Legal protection of investors, corporate governance, and investable premia in emerging markets

We examine the interaction between the legal protection of investors, corporate governance within firms, institutional development between countries, and investable premia in emerging markets. In a multi country setting and using a novel dataset we find that better-governed firms experience significantly greater stock price increases upon equity market liberalization. We look to see whether well-governed firms in poorly governed countries enjoy an investability premium as measured by Tobin’s q. We find they do. Investors look beyond the seemingly weak country-level governance structures, and focus on corporate governance.Investability, Corporate Governance, Tobin's q, Emerging Markets

Coherent adiabatic transport of atoms in radio-frequency traps

Coherent transport by adiabatic passage has recently been suggested as a high-fidelity technique to engineer the center-of-mass state of single atoms in inhomogeneous environments. While the basic theory behind this process is well understood, several conceptual challenges for its experimental observation have still to be addressed. One of these is the difficulty that currently available optical or magnetic micro-trap systems have in adjusting the tunneling rate time dependently while keeping resonance between the asymptotic trapping states at all times. Here we suggest that both requirements can be fulfilled to a very high degree in an experimentally realistic setup based on radio-frequency traps on atom chips. We show that operations with close to 100% fidelity can be achieved and that these systems also allow significant improvements for performing adiabatic passage with interacting atomic clouds

Antigen-specific suppression of inflammatory arthritis by dendritic cells

Purpose Antigen-specific suppression of a previously primed immune response is a major challenge for immunotherapy of autoimmune disease. We have shown that NF-κB inactivation in dendritic cells (modified DC) converts them into cells that tolerize rather than immunize to specific antigen [1]. Antigen-exposed modified DC prevent priming of immunity, and they suppress previously primed immune responses. Regulatory CD4+ T cells, which can transfer antigen-specific tolerance in an IL-10-dependent fashion, mediate the tolerance. We hypothesized that modified DC exposed to arthritogenic antigen would suppress clinical arthritis after disease onset. Methods Antigen-induced arthritis was induced in C57/Bl6 mice by priming to methylated bovine serum albumin (mBSA) antigen followed by challenge injection of mBSA to one knee. Knee swelling was apparent within 2 days, with peak clinical signs apparent at 5 days. Mice were treated with antigen-exposed modified DC between 2 and 6 days after mBSA challenge to the knee joint. Results Clinical arthritis was suppressed in each group receiving mBSA-exposed modified DC within 4 days compared with mice that received either no DC or keyhole limpet hemocyanin-exposed modified DC. Clinical improvement was associated with mBSA-specific tolerance in mice receiving mBSA-exposed modified DC. Tolerance induction was not impaired by concomitant administration of anti-tumor necrosis factor alpha monoclonal antibody. Subsequent rechallenge with intra-articular IL-1 induced flare of arthritis in all groups, which could be effectively suppressed by a second administration of mBSA-exposed modified DC. Conclusions The data indicate that modified DC induce antigen-specific immune suppression in this model of inflammatory arthritis, even after full clinical expression of the disease. These observations have important implications for antigen-specific therapy of autoimmunity

Legal protection of investors, corporate governance, and investable premia in emerging markets. Department of Economic Finance and Accounting Working Paper Series N229-12

We examine the interaction between the legal protection of investors, corporate governance within firms, institutional development between countries, and investable premia in emerging markets. In a multi country setting and using a novel dataset we find that better-governed firms experience significantly greater stock price increases upon equity market liberalization. We look to see whether well-governed firms in poorly governed countries enjoy an investability premium as measured by Tobin’s q. We find they do. Investors look beyond the seemingly weak country-level governance structures, and focus on corporate governance

Legal protection of investors, corporate governance, and investable premia in emerging markets. Department of Economic Finance and Accounting Working Paper Series N229-12

We examine the interaction between the legal protection of investors, corporate governance within firms, institutional development between countries, and investable premia in emerging markets. In a multi country setting and using a novel dataset we find that better-governed firms experience significantly greater stock price increases upon equity market liberalization. We look to see whether well-governed firms in poorly governed countries enjoy an investability premium as measured by Tobin’s q. We find they do. Investors look beyond the seemingly weak country-level governance structures, and focus on corporate governance

Quarterly Economic Commentary, Autumn 2010. RESEARCH BULLETIN 10/3

The two most significant announcements on economic matters since the last Commentary were the release of the Quarterly National Accounts for Q2 2010 on 23 September 2010 and the government’s statement on banking on 30 September. In the case of the former, the news was, at best, disappointing while in the case of the latter, it was horrendous. Both have impacted upon our view of the timing of potential recovery in the economy and on appropriate policy

Quarterly Economic Commentary, Winter 2010. RESEARCH BULLETIN 10/4

The forecasts in this Commentary see GDP growing by 1½ per cent in real terms in 2011 and by 2¼ per cent in 2012. The corresponding figures for GNP are ¼ per cent in 2011 and 1½ per cent in 2012. Following the pattern of 2010, the growth which is envisaged for 2011 and 2012 is made up of a strong export performance together with further contractions in domestic demand

The dark haloes of early-type galaxies in low-density environments: XMM-Newton and Chandra observations of NGC 57, NGC 7796 and IC 1531

We present analysis of Chandra and XMM-Newton observations of three early-type galaxies, NGC 57, NGC 7796 and IC 1531. All three are found in very low density environments, and appear to have no neighbours of comparable size. NGC 57 has a halo of kT~0.9 keV, solar metallicity gas, while NGC 7796 and IC 1531 both have ~0.55 keV, 0.5-0.6 Zsol haloes. IC 1531 has a relatively compact halo, and we consider it likely that gas has been removed from the system by the effects of AGN heating. For NGC 57 and NGC 7796 we estimate mass, entropy and cooling time profiles and find that NGC 57 has a fairly massive dark halo with a mass-to-light ratio of 44.7 (4.0,-8.5) Msol/Lsol (1 sigma uncertainties) at 4.75 Re. This is very similar to the mass-to-light ratio found for NGC 4555 and confirms that isolated ellipticals can possess sizable dark matter haloes. We find a significantly lower mass-to-light ratio for NGC 7796, 10.6 (+2.5,-2.3) Msol/Lsol at 5 Re, and discuss the possibility that NGC 7796 hosts a galactic wind, causing us to underestimate its mass.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Multi-asset class mutual funds: Can they time the market? Evidence from the US, UK and Canada

The importance of asset allocation decisions in wealth management is well established. However, given its importance it is perhaps surprising that so little attention has been paid to the question of whether professional fund managers are skilful at timing market movement across asset classes over time. The timing literature has tended to concentrate on the timing skill of single asset class funds. Using data on US, UK and Canadian multi-asset class funds, we apply two alternative methodologies to identify the asset class timing abilities of managers. Overall, whether we apply a returns-based method or a holdings-based testing approach, we find evidence of only a tiny minority of funds with asset class timing ability