The Role of Information Asimmetries and Inflation Hedging in International Equity Portfolios

We investigate the role of information asymmetries and inflation hedging in shaping international equity portfolios. We confirm, in a multinational setting, Cooper and Kaplanis (1994) result of no inflation hedging motive driving investors' behavior and find evidence of a crucial role for financial market development and trade linkages.equity home bias; portfolio choice; inflation hedging; information asymmetries

The Crucial Role of Working Memory in Intellectual Functioning

Cognitive psychology offers an important contribution to the understanding of the mechanisms underlying intelligence. In this paper, we synthesize the research showing that, among the different cognitive mechanisms associated with intelligence, working memory has a particularly high explanatory power, especially when considered in its active component involving not only the maintenance (as in short-term memory) but also the manipulation of information. The paper considers two main implications of this finding for the applied and clinical fields. For a start, we examine how intelligence tests take into consideration working memory. Secondly, we consider the highly debated literature on the effects of working memory training on intellectual performance. Theoretical and applied implications for the relationship between working memory and intelligence are discussed

The relationship between working memory and intelligence in children: Is the scoring procedure important?

Different procedures have been proposed for scoring working memory (WM) tasks. The Absolute Credit Score (ACS) only considers performance in perfectly recalled trials, while the Partial Credit Score (PCS) considers imperfectly recalled ones too. Research indicates that different relationships between WM and general intelligence (the g-factor) may emerge using the ACS or the PCS. We reanalyzed the ACS and PCS obtained in a sample of 176 children in the 4th and 5th grades, and found that the PCS strengthened the relationship between WM and intelligence, and the relationships between visuospatial short-term memory (STM-VS), active WM and intelligence. When the number of items to be remembered (set size) was considered, however, the PCS only strengthened the relationship between STM-VS, active WM and intelligence in the case of larger set sizes. Practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed

A reduced form of the CPM (A + AB): A useful tool for the assessment of children under six years of age

The progressive matrices of Raven (CPM) is a very useful test for clinicians. The CPM has three series (A, AB and B), with twelve items for each. In the present study, we showed that the B series is inappropriate for children below six years old. Therefore, we calculated norms for children between 3 and 6 years old in a reduced form of CPM (A + AB). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. © 2015, Societa Editrice il Mulino. All rights reserved