The politics of London air : John Evelyn's 'Fumifugium' and the Restoration

Historians have commonly described John Evelyn's pamphlet about London smoke pollution, Fumifugium, as a precocious example of environmental concern. This paper argues that such an interpretation is too simple. Evelyn's proposals are shown to be closely related to political allegory and the panegyrics written to welcome the newly restored Charles II. However, the paper also shows that Fumifugium was not simply a literary conceit; rather it exemplified the mid-seventeenth-century English interest in the properties of air that is visible in both the Hartlib circle and the early Royal Societ

Review of periodical articles

[First Paragraph] There is only one true city, wrote St Augustine, and it is not of this world. The pessimistic Christian response to the fall of Rome in AD 410, epitomized in Augustine's City of God, affected the development of the later medieval city to a degree which has yet, even now, to be fully appreciated. In the Christian city of the Middle Ages the divinity was normally confined to the sanctuaries of his churches, whose topographical prominence and harmonious proportions made manifest an otherwise hidden spiritual order. Outside the cloister gates, disorder reigned: a general lack of planning revealed the meaninglessness of the outward, secular life. This dichotomy between an inner world of spirit and a public world of transient matter was embodied in the recurrent tensions between spiritual and secular space which ran as a motif throughout the history of medieval towns. Modern studies which have emphasized (not, of course, without reason) the secular political and economic power of ecclesiastical institutions in the medieval city have perhaps distracted attention unduly from the real differences of ethos which, within the town, distinguished religious space from that of the surrounding lay world

Review of periodical articles

One of the attractions of medieval urban history is the fact that major conceptual problems in the field continue to be debated. In a stimulating review article by J.H. Mundy, ’Philip Jones and the medieval Italian city-state‘, J. of European Economic History, 28 (1999), 185–200, one distinguished scholar is taxed for holding views now dismissed by some, but of which he is by no means a unique surviving representative. One of these views assumes a clear distinction between the antique city, supposedly a bureaucratic centre with limited economic functions, and the medieval city, as the home of industrious artisans and nascent capitalism. The image of the non-profit-making ancient town may be overly indebted to the nature of the literary sources and to the prevalent interests of classicists; but, although many would now agree that both the elements in the above equation need qualifying, a more focused comparison is presently lacking, and a fine book is still waiting to be written on the transition from the ancient world to the middle ages in urban history

Diversification in Private Equity Funds:On Knowledge-sharing, Risk-aversion and Limited-attention

This paper examines diversification as a source of value creation and destruction in private equity. The literature has focused on the `diversification discount' in corporations. It has not analyzed diversification in PE-funds, where diversification might increase value by ameliorating managerial risk aversion and by facilitating knowledge sharing. Thus, I examine a sample of 1505 PE-funds to show that industry and geographic diversification increases PE-fund returns on average, this is likely due to knowledge-sharing/learning, and is not due to mere risk-reduction or endogeneity. Diversification can also destroy value if it spreads staff too thinly across industries/regions or is motivated by risk-aversion over performance bonuses.

High Frequency Trading, Information, and Takeovers

This paper (1) proposes new variables to detect informed high-frequency trading (HFT), (2) shows that HFT can help to predict takeover targets, and (3) shows that HFT in uences target announcement announcement returns. Prior literature suggests that informed trade may occur before takeovers, but has not examined the role of HFT and has relied on monthly measures of informed trade (such as PIN or the spread components). I propose microstructure-based variables to detect HFT that are derived from hazard modeling and from VWAP trading algorithms. I show that these can help predict takeover targets and are significantly related to target announcement returns. This highlights the existence of pre-takeover informed trade and the need to control for it when analyzing takeover returns.

Diversification in Private Equity Funds:On Knowledge-sharing, Risk-aversion and Limited-attention

This paper examines diversification as a source of value creation and destruction in private equity. The literature has focused on the `diversification discount' in corporations. It has not analyzed diversification in PE-funds, where diversification might increase value by ameliorating managerial risk aversion and by facilitating knowledge sharing. Thus, I examine a sample of 1505 PE-funds to show that industry and geographic diversification increases PE-fund returns on average, this is likely due to knowledge-sharing/learning, and is not due to mere risk-reduction or endogeneity. Diversification can also destroy value if it spreads staff too thinly across industries/regions or is motivated by risk-aversion over performance bonuses.

Internal and External Discipline Following Securities Class Actions

Companies are sometimes accused of misleading the market. The SEC can punish this with enforcement actions. Alternatively, shareholders can seek redress through a shareholder class action (SCA). While some literature has examined SEC actions, it has not examined SCAs, and has not examined external discipline and the managers's future employment prospects after either action. Thus, using a sample of 416 securities class actions, this paper shows that SCAs are a catalyst to promote disciplinary takeovers, CEO/CFO turnover and CEO/CFO pay-cuts, and harm CEOs future job-prospects. This suggests that even if the law governing SCAs is sub-optimal, they can still induce internal and external discipline.Securities Class Actions;Securities Law;Governance;Ethics;Takeovers;Managerial Turnover;Fraud;Disclosure