A Re-examination of the Performance of Value Strategies in the Athens Stock Exchange

This study tests the performance of contrarian (value) strategies in the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) in a recent period of time (2003–8) on the basis of the price to earnings ratios, dividend yields, firm size (market value), market to book ratios, financial leverage ratios, and market beta. Apart from the univariate portfolio analysis, we implement a novel panel data analysis based on the procedure suggested by Pesaran (2004, Econometrica 74:967–1012, 2006) that provides a valid estimation and inference under cross sectional dependence. Our portfolio analysis results highlight for investors in the ASE the superiority of value strategies formed on the basis of stocks with low price-to-earnings, high dividend yield ratios, and low market-to-book ratios. Our panel data analysis results depend on whether or not we correct for the problem of cross-sectional correlation in the regression residuals as suggested by Pesaran’s (Econometrica 74:967–1012, 2006) method. When we correct for this problem, we obtain evidence which support only a negative association between annual stock returns and market-to-book ratios. This may imply to investors that an adoption of a value strategy based on the market-to-book ratio may constitute a safer option compared with the other two alternatives suggested by the portfolio analysis results.     

Industrial Effects of European Community Integration

This paper examines the potential effects of European Community (EC) integration. It develops a number of assumptions representing the EC directives, and introduces them in the INFORUM system of models, which links inter-industry dynamic macro-economic models of 10 countries. These assumptions include the deregulation of financial services, abolition of border controls, increased competition, economies of scale and opening up of government procurement. According to the system results, the European economies will experience higher economic growth and higher per capita income, with lower prices and higher labor productivity. It is expected that the rest of the world economies will not be affected significantly by the European integration. Finally, the integration process will generate diverse results across sectors in different countries.     

U.S. Monetary Policy and Herding: Evidence from Commodity Markets

Atlantic Economic Journal - This paper investigates the presence of herding behavior across a spectrum of commodities (i.e., agricultural, energy, precious metals, and metals) futures prices...     

Monetary Policy Reaction Functions of the TICKs: A Quantile Regression Approach

This study investigates how Taiwan, India, China, and Korea (TICKs) set interest rates in the context of policy reaction functions using a quantile-based approach. Our results indicate the tendency of a milder response to inflation at low interest rates and greater response at higher quantiles of interest rates, where inflation is presumably higher than desired for China and South Korea. While the response to inflation over the quantiles is significant for India, yet the Taylor principle is less likely to hold. For Taiwan, the results imply that another instrument is employed to deal with its official managed floating currency.     

The dynamics of wage determination in Romania

This article examines wage developments in Romania over the last 20 years, discusses the evolving role of government wage policy and structural labour market changes, and analyses the dynamics of the wage determination process. It finds that government wage policy has had a significant demonstration effect on private sector wages, driven mainly by policy decisions over the past few years. The article also finds strong causality from private sector wages to wages in state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) and government. No causality was found for changes in government wages to wages in SOEs or from SOE wages to private sector wages.     

Hospitality management education in Greece An exploratory study

The importance of hospitality management education has been recognized all over the world for many years. Formal education plays a crucial role in the provision of skilled and competent human resources. Traditional tourism destination countries like Greece have developed tertiary hospitality education systems aiming at satisfying the needs of the tourism and hospitality industry. This paper examines the hospitality management education system in Greece and reports the initial findings of a qualitative research project undertaken for an assessment of the Greek system. The concept and the need of hospitality management education are explored and their struggle for identity is described. Furthermore, the graduates’ views on the hospitality education that they had received are examined through a large number of in-depth interviews. Finally, based on the research findings, a number of conclusions are drawn and specific suggestions for the future of the hospitality education in Greece are proposed. These proposals are reflected in the numerous current developments taking place in Greece as well as in the suggestions for further research.     

Long‐Run PPP under the Presence of Near‐to‐Unit Roots: The Case of the British Pound–US Dollar Rate*

Empirical tests typically provide evidence that the British pound–US dollar exchange rate and the relative wholesale price index contain exact unit roots and exhibit cointegration. However, the cointegrating vector is significantly different from [1, ?1], thus raising doubts on the validity of the purchasing power parity (PPP) hypothesis. Following Elliott (1998 ), we show that if the exchange rate and relative price series contain near‐to‐unit roots in the context of a bivariate system, then any inference on the “cointegrating” vector and consequently on PPP, which is based on standard cointegration estimation methods, will be misleading. We then argue that the existing evidence against the PPP hypothesis in the British pound–US dollar market can be attributed to the finite sample bias of the standard cointegration estimators, arising from an endogenous and “nearly” nonstationary regressor. We also show that when robust procedures are employed the evidence favors the PPP hypothesis.     

Segmenting Wine Tourists on the Basis of Involvement with Wine

As involvement with wine may vary significantly among wine consumers and wine tourists, segmentation based on product involvement seems to be a reasonable choice. A multinational sample of 517 winery visitors is divided into three groups of low, medium, and high involvement levels; similarities and differences are examined. Results confirm that it is meaningful to segment winery visitors on the basis of their involvement with wine, as important differences can be identified in terms of visitation motives and patterns, demographic characteristics, relationship with wine, pre-visit attitudes towards the winery, evaluation of the winery experience, post-visit attitudes, and future behavioral intentions. Management and marketing implications are discussed.