Risk Arbitrage in Takeovers

This article studies the role of risk arbitrageurs in takeoversand the source of their advantage. We show how the presenceof arbitrageurs affects the value of the target shares, sincearbitrageurs are more likely to tender. Therefore an arbitrageurhas the informational advantage of knowing he bought shares.In equilibrium, the number of arbitrageurs buying shares andthe price they pay are determined endogenously. We also presentseveral empirical implications, including the relationship amongtrading volume, takeover premium, liquidity of the shares, andthe number of risk arbitrageurs investing in one particulardeal.     

Mean-variance hedging for interest rate models¶with stochastic volatility

The mean-variance hedging approach for pricing and hedging claims in incomplete markets was originally introduced for risky assets. The aim of this paper is to apply this approach to interest rate models in the presence of stochastic volatility, seen as a consequence of incomplete information. We fix a finite number of bonds such that the volatility matrix is invertible and provide an explicit formula for the density of the variance-optimal measure which is independent of the chosen times of maturity. Finally, we compute the mean-variance hedging strategy for a caplet and compare it with the optimal stategy according to the local risk minimizing approach. Received: 14 July 2000 / Accepted: 10 April 2001     

Setting consolidated reporting standards for local government

Under a corporatization trend, traditional financial reporting is generally considered unable to offer a complete view of the economic and financial activities of a group of public entities. Consequently, several reforms and standards have been introduced related to consolidated financial reports. Through interviews with key actors, the authors analysed the normativity process for issuing consolidated reporting standards for local governments in three European countries: Italy, Spain, and Sweden.     

Simplified Jackknife Variance Estimates for Fuzzy Measures of Multidimensional Poverty

In this paper, we present a practical methodology for variance estimation for multi‐dimensional measures of poverty and deprivation of households and individuals, derived from sample surveys with complex designs and fairly large sample sizes. The measures considered are based on fuzzy representation of individuals' propensity to deprivation in monetary and diverse non‐monetary dimensions. We believe this to be the first original contribution for estimating standard errors for such fuzzy poverty measures. The second objective is to describe and numerically illustrate computational procedures and difficulties in producing reliable and robust estimates of sampling error for such complex statistics. We attempt to identify some of these problems and provide solutions in the context of actual situations. A detailed application based on European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions data for 19 NUTS2 regions in Spain is provided.     

Conceptualizing social entrepreneurship in the context of emerging economies: an integrative review of past research from BRIICS

Social entrepreneurship is well practiced and talked about in emerging economies. However, till date, no dedicated review and conceptual framework exists, synthesizing and integrating past social entrepreneurship research in the fast growing emerging economies, commonly known as BRIICS (Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China, and South Africa). The purpose of this article is to bridge that gap by conducting an integrative review of 123 most relevant peer-reviewed scholarly articles, filtered out of 1779 search results in six different research databases. Country-specific conceptual perspectives have been extracted and integrated to formulate a novel social entrepreneurship framework that is inclusive of five key social entrepreneurship dimensions emerging from these economies: (a) Social Welfare, (b) Social Capital, (c) Social Entrepreneur, (d) Economic Value Creation, and (e) Collective Endurance. This exercise was an initiative to facilitate the global community of social entrepreneurship researchers and practitioners in understanding the diversity, meaning, and evolution of the social entrepreneurship phenomenon in the context of emerging economies. They can advance research in this domain with the aid of the proposed framework and the research questions proposed for future research.     

Remittances to Latin America from migrants in the United States: Assessing the impact of amnesty programs

The magnitude of remittance flows to Latin America exceeds the combined inflows of foreign direct investment and official development assistance to the region. Since the United States is the destination country of the vast majority of migrants from Mexico, as well as from other Latin American countries, U.S. immigration policy can have a significant impact on the volume of remittances to the Latin American region. This paper studies how a generalized amnesty — a provision in the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) — affected immigrants' remitting patterns. In models that control for immigrants' length of residence in the United States and for economic conditions in both the U.S. state of residence and the country of origin, we estimate substantial post-legalization drops in remittances sent home by Mexican-born migrants who legalized through IRCA. Given the potential positive impact of remittances on investment levels, entrepreneurship rates and the development of the financial sector, this finding underscores the importance of gaining a better understanding of the impact that immigration policies in immigrant-receiving countries may have on the stream of remittance flows to immigrant-sending communities in developing regions.     

Warning labels on junk food: experimental evidence

Unhealthy food choice is one of the main causes of being overweight. Nutritionists blame a particular category of food: junk food. Several authors have proposed a fat tax for reducing the junk food demand, but others have demonstrated that these taxes must be very high in order to be effective. Therefore, a warning label about calorie content may be an alternative way to reduce the consumption of junk food. In this exploratory study, using students as respondents, a high‐calorie warning label is explored with an incentive compatible valuation method. The results indicate that a high‐calorie warning label has little effect on respondents’ choices, even when they have no prior familiarity with the food.     

Is lack of funds the main obstacle to growth? ebrd's experience with small- and medium-sized businesses in central and eastern europe

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) potentially constitute the most dynamic firms in an emerging economy. They are the ones most likely to move into areas of comparative advantage and high value added, though they often face economic, institutional, and legal obstacles. Obstacles include limited access to working capital and long-term credit, legal and regulatory restrictions, inadequate infrastructure, high transaction costs, and limited managerial and technical expertise. Despite the presence of multiple and often interrelated constraints, however, the widespread belief, on which policies to support SMEs are based, is that the lack of finance constitutes the main obstacle to the growth of SMEs.Enterprise survey work is the tool generally used to deepen our understanding of constraints affecting SMEs formation and growth. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is no exception in this respect: during its early years it drew substantially on a set of enterprise surveys conducted by the World Bank between 1991 and 1993 in Hungary, the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic (CSFR), Poland, and Russia investigating the obstacles faced by SMEs. As the volume and geographical spread of its operations increased, the EBRD felt the need to design and run its own surveys, effectively addressing specific issues encountered in the context of its increasing lending and investment activity in central and eastern Europe (CEE). The findings of this analysis confirmed the belief that credit constraints constitute one of the main obstacles to growth of SMEs and encouraged the EBRD to tailor its financing instruments to the stage of transition of the country in question and the ability of the local financial system to assume key responsibilities.This paper analyzes the way in which the EBRD strives to correct this capital market failure in the region in which it operates. The fundamental principles on which EBRD policy is based are: a preference for reaching the SMEs via local financial intermediaries, a commercial approach to the provision of finance, and finally a focus on development of the local financial system as a whole. It is still too early to draw conclusions on EBRD activity in the field of SMEs financing based on other types of indicators than data on volume of signed commitments. A large part of the loans is still in the grace period, therefore investments are in an early phase and operation performance evaluation reports on this type of operations are still too few. Aggregate data on volume of EBRD financing through financial intermediaries paint an encouraging picture. A 250% increase in the volume of such operations between 1994 and 1997, a nine-fold increase in the number of subprojects between 1995 and 1997, and an ever-widening geographical spread of activities and decreasing size of subprojects indicate that the experience of the EBRD in financing through financial intermediaries is on the whole positive. Financing provided to intermediaries is not necessarily always intended, nor guaranteed to reach SMEs. It is, however, guaranteed to create the appropriate financing channels which are necessary to ease the SMEs' liquidity constraint.This paper discusses the shortcomings of the financial system in the CEE countries. It outlines the EBRD policy to support SMEs and the various instruments employed so far and presents selected case studies to throw light on how good project design can help overcome difficult environments and lower the perception of risk connected to indigenous SMEs. A summary of the findings of the survey work conducted by the EBRD in the region is also presented.     

Integer programming on domains containing inseparable ordered pairs

Using the integer programming approach introduced by Sethuraman et al. (2003), we extend the analysis of the preference domains containing an inseparable ordered pair, initiated by Kalai and Ritz (1978). We show that these domains admit not only Arrovian social welfare functions “without ties,” but also Arrovian social welfare functions “with ties,” since they satisfy the strictly decomposability condition introduced by Busetto et al. (2015). Moreover, we go further in the comparison between Kalai and Ritz (1978)’s inseparability and Arrow (1963)’s single-peak restrictions, showing that the former condition is more “respectable,” in the sense of Muller and Satterthwaite (1985).