Is CEO certification of earnings numbers value-relevant?

On June 27, 2002, the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States ordered the CEOs and CFOs of 688 large firms to certify the earnings numbers of their companies by 5:30PM EST, Aug 14, 2002. This paper uses this natural experiment to find that certification was not only a non-event for the certifiers around their certification date, but it was also a non-event for the non-certifiers around Aug 15, 2002. Further tests make us conclude that CEO certification of earnings numbers is not value-relevant.     

Group Profit,Market Share and Efficiency: Evidence from Australian Manufacturing

This paper explains the intra-industry variations of profit in Australian manufacturing. Considering three groups of firms, viz leading, secondary and follower groups, a profit model is developed for each group. Indicators of ``strategic behavior' and ``efficiency' are considered along with other control variables. Both equilibrium and dynamic versions of the model are tested using unpublished data at the enterprise level between 1977/78 and 1992/93. The findings support the importance of both strategic behavior and efficiency in determining group profits.     

Melting pot or salad bowl: Some evidence from U.S. investments abroad

We estimate the number of foreign-origin persons in the United States classified by their country of origin from census data in 1970, 1980, 1990 and 2000. We find, both in cross-sectional tests and in panel data tests, that the size of the foreign-origin group from a country living in the U.S. is positively correlated with U.S. investments in that country. This national origin bias is strong for direct (FDI) and modest for indirect (equity holdings) investments. The results continue to hold even after controlling for the “fundamentals” hypothesized to affect foreign investments. The other economic geography variables of a country—physical distance from the U.S., race, language and religion—do not seem to affect US investments in that country.     

Cost-allocation decisions in member controlled country clubs: A case analysis

Boca Vista Golf and Country Club (BVGCC), which operates as a not-for-profit organization, is a member-owned country club in South Florida. Since no mark-up for profit is included in member-owned clubs, total budgeted revenues (including member dues) must equal total budgeted costs. Accordingly, if net costs are used to determine dues for each membership category, cost-allocation decisions have a direct impact on member dues (product price). BVGCC is also subject to competitive pressures from public and semi-private golf courses. The case provides an overview of these competing forces and requests the service of a consultant to devise equitable and effective cost-allocation schemes for BVGCC.     

Revisiting unemployment in intermediate macroeconomics: A new approach for teaching Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides

The authors present a version of the Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides model of unemployment that is accessible to undergraduates and preserve the dynamic structure of the original model. The model is solvable in closed form using basic algebra and admits a graphical representation useful for illustrating a variety of comparative statics. They show how to use the model to teach the effects of labor market policies, advancements in Internet technology, and labor market dynamics. Supplementary materials such as teaching tips, a classroom experiment, and online resources including a JavaScript-based simulation tool, U.S. data used to make figures, and practice problems are provided.     

Appraisal of literature on customer experience in tourism sector: review and framework

A substantial body of literature has been built up in experience marketing. In spite of that there is no cohesive framework that has systematically examined antecedents, formation and implications of customer experience, or has classified different aspects of customer experiences. The purpose of this article is to derive an integrative review of published articles on consumer experience and its related topics. The study synthesizes the research on customer experience through two different but interrelated streams: (1) experience as a product attribute or a complete product and (2) consumer experience created due to customer interaction with the physical environment or people. This article develops a framework that corroborates literature related to (1) definitional aspects of customer experience, (2) formation of customer experience, (3) asserting consumer psychology in engaging in the creation of experience and its consumption and (4) the effects of customer experience. We first review available prior research and present the salient features of these articles and their findings. The research gaps are then identified and a set of propositions provided, followed by directions for future research. This article also identifies some methodological issues that are relevant in the context of individual level effect on customer experience.     

Critique of zero population growth theory

This is a critique of widely held theories concerning the relationship between population growth and economic development. "The central purpose of this paper is to critically analyse the zero population growth movement. The hypotheses of Neo-Malthusian theory or Zero Population Growth and the concept of Population Bomb will be briefly stated in Section 1. Section 2 will discuss the theory of demographic transition. Section 3 will critically examine the validity of the Neo-Malthusian theory of population growth. Our conclusions and recommendations will be stated in Section 4." The author's main contention is that overconsumption in developed countries is the major cause of the deterioration of the environment rather than overpopulation in the developing countries.     

Communication costs, information acquisition, and voting decisions in proxy contests

This article synthesizes some recent progress in the theoriesof corporate control and political lobbying to model the proxycampaign as a political campaign. The model yields a numberof testable implications, only some of which have been examinedin the literature. For example, if the loss from voting fora 'bad' dissident exceeds the gain from voting for a 'good'dissident, the model predicts that as communication costs fall,the number of proxy fights increases, announcement day returnsdecrease, and the fraction of dissident wins first increasesand then decreases.     

Bargaining and Sharing Innovative Knowledge

We consider the problem of bargaining over the disclosure of interimresearch knowledge between two participants in an R&D race for an ultimate,patentable invention. Licence fee schedules that are functions of the'amount of knowledge disclosed', by the leading to the laggingagent, are examined for their abilities to attain efficient outcomes andvarying shares of the surplus arising from disclosure. In hersequential-offers bargaining games, the uninformed buyer is able to elicitfull disclosures without sharing the incremental surplus with any type ofthe licensor, and thus do as well as a perfectly informed and discriminatingknowledge licensee.