Dispersion in analysts' forecasts: does it make a difference?

Financial analysts are an important group of information intermediaries in the capital markets. Their reports, including both earnings forecasts and stock recommendations, are widely transmitted and have a significant impact on stock prices (Womack 1996; Lys and Sohn 1990, among others). Empirical accounting research frequently relies on analysts' forecasts to construct proxies for variables of interest. For example, the error in mean forecast is used as a proxy for earnings surprise (e.g., Brown et al.1987; Wiedman 1996; Bamber et al.1997). More recent papers provide evidence that the mean consensus forecast is used as a benchmark for evaluating firm performance. (Degeorge et al. 1999; Kasznik and McNichols 2002; Lopez and Rees 2002). Another stream of research uses the forecast dispersion as a proxy for the uncertainty or the degree of consensus among analysts and focuses on the information properties of analysts (e.g., Daley et al. 1988; Ziebart 1990; Imhoff and Lobo 1992; Lang and Lundholm 1996; Barron and Stuerke 1998; Barron et al. 1998). In this paper I combine the two streams of research, and investigate how lack of consensus changes the information environment of analysts and whether the markets perceive this change. More specifically, I investigate the amount of private information in a divergent earnings estimate (i.e. one that is above or below the consensus), whether the markets react to it at either the time of the forecast release, at the realization of actual earnings, and whether Regulation Fair Disclosure has changed the information environment differently for high and low dispersion firms

Walking the Talk? An Examination of the Investments of Jesuit Universities in Fossil Fuel Firms

This article investigates perspectives that have been proposed as reasons both for and against fossil fuel divestment (FFD), paying special attention to the decisions that universities make concerning investments in their endowment portfolios. Arguments that have been advanced against FFD include its supposedly lower financial returns, lack of direct control over investments, reliance on financial advisors, high transaction costs, the need for market index funds that include the stocks of fossil fuel firms, and the institution’s fiduciary duty to increase returns. Arguments that have been advanced in favor of FFD include satisfactory returns from fossil fuel-free portfolios, risk reduction, the over-pricing of fossil fuel firms, improved portfolio diversification, and the need to align investing behavior with the institution’s values, mission, and role in society. The study challenges the alleged financial reasons for maintaining investments in fossil fuel firms by presenting evidence that divestment does not impair portfolio performance on a risk-adjusted basis, nor does it increase long-term transaction costs. Fossil fuel firms are overvalued given that they will eventually suffer from the increasing demand for clean energy substitutes and face inevitable regulatory actions as the effects of climate change worsen. Divestment, therefore, might well provide higher risk-adjusted returns over the long-term

WALKING THE TALK?: Jesuit Universities and Fossil Fuel Investments

The student-led fossil fuel divestment (FFD) movement urges universities to remove investments in fossil fuel firms from their endowment portfolios to inspire reductions in carbon emissions  and help control climate change. This article explores the movement in U.S.-based Jesuit universities by documenting their endowment size, current divestment status, and rationale for or against divesting. These institutions held a total of US$13.8 billion in their endowments as of 2019, making their investment decisions relevant and material. The article in general examines the alignment of divestment actions with the commitments of Jesuit universities to environmental stewardship and social justice as expressed in their mission statements and Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’. Two out of the 27 Jesuit universities in  the U.S., namely, Georgetown and Seattle University, were already committed to FFD by April 2020; after accounting for branch campuses, this represents a commitment of 13.3% among all U.S.-based Jesuit universities. This is appreciably higher than the 4.12% divestment rate among all private 4-year universities in the United States. Each of the 27 U.S.-based Jesuit universities was contacted to verify their endowment size, divestment status, and position on FFD. The 13 who responded stated their commitment to environmental protection and sustainability, and some reported their rationale for or against divesting. Results suggest that the investment strategies of Jesuit universities are a “work in progress,” and are likely to evolve as they align with their common Roman Catholic and Jesuit identity and mission. The reasons stated for deciding not to divest, moreover, are consistent with previous literature. A second article in this issue of the Journal of Management for Global Sustainability explores those reasons in detail and broadens the theme of divesting to encompass any organization

WALKING THE TALK?: An Examination of the Investments of Jesuit Universities in Fossil Fuel Firms

This article investigates perspectives that have been proposed as reasons both for and against fossil fuel divestment (FFD), paying special attention to the decisions that universities make concerning investments in their endowment portfolios. Arguments that have been advanced against FFD include its supposedly lower financial returns, lack of direct control over investments, reliance on financial advisors, high transaction costs, the need for market index funds that include the stocks of fossil fuel firms, and the institution’s fiduciary duty to increase returns. Arguments that have been advanced in favor of FFD include satisfactory returns from fossil fuel-free portfolios, risk reduction, the over-pricing of fossil fuel firms, improved portfolio diversification, and the need to align investing behavior with the institution’s values, mission, and role in society. The study challenges the alleged financial reasons for maintaining investments in fossil fuel  firms by presenting evidence that divestment does not impair portfolio performance on a riskadjusted basis, nor does it increase long-term transaction costs. Fossil fuel firms are overvalued given that they will eventually suffer from the increasing demand for clean energy substitutes and face inevitable regulatory actions as the effects of climate change worsen. Divestment, therefore, might well provide higher risk-adjusted returns over the long-term

Assessment of Storage and Inventory Practices to Improve Medicine Supply Chain in Jubek State South Sudan

BackgroundIn order to deliver quality health services, safe, effective, affordable and quality medicines are needed. Inappropriate storage conditions, poor infrastructure and poor medicine management practices may lead to poor medicines quality, stock damage and expiration.ObjectiveAssess storage and inventory practices to improve the medicine supply chain in South Sudan.MethodologyThe study used a descriptive cross-sectional design. The study population comprised 12 Health Centers in Juba where inventory management was practiced. Both questionnaire‐guided interviews for staff self‐assessment, and observer assessment were used by the researcher. With regard to storage and inventory management, the researcher collected data on the condition of storerooms with regards to availability of enough storage space, availability of enough storage equipment, and temperature conditions of the medicines stores, among others.ResultsThe study found that store and inventory management practices varied widely in the different health facilities. Hospitals and central medical stores exhibited good or average inventory and storeroom management practices, respectively. The two hospitals and medical stores scored 100% in the elements in the assessment of storerooms and stock management. Some primary health care centers exhibited good inventory and store room management practice, whilst others were rated as average or poor. Most of the elements assessed scored 37% in storeroom assessment while elements assessed for inventory management scored less than 75%. There was great similarity between the observation assessment and the self-assessment.ConclusionIn conclusion, store and inventory management practices and knowledge of the respondents varied in the different health facilities. Hospitals and central medical stores exhibited good, average and poor inventory and storeroom management practices assessed through self-assessment and observation assessment by the researcher. There was a great similarity between the observation assessment and the self-assessment. Rwanda J Med Health Sci 2021;4(2): 310-32

Walking the Talk? Jesuit Universities and Fossil Fuel Investments

The student-led fossil fuel divestment (FFD) movement urges universities to remove investments in fossil fuel firms from their endowment portfolios to inspire reductions in carbon emissions and help control climate change. This article explores the movement in U.S.-based Jesuit universities by documenting their endowment size, current divestment status, and rationale for or against divesting. These institutions held a total of US$13.8 billion in their endowments as of 2019, making their investment decisions relevant and material. The article in general examines the alignment of divestment actions with the commitments of Jesuit universities to environmental stewardship and social justice as expressed in their mission statements and Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’. Two out of the 27 Jesuit universities in the U.S., namely, Georgetown and Seattle University, were already committed to FFD by April 2020; after accounting for branch campuses, this represents a commitment of 13.3% among all U.S.-based Jesuit universities. This is appreciably higher than the 4.12% divestment rate among all private 4-year universities in the United States. Each of the 27 U.S.-based Jesuit universities was contacted to verify their endowment size, divestment status, and position on FFD. The 13 who responded stated their commitment to environmental protection and sustainability, and some reported their rationale for or against divesting. Results suggest that the investment strategies of Jesuit universities are a “work in progress,” and are likely to evolve as they align with their common Roman Catholic and Jesuit identity and mission. The reasons stated for deciding not to divest, moreover, are consistent with previous literature. A second article in this issue of the Journal of Management for Global Sustainability explores those reasons in detail and broadens the theme of divesting to encompass any organization

Secrecy and absence in the residue of covert drone strikes

AbstractBy focusing on the materials and practices that prosecute drone warfare, critical scholarship has emphasised the internal state rationalisation of this violence, while positioning secrecy and absence as barriers to research. This neglects the public existence of covert U.S. drone strikes through the rumours and debris they leave behind, and the consequences for legitimisation. This article argues that by signifying the possible use of covertness, the public residue of unseen strikes materialises spaces of suspected secrecy. This secrecy frames seemingly arbitrary traces of violence as significant in having not been secreted by the state, and similarly highlights the absence in these spaces of clear markers of particular people and objects, including casualties. Drawing on colonial historiography, the article conceptualises this dynamic as producing implicit significations or intimations, unverifiable ideas from absences, which can undermine rationalisations of drone violence. The article examines the political consequences of these allusions through an historical affiliation with lynching practice. In both cases, traces of unseen violence represent the practice as distanced and confounding, prompting a focus on the struggle to comprehend. Intimations from spaces of residue position strikes as too ephemeral and materially insubstantial to understand. Unlike the operating procedures of drone warfare, then, these traces do not dehumanise targets. Rather, they narrow witnesses' ethical orientation towards these events and casualties, by prompting concern with intangibility rather than the infliction of violence itself. A political response to covert strikes must go beyond 'filling in' absences and address how absence gains meaning in implicit, inconspicuous ways

Construction, Concentration, and (Dis)Continuities in Social Valuations

I review and integrate recent sociological research that makes progress on three interrelated questions pertaining to social valuation: (a) the degree of social construction relative to objective constraints; (b) the degree of concentration in social valuations at a single point in time; and (c) the conditions that govern two broad forms of temporal discontinuity—(i) fashion cycles, especially in cultural expression and in managerial practices, and (ii) bubble/crash dynamics, as witnessed in such domains as authoritarian regimes and financial markets. In the course of the review, I argue for the importance of identifying how objective conditions constrain social construction and suggest two contrarian mechanisms by which this is accomplished—valuation opportunism and valuation entrepreneurship—and the conditions under which they are more or less effective