Price jitters: Do markets punish political stocks?

The paper examines the impact of firms exhibiting political connection on their stock market performance. The results appear to suggest that the performance of ‘political’ stocks has been significantly weak. This is apparent in simple univariate tests that compare the political stocks across various industry categories or even comparisons of political versus apolitical stocks. The regression analysis indicates that the returns on political stocks are on average, over 20% lower as compared to stocks without any political association.political connection; buy-and-hold abnormal returns; India

Growth vs. margins: destabilizing consequences of giving the stock market what it wants

We develop a multi-tasking model in which a firm can devote its efforts either to increasing sales growth, or to improving per-unit profit margins by, e.g., cutting costs. If the firm's manager is concerned with the current stock price, she will tend to favor the growth strategy at those times when the stock market is paying more attention to performance on the growth dimension. Conversely, it can be rational for the stock market to weight observed growth measures more heavily when it is known that the firm is following a growth strategy. This two-way feedback between firms' business strategies and the market's pricing rule can lead to purely intrinsic fluctuations in sales and output, creating excess volatility in these real variables even in the absence of any external source of shocks

IPOs cycle and investment in high-tech industries

This paper analyses the effects of the Initial Public Offering (IPO) market on real investment decisions in emerging industries. We first propose a model of IPO timing based on divergence of opinion among investors and short-sale constraints. Using a real option approach, we show that firms are more likely to go public when the ratio of overvaluation over profits is high, that is after stock market run-ups. Because initial returns increase with the demand from optimistic investors at the time of the offer, the model provides an explanation for the observed positive causality between average initial returns and IPO volume. Second, we discuss the possibility of real overinvestment in high-tech industries. We claim that investing in the industry gives agents an option to sell the project on the stock market at an overvalued price enabling then the financing of positive NPV projects which would not be undertaken otherwise. It is shown that the IPO market can however also lead to overinvestment in new industries. Finally, we present some econometric results supporting the idea that funds committed to the financing of high-tech industries may respond positively to optimistic stock market valuations

Learning by observing: information spillovers in the execution and valuation of commercial bank M&As

We hypothesize that banks become better able to manage acquisitions, and investors become better able to value those acquisitions, as these parties ‘learn-by-observing’ information that spills-over from previous bank M&As. We find evidence consistent with these hypotheses for 216 M&As of large, publicly traded U.S. commercial banks between 1987 and 1999. Our theory and our results are predicated on the idea that acquisitions of large and increasingly complex commercial banks were a relatively new phenomenon in the late-1980s, with no best practices to inform bank managers and little information upon which investors could base their valuations. Our findings provide a new explanation for why academic studies have found little evidence that bank mergers create value. Furthermore, our finding that investors become more accurate pricers of new phenomena as they observe greater quantities of those phenomena is consistent with the theory of semi-strong stock market efficiency.Bank mergers ; Financial institutions

A Dynamic Macroeconomic Model for the US Telecommunications Industry

Dynamic models have been used in most businesses serving different purposes. The increased changes of the Telecommunications environment have created a dynamic industry emerging new dynamic economic models. We investigated the Telecom industry by conducting macroeconomic and infrastructure analysis. However, this paper uses recent data from the Telecommunications industry to reveal the infrastructure trends and predict the US wireless growth. The analysis is focused on several factors such as the infrastructure described by the Teledensity, the employment and the Telecom revenues in comparison with the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The purpose of this analysis is to understand the industry’s behavior during a specific period of time, 1984-2003, propose an appropriate economic dynamic model, wireless oriented that identifies the current driving forces and detects the impact of some critical events and trends.Dynamic Economic Model, Macroeconomic Analysis, Telecom Act, Teledensity

Growth vs. Margins: Destabilizing Consequences of Giving the Stock Market What it Wants

We develop a multi-tasking model in which a firm can devote its efforts either to increasing sales growth, or to improving per-unit profit margins by, e.g., cutting costs. If the firm's manager is concerned with the current stock price, she will tend to favor the growth strategy at those times when the stock market is paying more attention to performance on the growth dimension. Conversely, it can be rational for the stock market to weight observed growth measures more heavily when it is known that the firm is following a growth strategy. This two-way feedback between firms' business strategies and the market's pricing rule can lead to purely intrinsic fluctuations in sales and output, creating excess volatility in these real variables even in the absence of any external source of shocks.

An Exploratory Study of Patient Falls

Debate continues between the contribution of education level and clinical expertise in the nursing practice environment. Research suggests a link between Baccalaureate of Science in Nursing (BSN) nurses and positive patient outcomes such as lower mortality, decreased falls, and fewer medication errors. Purpose: To examine if there a negative correlation between patient falls and the level of nurse education at an urban hospital located in Midwest Illinois during the years 2010-2014? Methods: A retrospective crosssectional cohort analysis was conducted using data from the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI) from the years 2010-2014. Sample: Inpatients aged ≥ 18 years who experienced a unintentional sudden descent, with or without injury that resulted in the patient striking the floor or object and occurred on inpatient nursing units. Results: The regression model was constructed with annual patient falls as the dependent variable and formal education and a log transformed variable for percentage of certified nurses as the independent variables. The model overall is a good fit, F (2,22) = 9.014, p = .001, adj. R2 = .40. Conclusion: Annual patient falls will decrease by increasing the number of nurses with baccalaureate degrees and/or certifications from a professional nursing board-governing body