The Implications of Binding Farm Program Payment Limits Associated with Income Means Testing

Replaced with revised version of poster 07/20/11.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Ownership, Risk and Performance of Mutual Fund Management Companies

This paper compares the performance of mutual funds managed by publicly-traded management companies with those managed by private management companies. We find that publicly-traded management companies invest in riskier assets and charge higher management fees than do the funds managed by private management companies. The risk-adjusted returns of the mutual funds managed by publicly-traded management companies are also lower than those of the mutual funds managed by private management companies. This finding is consistent with both a risk spreading and agency cost argument. The paper also shows that the idiosyncratic risk of the publicly-traded management company's stock significantly differs from the idiosyncratic risk of the assets they manage, suggesting that previous research using the stock's idiosyncratic risk as a proxy for the idiosyncratic risk of the company's assets to study the determinants of publicly-traded companies' ownership concentration may be misleading.

Roles and regulation of membrane-associated serine proteases

Pericellular proteolytic activity affects many aspects of cellular behaviour, via mechanisms involving processing of the extracellular matrix, growth factors and receptors. The serine proteases have exquisitely sensitive regulatory mechanisms in this setting, involving both receptor-bound and transmembrane proteases. Receptor-bound proteases are exemplified by the uPA (urokinase plasminogen activator)/uPAR (uPAR receptor) plasminogen activation system. The mechanisms initiating the activity of this proteolytic system on the cell surface, a critical regulatory point, are poorly understood. We have found that the expression of the TTSP (type II transmembrane serine protease) matriptase is highly regulated in leucocytes, and correlates with the presence of active uPA on their surface. Using siRNA (small interfering RNA), we have demonstrated that matriptase specifically activates uPAR-associated pro-uPA. The uPA/uPAR system has been implicated in the activation of the plasminogen-related growth factor HGF (hepatocyte growth factor). However, we find no evidence for this, but instead that HGF can be activated by both matriptase and the related TTSP hepsin in purified systems. Hepsin is of particular interest, as the proteolytic cleavage sequence of HGF is an ‘ideal substrate’ for hepsin and membrane-associated hepsin activates HGF with high efficiency. Both of these TTSPs can be activated autocatalytically at the cell surface, an unusual mechanism among the serine proteases. Therefore these TTSPs have the capacity to be true upstream initiators of proteolytic activity with subsequent downstream effects on cell behaviour