Experimental results on bargaining under alternatives property rights regimes

The effect of alternative property rights regimes on the choicebetween taking an object and acquiring it via a consensual exchangeis experimentally explored in a two-period screening game. Resultsare generally consistent with equilibrium predictions, suggestingthat property rights regimes have a significant impact on observedbehavior.     

Understanding the nature of the risks and the source of the rewards to momentum investing

Buying recent winners and shorting recent losers guaranteestime-varying factor exposures in accordance with the performanceof common risk factors during the ranking period. Adjusted forthis dynamic risk exposure, momentum profits are remarkablystable across subperiods of the entire post-1926 era. Factormodels can explain 95% of winner or loser return variability,but cannot explain their mean return components are more profitablethan those based on total returns. Neither industry effectsnor cross-sectional differences in expected returns are theprimary cause of the momentum phenomenon.     

THE RESEARCH ASSESSMENT EXERCISE AND THE REFORM OF ACADEMIC TENURE IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

In this article the reform of academic tenure is examined in the United Kingdom. We test the hypothesis that reforming tenure may have reduced performance in the universities. The years following the 1988 Education Reform Act provide an interesting natural experiment, as the broad effect of the legislation was to soften (though not to remove) tenure in universities in the United Kingdom. It is concluded that the act has not adversely affected efficiency as some writers have predicted it would.     

Practices for managing information flows within organizations

Firm organization determines how coworkers communicate and howinformation flows within the firm. Banking, accounting, consulting,and legal firms process proprietary information which theirclients wish to protect. The firm's ability to safeguard andmanage information determines its market demand. Yet employeesmay leak and otherwise abuse information to enhance their personalperformance and wealth. This article analyzes how bureaucraciesare erected within the firm to control information flows andprotect clients.     

A long view of real rates

In light of the large and sustained rise in real interest ratesin the late 1970s and early 1980s, this paper reviews: (i) thetheoretical discussion on the determination of nominal and realinterest rates; (ii) the factors determining real interest rates;and (iii) problems of defining and measuring the real rate.We go on to examine the historical record of real interest ratesin France, Germany, the UK, and the USA since 1875. We findthat high real rates since 1980 seem to be a return to a long-runnorm, and it is the period from the Second World War to 1979that represents a more natural period in which to investigatean abrupt change of behaviour for real interest rates.