Herd on the Street: Informational Inefficiencies in a Market with Short-Term Speculation

Standard models of informed speculation suggest that traders try to learn information that others do not have. This result implicitly relies on the assumption that speculators have long horizons, i.e, can hold the asset forever. By contrast, we show that if speculators have short horizons, they may herd on the same information, trying to learn what other informed traders also know. There can be multiple herding equilibria, and herding speculators may even choose to study information that is completely unrelated to fundamentals. These equilibria are informationally inefficient.

Internal versus External Capital Markets

This paper presents a framework for analyzing the costs and benefits of internal vs. external capital allocation. We focus primarily on comparing an internal capital market to bank lending. While both represent centralized forms of financing, in the former case the financing is owner-provided, while in the latter case it is not. We argue that the ownership aspect of internal capital allocation has three important consequences: 1) it leads to more monitoring than bank lending; 2) it reduces managers' entrepreneurial incentives; and 3) it makes it easier to efficiently redeploy the assets of projects that are performing poorly under existing management.

LDC Debt: Forgiveness, Indexation, and Investment Incentives

We compare different indexation schemes in terms of their ability to facilitate forgiveness and reduce the investment disincentives associated with the large LDC debt overhang. Indexing to an endogenous variable (e.g., a country's output) has a negative moral hazard effect on investment, This problem does not arise when payments are linked to an exogenous variable such as commodity prices. Nonetheless, indexing payments to output may be useful when debtors know more about their willingness to invest than lenders. We also reach new conclusions about the desirability of default penalties under asymmetric information.

THE EXPERIENCE OF LEARNING IN A WEB-ENHANCED COURSE

Web based courses are being offered at more and more colleges and universities. In many instances, students do not have a choice whether to enroll in an online course. However, little research has looked at the experiences of these students as they learn in an online environment. This qualitative study used in depth interviews with volunteers from a web-enhanced course to examine the experience of learning online from the students’ perspective. Particular attention was paid to the impact of course structure and interaction and dialog among the students and instructor. The study found that lack of experience with the technology, frequency of feedback, language barriers, group size and subject matter all impacted students’ learning in this webenhanced course

The Relationship Among the Contributing Factors to Anorexia Nervosa

Anorexia nervosa is now being viewed as a multidimensional disorder in terms of predisposing factors such as genetics, biology, and environment. Results from twin studies suggest that part of a susceptibility to AN may lie in genetic factors (Holland et al., 1984, 1988; Treasure and Holland, 1991). However, the nature of a genetic contribution, if any, remains unclear. Neurochemical alterations have been found to be associated with AN, but it is difficult to assess what role these neurochemical changes play in the etiology of the disorder since they may precipitate, accompany, or follow weight loss (Fava et al., 1989). Abnormal family interactions (Humphrey et al., 1986; Kog and Vandereycken, 1989) and cultural practices of diet and exercise (Epling and Pierce, 1988) have also been implicated as contributing factors to AN. The cultural and familial models are deficient, however, in that they do not account for individual susceptibility (Treasure and Campbell, 1994). Further, issues of nature versus nurture have not been fully examined in family models. The lack of understanding in the exact nature and role of the contribution of these factors to the development of AN, and the further complex relationship among these factors present a problem for researchers in understanding the aetiology of the disorder

Faculty Mentoring At A Distance: Coming Together In The Virtual Community

This mixed-methods study explores how faculty in a virtual university experience the role of mentor working with doctoral students at a distance. This study uses faculty narratives to identify faculty actions that might be different from mentoring traditional doctoral students in a face to face program. In the new working adult universities, learners are not necessarily seeking initial careers through doctoral study but are enhancing established careers. The study investigates the mentoring skills on line faculty bring to the virtual learning space and describes how a graduate faculty teaching in a virtual learning space perform the role of mentor

Role Of Social Presence, Choice Of Online Or Face-To-Face Group Format, And Satisfaction With Perceived Knowledge Gained In A Distance Learning Environment

This mixed-methods study examined factors that contributed to satisfaction with perceived knowledge gained in a distance learning environment where collaboration represents a major portion of the course structure. Giving learners authority over the physical learning environment and offering different formats for collaboration, either online or in person, contributed to the learners’ overall satisfaction with the course. Results indicate that social presence may not have played a role in choice of distance learning format

Presence And Interaction In An Inquiry-Based Learning Environment

This mixed-methods study examined how interactions facilitated cognitive, social, and teaching presence in inquiry-based learning in a course where learners had the option to choose whether to conduct group work online or in person. Findings suggest that the knowledge learners gained from the course resulted from chats and discussions within their small groups and not from threaded discussions with the entire class. Results also indicate that learners with a high degree of social presence within their small groups developed a relationship that appeared to overshadow their relationship with classmates in other groups. Teaching presence may be affected by whether learners choose to collaborate in person or online and by where they choose to collaborate. The further the group moved away from the instructor’s online or physical presence, the lower the degree of teaching presence the learners felt

Ichthyological Bulletin of the J.L.B. Smith Institute of Ichthyology; No. 53

The liparidid fishes collected in the Southern Ocean by the U.S. Navy vessel “Eltanin” were reviewed in an unpublished M.Sc. thesis by the junior author (Tompkins, 1977). These collections include several hundred specimens, of which 134, representing at least 10 species of the genus Paraliparis, have been re-examined by the senior author and are the subject of the present paper. Descriptions are given for five new species of Antarctic Paraliparis: P. anarthractae, P. andriashevi, P. eltanini, P. incognita, and P. fuscolingua. Four of the new species are illustrated; the fifth (P. incognita) was illustrated by Andriashev (1986: Fig. 59) as P. terraenovae Regan, 1916. P. edentatus Andriashev, 1986 is synonymized with P. terraenovae, and additional data on this species are presented. A probable new species of Paraliparis is diagnosed but not named due to the poor condition of the single specimen. New records of five other rare species (P. antarcticus Regan P. devriesi Andriashev, P. meganchus Andriashev, P. stehmanni Andriashev, and P. tetrapteryx Andriashev) are discussed.Rhodes University Libraries (Digitisation

Distance Education Research in Adult Education Journals: A Content Analysis

This study examines adult-centered distance education research articles in two adult education journals: Adult Education Quarterly and the American Journal of Distance Education. Results show that studies of delivery modes and systems; i.e., asynchronous and synchronous modes, learning management systems, television and Web delivery, and course design were most prevalent in both journals. Among topics of interest to adult educators, the self-directed nature of distance learning was predominant. Other topics traditionally associated with adult education, such as access, equity, and social change themes in distance education, were least prevalent in both journals