Facilitating the development of a global mindset through a cultural experience

The current article describes an assignment utilized in an undergraduate course “Leadership in a Global Society.” The assignment requires students to participate in a cultural experience and interview the leader of the event. Student feedback collected over several semesters indicates that the assignment was invaluable in helping students understand people from cultures different than the ones with which they normally identify. Furthermore, students reported gaining a better understanding of themselves and a willingness to seek out other cultural learning opportunities.     

Can stochastic discount factor models explain the cross-section of equity returns?

We propose a multivariate test of the capital asset pricing model (C-CAPM) of the cross-sectional variation in equity returns in which we compare cross-sectional variation in equity returns to the cross-sectional variation in their conditional covariance with stochastic discount factors. We use a multivariate generalized heteroskedasticity in mean model to estimate 25 portfolios that are formed on size and the book-to-market ratio. Each portfolio is allowed to have its own no-arbitrage condition. We find that although the conditional covariances of returns with consumption exhibit negative variation across size, they do not vary across the book-to-market ratio. Thus, C-CAPM can capture the size effect, but not the value effect. The fit is, however, improved by allowing the coefficients on the consumption covariances to be different. The value effect appears to be associated with the book-to-market ratio as well as size. On its own the book-to-market ratio does not generate additional information about average returns to C-CAPM. A possible explanation for these findings is that both small and low book-to-market ratio firms are expected to have higher rates of growth.     

Would a stock by any other ticker smell as sweet?

Some stocks have meaningful ticker symbols; for example, LUV (Southwest Airlines), MOO (United Stockyards), and GEEK (Internet America). Such tickers might be a useful signal of the company's creativity, a memorable marker that appeals to investors, or a warning that the company feels it must resort to gimmicks to attract investors. This paper investigates the performance of stocks with memorable ticker symbols during the years 1984–2005 and finds that, on average, their daily returns are higher than for the overall market.     

The FRC AND Accounting Standard‐Setting: Should I Still Call Australia Home?

This paper analyses the decision of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) to replace Australian accounting standards with international accounting standards on 1 January, 2005. Two main topics are considered: the appropriateness of the FRC's directive, and the case against the proposed adoption date. We argue that the FRC has not conducted sufficient consultation with affected parties and that the hasty implementation will impose costs that could have been avoided with the exercise of more caution.     

Strategic Internet application trends in supply chain management

The Internet is evolving as a powerful force in the new marketplace where the nexus of competition has changed from individual firms to efficient supply chain networks both between firms and within industries. This study explores Internet adoption patterns and operational applications in US supply chain networks. The data reveal that the integration of the Internet into supply chain management applications has increased and has moved away from indiscriminate application of novel Internet technologies towards becoming a focused endeavor with precise expectations and measurable goals. Specifically, the study finds that Internet usage within supply chains is maturing as evidenced by enhanced and increased productivity, reduced costs and increased profit for participating firms.     

Prospects for Personalization on the Internet

Personalization is a key component of an interactive marketing strategy. Its purpose is to adapt a standardized product or service to an individual customer's needs. The goal is to create profit for the producer and increased value for the consumer. This goal fits nicely into traditional notions of segmentation. Applications of personalization have advanced greatly in conjunction with the Internet, since it provides an environment that is information rich and well suited to interactivity. This article reviews past research on personalization and considers some examples of personalization in practice. We discuss what we believe are key problems and directions for personalization in the future.     

Keynes,investment, unemployment and expectations

In Keynes’ General Theory, investment determines effective demand, which determines unemployment and the labour market plays a negligible role. In New Keynesian models, labour market institutions determine the natural rate of unemployment and the speed at which unemployment adjusts to it. Investment is mostly ignored as a key variable behind the problem of high unemployment, despite a strong empirical association between investment and unemployment. We discuss the evolution of the ‘Keynesian’ model, and how in the process of domesticating the General Theory, the central relationship between unemployment and investment and the role of the state of confidence was bred out of the model. We then present some evidence of the centrality of investment and expectations to the long‐term evolution of unemployment in OECD countries. We also argue that recent results in finance, which find that individuals do not behave rationally and, moreover, that there may be no basis for rational calculation, provides support for Keynes’s notion that animal spirits play a central role in investment.     

The Effect of Marriage on Education of Immigrants: Evidence from a Policy Reform Restricting Marriage Migration*

We investigate the effect of immigrants’ marriage behavior on dropout from education. To identify the causal effect, we exploit a recent Danish policy reform that generated exogenous variation in marriage behavior by a complete abolishment of marriage migration for immigrants below 24 years. The reform influenced immigrants from countries with a high historical rate of marriage migration more than immigrants from country groups with a low rate. We find that the dropout rate for males increases by 25 percentage points as a consequence of marriage to a marriage migrant, whereas the effect for females is small and mostly insignificant.