Another Look at the Cross-section of Expected Stock Returns

Our examination of the cross-section of expected returns reveals economically and statistically significant compensation (about 6 to 9 percent per annum) for beta risk when betas are estimated from time-series regressions of annual portfolio returns on the annual return on the equally weighted market index. The relation between book-to-market equity and returns is weaker and less consistent than that in Fama and French (1992). We conjecture that past book-to-market results using COMPUS-TAT data are affected by a selection bias and provide indirect evidence.     

Negotiating the Evolution of the Hr Function: Practical Advice From the Health Care Sector

This paper has two aims. First, to consider explanations for the apparent gap between the paradigm of strategic human resource management on the one hand and actual HR practice on the other. Second, to generate practical advice for senior HR specialists who are aspriring to develop a strategic role for their function. the research underpinning these findings was based on case studies in three hospitals in Adelaide and a comparison of the findings with the situation at Leicester General NHS Trust where the first named author of this article was the HR director and a senior board member. the analysis reveals that specific features of each organisation's history, current structure and management, shape powerfully the nature of the HR function. Moreover, the local shaping factors define the degrees of freedom open to the HR function, so much so, that the notion that it can choose its organisational stance is here challenged.     

Wage-Tenure Contracts in a Frictional Labour Market: Firms' Strategies for Recruitment and Retention

A common assumption in equilibrium search and matching models of the labour market is that each firm posts a wage, to be paid to any worker hired. This paper considers the implications of firms posting contracts , in a random matching model with on-the-job search. More complex contracts enable firms to address both recruitment and retention problems by, for example, increasing the wage with tenure. The effect on the labour market is to reduce turnover, below the level required for efficient matching of workers to firms.     

Bank Monitoring and Environmental Risk

Abstract:  Loan announcement effects for 152 Canadian companies are examined to investigate the efficiency of monitoring by banks facing lender environmental liability. Market reaction to the announcement of bank debt to 'environmental' firms is more positive and significant than for 'non-environmental' firms and, for firms in industries with a higher likelihood of experiencing spill events, is more positive and significant, reinforcing earlier results that establish a relationship between specific loan/borrower characteristics and announcement period excess returns and providing further evidence on the 'uniqueness' of bank loans by demonstrating the superior ability of banks to monitor corporate borrowers exposed to environmental liability.     

Oppression and resistance: the powerless and the future

Relations between rich and poor (across and within countries) appeared in some questions in Images; there were clear differences between what the powerful and the powerless hoped and expected from the future. This is compared with what actually happened and a deeper analysis is made of ‘power’ as an organizing concept. It turned out that the pessimism associated with powerlessness tended to make better predictions.     

Expenditure on different categories of meat in Greece: the influence of changing tastes

This paper employs a latent variable approach to isolate the effects of changing tastes on the share of total meat expenditure on different categories of meat products in Greece during the period 1965–1995. We find that changes in the relative expenditure on different categories of meat cannot be explained by changes in the relative prices of the different meat products and increased expenditure alone. For pork products in particular, the increase in the share of expenditure has been greater than would be expected as a result of the relative fall in their price. The increase can therefore be associated with changes in taste. This finding is of general interest to those conducting empirical research into consumer behaviour both in economies where there have been significant changes in patterns of food consumption, and where, as in the case of many less industrialised economies, rapid structural changes in food consumption patterns are still to come. It is also of importance to policy makers in assessing die effectiveness of advertising or promotional campaigns in influencing longer term changes in consumer preferences for different products.