Investor Pessimism and the German Stock Market: Exploring Google Search Queries

We analyze the relationship of retail investor sentiment and the German stock market by introducing four distinct investor pessimism indices (IPIs) based on selected aggregate Google search queries. We assess the predictive power of weekly changes in sentiment captured by the IPIs for contemporaneous and future DAX returns, volatility and trading volume. The indices are found to have individually varying, but overall remarkably high explanatory power. An increase in retail investor pessimism is accompanied by decreasing contemporaneous market returns and an increase in volatility and trading volume. Future returns tend to increase while future volatility and trading volume decrease. The outcome is in line with the conjecture of correction effects. Overall, the results are well in line with modern investor sentiment theory.     

Pricing the Cost of Expropriation Risk

The paper examines a firm's cost of expropriation risk in a framework that links it to the government's incentive to expropriate. The author develops a pricing model for the firm's cost of expropriation risk that includes the positions of both government and firm. The government's decision to expropriate is modeled as an American-style call option. The cost of expropriation risk is modeled as the value of an insurance policy that pays off all losses resulting from expropriation. The firm's cost of expropriation risk is determined by the government acting to optimize the value of its option to expropriate. The author identifies the parameters that link the government's option to expropriate to the firm's cost of expropriation risk, and shows how the model can be used in capital budgeting decisions and the ongoing management of expropriation risk.     

The effect of prospective payment under DRGs on the market value of hospitals

This article investigates the effect of a change in Medicare payment regulations on for-profit hospital market values. A theoretical argument on the effects of this regulatory event is presented in which hospital managers are concerned about firm wealth but also value prestige, provider perceptions of quality, and perhaps other prerequisites. In this case, DRGs will induce hospitals to seek higher wealth because they increase the opportunity cost of nonpecuniary benefits. The issue is pursued empirically by estimating the market response to DRG legislation using seemingly unrelated regressions.     

Applying a non parametric methodology to the study of corporate reputation

This study applies nonparametric methodologies to the study of corporate reputation. The study examines the reputation of the five leading Israeli banks in the aftermath of a major crisis in the industry, and compares it with the reputation of the five major insurance firms in the country across seven reputation attributes which are then correlated with “hard” measures, including corporate performance. While promotional investment was identified as the major reputation determinant in both industries, performance and size were found to be major codeterminants in the banks, while age and growth were the major co-determinants among the insurance firms. A negative relationship has been identified between performance and prestige.     

Technicity in nursing and the dispensation of thinking

While technology and health care delivery are inextricably and increasingly intertwined and technology has driven major advances in quality and efficiency in health care, technology does not replace the need for a thinking human being in care delivery. The term "technicity" refers to the tension created by the ability of humans to think versus their risk of being exploited as objects subservient to technologies. Drawing upon the philosophical works of Thoreau, Heidegger, and others, the authors pause on the conundrum created by expanding technology with the assumption that technological "improvements" should be evaluated with caution. Health care information systems are an example of tools that have improved our ability to collect and store information, but when systems "go down," staff can be rendered helpless. Similarly, technology can impose personal distance between the patient and provider in instances where staff are positioned as a mechanism for collecting data rather than a person interacting with another person. In some cases, health care providers function as navigators helping patients reach the correct pharmaceutical, rather than as teachers helping patients seek better health. Lastly, the tendency toward systems analysis in the context of the complex hospital environment leads solely toward uniform solutions rather than instances where a customized solution is warranted.     

SOA架构奠定电子商务成功的基础

今天所谈的是,作为服务构建的软件。目前,作为一种服务构建的软件,先给大家一些线索。如果你买软件的话,可能需要去签一个合同,并且得到一些服务。对于公司来讲,公司有业绩,获得一定的收益,这样才可以进行公司的运作,这样的结构并     

Political Connections and Leverage: Firm‐level Evidence from Pakistan

This study investigates the impact of political connections on corporate financing decisions using a sample of listed Pakistani firms over the period 2002–2010. We find a positive and significant link between long‐term debt and political connections, which reflects greater access to credit. Such preferential treatment escalates with the strength of the connected politician. Furthermore, positive effects of political connections are seen to be stronger for large firms and those affiliated with business groups. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Theoretical motives of corporate cash holdings and political connections: firms level evidence from a developing economy

In this paper, we revisit the theoretical motives of corporate cash holdings while concentrating on the effect of political connections. In particular, we postulate two competing hypotheses for the effects that political connections can have on cash holdings: ‘substitution effect hypothesis’ and ‘complementary effect hypothesis’. Using the data on Pakistani firms over the period 2002–2010, we find that connected firms hold significantly larger cash reserves than their non-connected counterparts, thus confirming the ‘complementary hypothesis’, which suggests that agency problems lead connected firms to accumulate large amount of cash. Further, this effect is found to be more pronounced in dictatorial as opposed to democratic regimes indicating the presence of higher degrees of political patronage in that period. Finally, we also find differences in the complementary effect based on firm characteristics. Our results suggest that the firm size and leverage have increasing effects on the cash holdings of connected firms, contrary to the mainstream literature standpoint.     

Adoption of fertiliser and hybrid seeds by smallholder maize farmers in Southern Malawi

Despite decades of agricultural policies that promoted the adoption of fertiliser and hybrid seed technologies as ways of improving productivity in maize farming, smallholder farmers in Malawi have been relatively slow to adopt the new technology. Using bivariate probit analysis and controlling for technology acquisition through grants, we found that fertiliser adoption was positively associated with higher levels of education, larger plot sizes and higher non-farm incomes, but negatively associated with households headed by women and distance from input markets. The adoption of hybrid seeds is positively associated with market-based land tenure systems and fertile soils, but negatively associated with age of the farmer and distance from input markets.