Commemorating the 50‐Year Anniversary of Ball and Brown (1968): The Evolution of Capital Market Research over the Past 50 Years

We commemorate the 50th anniversary of Ball and Brown [1968] by chronicling its impact on capital market research in accounting. We trace the evolution of various research paths that post–Ball and Brown [1968] researchers took as they sought to build on the foundation laid by Ball and Brown [1968] to create a body of research on the usefulness, timeliness, and other properties of accounting numbers. We discuss how those paths often link back to the groundwork laid and questions originally posed in Ball and Brown [1968].     

Unbiased estimation of expected return using CAPM

Estimation of expected return is required for many financial decisions. For example, an estimate for cost of capital is required for capital budgeting and cost of equity estimates are needed for performance evaluation based on measures such as EVA. Estimates for expected return are often based on the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), which states that expected excess return (expected return minus the risk-free rate) is equal to the asset's sensitivity to the world market portfolio (β) times the risk premium on the “world market portfolio” (the market risk premium). Since the world market portfolio, by definition, contains all assets in the world, it is not observable. As a result, an estimate for expected return is commonly obtained by taking an estimate for β based on some index (as a proxy for the world market portfolio) and an estimate for the market risk premium based on a potentially different index and multiplying them together. In this paper, it is shown that this results in a biased estimate for expected return. This is undesirable since biased estimates lead to misallocation of funds and biased performance measures. It is also shown in this paper that the straightforward procedure suggested by Fama and MacBeth [J. Financ. Econ. 1 (1974) 43] results in an unbiased estimate for expected return. Further from the analysis done, it follows that, for an unbiased estimate, it does not matter what proxy is used, as long as it is used correctly an unbiased estimate for expected return results.     

Contrarian Investment in the Dutch Stock Market

The efficient markets hypothesis states that at any times security prices fully reflect all available information. Contrarian investment strategies do not recognize the efficiency of capital markets. They call for buying undervalued stocks, i.e. stocks with a low price relative to their fundamentals. The idea behind such a strategy is to take advantage of the extrapolation behaviour of naive investors. Using a fresh and extensive data set from the Dutch stock market, we found that these strategies yield an outperformance without a higher risk. Our results make it hard to maintain the efficient market hypothesis.     

Relative Guarantees

Many real-world financial contracts have some sort of minimum rate of return guarantee included. One class of these guarantees is so-called relative guarantees, i.e., guarantees where the minimum guaranteed rate of return is given as a function of the stochastic return on a reference portfolio. These guarantees are the topic of this paper. We analyse a wide range of different functional specifications for the minimum guaranteed rate of return, hereunder both so-called maturity and multi-period guarantees. Several closed form solutions are presented.     

Changes in the Finnish Wage Structure: Will Demand and Supply Do?

This study addresses changes in the wage structure in Finland between 1977 and 1995, and provides a simple explanation based on the demand for and supply of skills. The single index model of Card and Lemieux (1996) is augmented by incorporating changes in the supply of skills. The augmented model adequately accounts for the changes in relative wages between groups of different education and experience, but does not capture the changes in the within-group distribution.
JEL classification : J 31     

报废汽车回收体系结构模型研究

报废汽车的回收重用一方面是＂生产者责任延伸制＂在汽车行业贯彻实施的结果,另一方面来源于再制造环节中蕴藏的丰厚利润的诱导.目前我国回收利用报废汽车的方式比较落后,主要是对原材料进行重用.本文构建了一个由汽车制造商牵头纽建,以功能多样化的回收中心作为中心处理单元的报废汽车回收体系结构模型,以期实现更高层次的回收重用.     

退货管理系统设计

对退货管理的研究发展历程、重要性及其在特定行业中的应用作了介绍,并给出了退货管理政策设计和网络设计的主要内容。最后分析了国内行业中的退货现状并给出建议。     

市场不完备与股票交易量

交易量与收益率都具有信息含量，它们之间既有联系又有区别。我国的证券市场是一个新兴的市场。与国际证券市场的联系不太紧密，投资者也不够成熟，市场不完备对交易量有较大的影响。文章从交易量与收益率的交互表现入手，分析了交易量的流动性假说、交易量与信息扩散速度的关系、信息不对称对交易量的影响。以度投资者的异质性、过度自信和投机行为等对交易量的影响；并着重讨论了中国证券市场实际存在的阶段性闭市、交易成本和卖空限制三种市场不完备对交易量的影响。     

坚持“一国两制”喜庆澳门回归

"一国两制"的伟大构想,使香港、澳门回归在中国领土上成为现实,洗雪了中华民族所蒙受的耻辱,标志着殖民统治在中国的终结。这对于振奋民族精神,增强民族凝聚力,把有中国特色社会主义建设事业全面推向21世纪,具有重大的现实意义和深远的历史意义,并为实现祖国完全统一找到了一条根本途径。     

上海股市收益与波动的周内效应研究

股市周内效应一直是金融投资者关注的焦点问题，许多学者已做了大量研究，但多数文献将收益与波动的周内效应分开来进行研究和检验，忽视了波动与收益的共生性，其结果缺乏严密性和说服力。针对这种情况，提出平行数据GARCH模型并给出了参数的极大似然估计方法，进而对上海股市收益和波动的周内效应进行检验，既反映收益与风险存在共生关系，又避免了分别判断收益和波动的周内效应所致的缺点。