous challenges associated with clickstream data research, the authors conclude that the detailed nature of the information tracked about Internet usage and e-commerce transactions presents an enormous opportunity for empirical modelers to enhance the understanding and prediction of choice behavior.     

Attribute Identities Matter: Subjective Perceptions of Attribute Characteristics

Recent research indicates that attributes vary along multiple dimensions with implications for how trade-offs are resolved during choice. We present an exploratory study of the dimensionality underlying naïve subjects ratings of attributes on the characteristics commonly discussed in the literature on tradeoff resolution and decision difficulty. Factor analysis of attribute characteristic assessments indicates that subjects view decision attributes in a multi-dimensional fashion, including an importance/loss aversion dimension, an emotional potential/protection from tradeoffs dimension, and a cognitive difficulty dimension. These results suggest that a one-dimensional measure of attribute characteristics, such as a standard attribute importance rating, may obscure some factors determining individual responses to attributes during decision processing. However, the results also suggest that developing a relatively succinct set of scales in order to characterize the dimensions along with subjects response to attributes is a viable goal for future research.     

Women’s Roles on U.S. Fortune 500 Boards: Director Expertise and Committee Memberships

This study examines the presence and roles of female directors of U.S. Fortune 500 firms, focusing on committee assignments and director background. Prior work from almost two decades ago concludes that there is a systematic bias against females in assignment to top board committees. Examining a recent data set with a logistic regression model that controls for director and firm characteristics, director resource-dependence roles and interaction between director gender and director characteristics, we find that female directors are less likely than male directors to sit on executive committees and more likely than male directors to sit on public affairs committees. There is little if any evidence of systematic gender bias in director assignment to other board committees. We find some evidence that boards evaluate resource dependence differently for women than men. Craig A. Peterson Western Michigan University, Grand Rapios, MI 49503, USA Craig A. Peterson is associate professor of finance at Western Michigan University, Grand Rapids Regional Center. In addition to corporate governance, his research interests include investment management and corporate finance. James Philpot is assistant professor of finance and general business at Missouri State University. His research interests include corporate governance, financial planning and financial education.     

An Ethical Decision-Making Framework for Competitor Intelligence Gathering

Competitor intelligence gathering involves the aggregation of competitive information to facilitate strategic development and a competitive advantage. Unfortunately, companies are sometimes willing to carry out questionable gathering practices to collect such information. An ethical decision making framework for competitor intelligence gathering is presented in this paper that outlines the impact of several strengthening and weakening factors on individual ethical reasoning. Dialogue is provided about the management of intelligence gathering from various viewpoints, and the implications of these managerial suggestions are discussed. Terri Rittenburg is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Wyoming; she is a member of the Editorial Policy Board for the Journal of Macromarketing. Her research has appeared in journals such as Psychology and Marketing,Journal of Business Ethics, and Journal of Macromarketing. Sean Valentine is an Associate Professor of Management at the University of Wyoming. His research has appeared in journals such as Human Relations, Journal of Businees Research, Journal of Business Ethics, and Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management. James Faircloth is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of North Dakota.He has previously published in the Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice and Psychological Reports.     

The Ethics of Professorial Book Selling: Morality, Money and "Black Market" Books

This study used experimental and correlational techniques to examine perceptions that university faculty hold regarding the practice of professorial selling of examination textbooks to wholesalers. Faculty members (n = 236) from 14 universities and community colleges and a wide variety of academic disciplines responded to a web-based survey. We presented hypothetical selling situations to respondents with manipulated variables consisting of solicitation status (unsolicited versus solicited) and use of money (for faculty or for student activities). Both main effects and the interaction effect were significant such that respondents perceived it to be more ethical to sell an examination book when the book was unsolicited and when the money was being used to fund student activities. The variable most correlated with faculty members' beliefs that book selling is ethical and the faculty members' self-reports of whether or not they have engaged in bookselling was how widespread the practice appeared to be on campus. About 30 percent of faculty members sold textbooks over the past year at a dollar value of about $80 per professor. About 38 percent of respondents reported they believed the practice to be generally ethical. Implications for business ethics theory, students' moral development, and advancement of on-campus codes of ethics policies are discussed along with avenues for future research.