Unit initial public offerings: Staged equity or signaling mechanism?

We investigate the use of unit (i.e., package) initial public offerings by Australian industrial firms and conclude that their use reflects their role as a signaling mechanism (Chemmanur and Fulghieri, 1997), as distinct from the agency–cost explanation offered by Schultz (1993). From a sample of 394 IPOs between 1976 and 1994, the 66 firms making unit offerings are typically riskier, use less prestigious underwriters and have a lower level of retained ownership than other IPO firms. While these results are also consistent with Schultz's agency cost explanation, other results we report are not. We find no difference in underpricing etween unit IPOs and other IPO firms, nor are there any significant differences in the planned uses of proceeds reported in the prospectus, post–listing failure rates or secondary equity offerings of the type predicted by Schultz. We do however, report evidence consistent with a prediction unique to the signaling explanation. After controlling for the level of ownership retained by insiders, the proportion of firm value sold as warrants is increasing in IPO firms' riskiness.     

International, Local and Regional Government Alliances

Kent County Council now promotes itself as the 'European County', a message that it seeks to deliver to the heart of institutional Europe through its Brussels office. Commentators generally agree that Kent has demonstrated how British local authorities can play an influential role at the European level, but will this acknowledged success be sufficient to maintain Kent's position over the coming years in a rapidly changing Europe where large regions look set to wield the power? This article reviews how Kent formed alliances with authorities in the same region of north-west Europe. How real are these supra-national groupings and what benefits can they bring to the partner areas?     

Contagion or Competition: Going Concern Audit Opinions for Real Estate Firms

We examine whether intra–industry information transfers from going–concern audit opinion announcements create contagion or competitive stock price reactions for other real estate firms operating in the same line of business. Using returns from publicly-traded land subdivision/development firms and Real Estate Investment Trusts, we find modest evidence supporting a competitive effect among rival firms as a result of another real estate firm announcing the receipt of a Going Concern Opinion (GCO) from its independent auditors.     

Technology and Rights

What do we know about technology and rights? This article provides a fairly comprehensive overview of current issues regarding this topic. We explore and analyse a wide spectrum of rights that are challenged in this current era of technological convergence. We use the United States Bill of Rights as an example of the vulnerability of legal protections for rights against particular political and technological changes in this post 9-11 climate. New streams of rights acting as a safeguard against further incursions of technology into civil liberties are explored. We also address intellectual property rights and international trends in copyright, patent and trademark laws. We question whether these issues of technology and rights have a place in current technological literacy scenarios.     

Compensation, Incentives, and the Duality of Risk Aversion and Riskiness

The common folklore that giving options to agents will make them more willing to take risks is false. In fact, no incentive schedule will make all expected utility maximizers more or less risk averse. This paper finds simple, intuitive, necessary and sufficient conditions under which incentive schedules make agents more or less risk averse. The paper uses these to examine the incentive effects of some common structures such as puts and calls, and it briefly explores the duality between a fee schedule that makes an agent more or less risk averse, and gambles that increase or decrease risk.     

Scientific methods in finance

Computer software can easily produce many financial models with technical skill, but investigators need to interpret and adapt computer output. Such analysis requires a deep knowledge of scientific fundamentals. We argue that an evidential perspective is more appropriate than a decision framework for model selection. We discuss four necessary conditions for any scientific investigation: observables, interpretables, replicables, and robustness in the context of examples familiar to finance professionals. Carefully planning the design of an experiment is the best way to address many econometric maladies. Furthermore, we emphasize the need for more sensitivity testing and for independent replication of empirical results within the finance profession.     

How Banks' Value-at-Risk Disclosures Predict their Total and Priced Risk: Effects of Bank Technical Sophistication and Learning over Time

Using a sample of eight large commercial banks from 1994 to 2000, Jorion (2002) finds that banks' VaR disclosures for their trading portfolios predict trading income variability. We extend Jorion's findings using a larger sample of 17 banks from 1997 to 2002 reporting trading VaRs under FRR No. 48 (1997). We find that banks' trading VaRs have predictive power for trading income variability that increases with bank technical sophistication and over time. We find that banks' trading VaRs have predictive power for a bank-wide measure of total risk, return variability, and for two bank-wide measures of priced risk, beta and realized returns.     

Globalisation and the environment: the long-term effects of technology on the international division of labour and energy demand

This paper examines the effect of the structural changes arising from the globalisation of production and innovation and from technological changes on the environment. Drawing on theories of international production from international business and innovation, we assess the impact of long-term technological change and changes in international production on the international division of labour and energy demand. We select two industrial sectors with different technological characteristics (the textile, clothing and footwear sector and the chemical sector). We examine the effects of the globalisation of production and of technological change on these two sectors on the level of industrial production and resource intensity in different regions and countries over the last 30 years. We speculate on the impact of globalisation of production and innovation in future pervasive technologies—information technology, biotechnology and nano-technology. The implications of these developments on industrial greenhouse gases emissions are assessed.     

Short-Sale Restrictions and Price Clustering: Evidence from SEC Rule 201

We provide a novel test of information-based theories of price clustering by examining trade, order, and the National Best Bid and Offer (NBBO) quote price clustering during periods when information is removed from the market. We use a natural experiment of short-sale restrictions resulting from Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Rule 201 to more effectively determine the impact of information on price clustering. We find evidence of increased price clustering for trades, orders, and NBBO prices during short-sale restrictions. Overall, our findings indicate that short-sale restrictions harm the price discovery process and lead to a reduction in market efficiency.