Asset Pricing With Heterogeneous Consumers and Limited Participation: Empirical Evidence

We present evidence that the equity premium and the premium of value stocks over growth stocks are consistent in the 1982–96 period with a stochastic discount factor calculated as the weighted average of individual households’ marginal rate of substitution with low and economically plausible values of the relative risk aversion coefficient. Since these premia are not explained with an SDF calculated as the per capita marginal rate of substitution with a low value of the RRA coefficient, the evidence supports the hypothesis of incomplete consumption insurance. We also present evidence that an SDF calculated as the per capita marginal rate of substitution is better able to explain the equity premium and does so with a lower value of the RRA coefficient, as the definition of asset holders is tightened to recognize the limited participation of households in the capital market

Why Firms Use Currency Derivatives

We examine the use of currency derivatives in order to differentiate among existing theories of hedging behavior. Firms with greater growth opportunities and tighter financial constraints are more likely to use currency derivatives. This result suggests that firms might use derivatives to reduce cash flow variation that might otherwise preclude firms from investing in valuable growth opportunities. Firms with extensive foreign exchange-rate exposure and economies of scale in hedging activities are also more likely to use currency derivatives. Finally, the source of foreign exchange-rate exposure is an important factor in the choice among types of currency derivatives

In Pursuit of Good & Gold: Data Observations of Employee Ownership & Impact Investment

A startup\u27s path to self-sustaining profitability is risky and hard, and most do not make it. Venture capital (VC) investors try to improve these odds with contractual terms that focus and sharpen employees\u27 incentives to pursue gold. If the employees and investors expect the startup to balance the goal of profitability with another goal - the goal of good - the risks are likely to both grow and multiply. They grow to the extent that profits are threatened, and they multiply to the extent that balancing competing goals adds a dimension to the incentive problem. In this Article, we explore contracting terms specific to impact investing funds and their portfolio companies. We observe one possible private ordering mechanism to balance and align interests to serve both goals: employee ownership. Traditional VC investments confront contracting challenges as the portfolio companies and investors balance their interests, which may not align. The VC contracting literature identifies several agency costs that contractual terms can address. Contracts can help attract the right employees, then encourage them to work, stay, and share their best ideas. But, the existing literature addresses traditional agency costs with respect to the pursuit of a single monetary goal. Impact investment funds that balance monetary goals, short-term or long, with other goals may strike a different balance in negotiating with companies. We examine how the introduction of new motivations and interests into a precarious negotiation process shapes contracting outcomes. We address this question empirically by analyzing the role of employee stock ownership in impact investment fund contracts when investing in targeted portfolio companies. That a startup\u27s employees might receive shares and options is uncontroversial. Indeed, this appears in many ways to be fundamental to today\u27s startup culture. Might impact investors mandate that employees own shares as a means to balance dual goals? That is the key question for our analysis

Fashionable curiosities: extreme footwear as wearable fantasies

This paper considers an aspect of the material culture fashion, focusing on shoes. Like clothes, shoes are used every day: they are essential objects that primarily allow people to perform daily and socially accepted activities, walk comfortably and adorn the body in a fashionable way. Furthermore, shoes are associated with the idea of individuality and can be highly practical or decorative, depending on their design and fashion style. With regard to their style, one phenomenon emerging in high fashion is that of the “impossible-to-wear shoes”: exhibitions and fashion shows staging designers’ bizarre shoes are becoming more frequent. During these shows, the spectators are presented with an unusual variety of footwear (e.g. heelless shoes; shoes without soles; fish-shaped shoes). These shoes are not made to fit the individual. On the contrary, their shape and forms are imposed on the individuals. This paper explores the extreme, impossible-to-wear shoes and considers the visual statements they make about contemporary society, women and femininity. I will argue that impossible-to-wear shoes are puzzling yet charming objects, epitomizing a spectacle-centered society: they are part of unexpected and personal performances, which blend the boundaries of fashion and art and allow the wearers to shift from an ordinary “self” to the extraordinary “other”

TRAIL-Expressing Monocyte/Macrophages Are Critical for Reducing Inflammation and Atherosclerosis.

Circulating tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) levels are reduced in patients with cardiovascular disease, and TRAIL gene deletion in mice exacerbates atherosclerosis and inflammation. How TRAIL protects against atherosclerosis and why levels are reduced in disease is unknown. Here, multiple strategies were used to identify the protective source of TRAIL and its mechanism(s) of action. Samples from patients with coronary artery disease and bone-marrow transplantation experiments in mice lacking TRAIL revealed monocytes/macrophages as the main protective source. Accordingly, deletion of TRAIL caused a more inflammatory macrophage with reduced migration, displaying impaired reverse cholesterol efflux and efferocytosis. Furthermore, interleukin (IL)-18, commonly increased in plasma of patients with cardiovascular disease, negatively regulated TRAIL transcription and gene expression, revealing an IL-18-TRAIL axis. These findings demonstrate that TRAIL is protective of atherosclerosis by modulating monocyte/macrophage phenotype and function. Manipulating TRAIL levels in these cells highlights a different therapeutic avenue in the treatment of cardiovascular disease

Vivienne Westwood and the ethics of consuming fashion

Our paper examines ethical consumption using the case study of Vivienne Westwood, the fashion designer, and her eponymous firm, and shows how consumers of fashion might be considered ethical. The fashion industry has figured prominently in ethical debates, notably its role in encouraging overconsumption of resources and promoting an idealised lifestyle that is often neither materially nor psychically sustainable for consumers (Buchholz, 1998). We acknowledge this, yet suggest the purchase and use of clothing carries with it the potential to be ethical insofar as customers find themselves personally implicated with and caring for a designers' work