"Words Gone Sour?"

In this paper, I highlight some important implications of a non-individualistic account of derogatory words. I do so by critically examining an intriguing claim of Jennifer Hornsby‘s: that derogatory words – words that, as she puts it, ―apply to people, and that are commonly understood to convey hatred and contempt‖ – are useless for us. In their stead, she maintains, we employ neutral counterparts: words ―that apply to the same people, but whose uses do not convey these things. I argue that Hornsby‘s distinctions – between derogatory words and neutral counterparts, and them (speakers who have use for the former) and us (who do not) – is not sustainable. I begin by considering examples that suggest that some of the words that some of us have use for are indeed derogatory. I then offer reasons for thinking that words that would presumably be identified as acceptable counterparts to derogatory words are not, in general, neutral

Truth and Reference in Fiction

Fiction is often characterized by way of a contrast with truth, as, for example, in the familiar couplet “Truth is always strange/ Stranger than fiction" (Byron 1824). And yet, those who would maintain that “we will always learn more about human life and human personality from novels than from scientific psychology” (Chomsky 1988: 159) hold that some truth is best encountered via fiction. The scrupulous novelist points out that her work depicts no actual person, either living or dead; nonetheless, we use names from fiction in ways that suggest that we take these names to refer. Philosophers who investigate fiction aim to reconcile such apparently incompatible phenomena, and, in general, to account for the myriad ways that we talk, think, and feel about fiction

The Impact Of Analysts? Recommendations: Evidence From The Athens Stock Exchange

This study aims to investigate the usefulness of analysts’ recommendations on firms listed on the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). It contradicts the majority of published works which conclude that analysts’ recommendations do offer valuable investment opportunities. The unique feature of this work is that it sheds light on the issue, adopting a practical approach stemming from the investor’s point of view. It is shown through an event study methodology, that analysts’ recommendations do not result to any significant excess returns

Size effect still present in the Athens stock exchange

This study aims to shed some light on the academic debate about the validity of CAPM and whether systematic risk is the only factor that is priced in the markets. The fact that other factors have proved to offer return premiums in the capital markets is presented in the finance literature as anomaly. The firm size has been shown by a plethora of studies to be negatively related with returns, a phenomenon that is called small firm effect. However, recent empirical studies have claimed that the small firm effect has come to an end globally in the late 1980s. This paper comes to fill that gap and examine whether the presented size effect in the Athens Stock Exchange for the 1970s and early 1980s has still been strong in the recent years. The results show that size is negatively related to returns in the period 1990-2001 and in all of the specific market conditions studied, with various beta estimates being incapable of explaining the risk – return relationship even when thin trading is taking into account. Standard deviation as a measure of total risk proves to explain partially the constant superior returns of small firms since it is implied that these returns could be a compensation for the higher volatility involved.peer-reviewe

An empirical investigation of underpricing in Greek IPO’s : 1990-2003

This paper discusses evidence on the initial underpricing of Initial Public Offerings in the Athens Stock Exchange, during the period 1990-2003. Differences in average initial returns are analyzed in terms of differential IPO characteristics. The findings suggest that in the Athens Stock Exchange there exists a relatively high degree of information asymmetry. The findings are similar to those, which have been observed in the majority of the emerging markets.peer-reviewe

Technical analysis seems to be a valuable investment tool in the Athens and Frankfurt stock exchanges

This study investigates the forecast power of technical analysis in the equity markets by applying simple technical trading rules to the Athens General Index and DAX. The results produce evidence that technical analysis is a valuable investment tool, especially in the case of the Athens Stock Exchange. Moreover, the ability of simple moving average rules appears to be dominant in the last few years, when excess returns are earned over a naïve buy-and-hold strategy even after the deduction of transaction costs.peer-reviewe

A meta-analysis of the investment-uncertainty relationship

In this article we use meta-analysis to investigate the investment-uncertainty relationship. We focus on the direction and statistical significance of empirical estimates. Specifically, we estimate an ordered probit model and transform the estimated coefficients into marginal effects to reflect the changes in the probability of finding a significantly negative estimate, an insignificant estimate, or a significantly positive estimate. Exploratory data analysis shows that there is little empirical evidence for a positive relationship. The regression results suggest that the source of uncertainty, the level of data aggregation, the underlying model specification, and differences between short- and long-run effects are important sources of variation in study outcomes. These findings are, by and large, robust to the introduction of a trend variable to capture publication trends in the literature. The probability of finding a significantly negative relationship is higher in more recently published studies. JEL Classification: D21, D80, E22 1