Let's Get "Real" About Using Economic Data

Breeden, Gibbons and Litzenberger (1989), and Lamont (1999), use "economic tracking portfolios" to forecast macroeconomic data. Tracking portfolios are constructed to reflect market expectations and reveal the impact of news. However, these papers, as well as many related studies which examine the market impact of macroeconomic news, use "currently available" macroeconomic data. The combination of various different "vintages" of economic data has several important and undesirable consequences, particularly when the timing of information and its impact on financial markets is the focus of investigation. We therefore use a real-time macroeconomic data set to accurately mimic the accumulation of macroeconomic information in real time. We attempt to shed new light on the methodology used to construct tracking portfolios, as well as on the impact of macroeconomic news on financial markets. In addition, we address a number of related questions, including: Does the data revision process itself have an impact on financial markets? Do market participants: (i) care about "final" releases of macroeconomic variables; or (ii) form their decisions based on preliminary data; or (iii) instead form their decisions by using vintages of data which they assume correspond to those vintages used by public policy decision-makers?

Pastoral Effectiveness : a Study of Differences Among Comparison Groups of Seventh-day Adventist Clergy

Problem. Methods of comparison are required to evaluate pastoral effectiveness. This study was an examination of statistically significant differences among contrasted groups of clergy to identify characteristics and performance patterns associated with productivity and effectiveness. Method. Pastors from Anglo Seventh-day Adventist churches in North America and Canada were assigned to five groups that were evaluated using the Adventist Pastor Inventory, Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire, Pastoral Tasks Survey, and Pastoral Tasks Questionnaire. Ministers who baptized 50 or more persons within 3 years were compared with those who baptized 10 or fewer in the same period and clergy rated most effective and least effective by supervisors were compared. Randomly selected pastors were assigned to a reference group. Results. Statistically significant differences among the groups (p \u3c .05) were identified by means of the four instruments using Chi Square, Analysis of Variance, Multivariate Analysis of Variance, and Discriminant Analysis procedures. High-baptism pastors were more oriented toward warm relationships with people, were more likely to have achieved scholastic honors, and to have attended the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary. They were likely to have spent more time on seven aspects of their work, and to have been rated as more proficient at 20 of 25 pastoral tasks. The pastors rated most effective by their ministerial directors were more likely to have received academic honors, involved laity in ministry, had broader career aspirations within ministry, and seen greater numerical growth in their congregations. Characteristically they were evaluated as less submissive, more disciplined, and more group-oriented than the less-effective pastors. According to lay-leaders\u27 ratings, the more-effective group spent more time on 12 aspects of their work, and their task proficiency was rated superior on 23 of 25 pastoral tasks

Language teachers’ sense of efficacy during the COVID-19 pandemic

To say that the COVID-19 global pandemic quickly changed the educational landscape in an understatement. The pandemic added another challenging hurdle for educators and students alike as they had to pivot almost immediately from one week to another from traditional face-to-face teaching practices to unfamiliar remote, online environments. Research shows that few teacher education programs in the United States of America (USA) prepared pre-service teachers to deliver instruction remotely (Archambault et al., 2016). In an effort to explore world language teachers’ sense of efficacy during the pandemic, the author surveyed in-service world language teachers (N = 497) in the United States to understand differences in one’s sense of efficacy teaching languages in the traditional face-to-face context as compared with having to teach remotely online. Participants took the Second/Foreign Language Teacher Efficacy Scale online near the end of the academic school year in 2020. Results show stark differences in the participants’ sense of efficacy teaching languages in traditional, face-to-face contexts and teaching online. The findings provide manifold implications for world language teacher preparation as well as teacher retention and professional development

The 4 r’s of edTPA: Rationale, roadblocks, remediation, and recommendations

In use in 954 educator preparation programs in 41 states and the District of Columbia (American Association for Colleges of Teacher Education, 2021), edTPA seeks to measure beginning teacher effectiveness. While used by many states to inform teacher licensure or certification decisions, this high-stakes assessment is highly problematic. In this article, the authors provide an overview of the World Language edTPA and Communicative Language Teaching approaches, on which the World Language edTPA is based, before specifically noting its shortcomings as an effective instrument to measure novice teacher prowess. Citing longitudinal national data, the authors call attention to the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity’s dilemma of producing a valid and reliable assessment and promoting the corporatization of education for profit while so many teacher candidates are found to be disadvantaged by having to submit edTPA portfolios. Additionally, the authors advance several empirically grounded solutions to help teacher candidates score better when submitting their portfolio for external review—another highly controversial aspect of edTPA. Teacher accountability measures are important, but factors often excluded from discussion such as cost and local expertise must become central to the process

Spanish Teachers’ Communication Competence as It Relates to Student Performance on the National Spanish Exams

Educational policy today advances the notion that effective teachers must be highly qualified. While teacher candidates must pass various exams and have strong content knowledge, today’s tool to measure teacher effectiveness is clearly how K-12 students perform on various state and national assessments. While research shows that there are other qualities that effective teachers possess such as a strong sense of efficacy, this article reports on the relationship between Spanish teachers’ (N = 370) socio-communicative orientation and cognitive flexibility, and their students’ (N = 10,973) scores on the National Spanish Exams. This study is framed conceptually in the notions of clear teaching and communicative competence. Teachers’ data were divided into four different communicative types (Competent, Aggressive, Submissive, and Non-competent) for analysis and their students’ mean scores on the exams were compared across the groups. Multivariate analyses suggest that there is a positive relationship between Spanish teacher socio-communicative orientation, cognitive flexibility, and students’ scores on the exams. This research has implications for multiple stakeholders, highlighting the importance of developing communicative competence and versatility in teaching Spanish

Let's Get "Real" about Using Economic Data.

We show that using data which are properly available in real time when assessing the sensitivity of asset prices to economic news leads to different empirical findings than when data availability and timing issues are ignored. We do this by focusing on a particular example, namely Chen, Roll and Ross (1986), and examine whether innovations to economic variables can be viewed as risks that are rewarded in asset markets. Our findings support the view that data uncertainty is sufficiently prevalent to warrant careful use of real-time data when forming real-time news measures, and in general when undertaking empirical financial investigations involving macroeconomic data.

Let's Get "Real" about Using Economic Data

We show that using data which are properly available in real time when assessing the sensitivity of asset prices to economic news leads to different empirical findings that when data availability and timing issues are ignored. We do this by focusing on a particular example, namely Chen, Roll and Ross (1986), and examine whether innovations to economic variables can be viewed as risks that are rewarded in asset markets. Our findings support the view that data uncertainty is sufficiently prevalent to warrant careful use of real-time data when forming real-time news measures, and in general when undertaking empirical financial investigations involving macroeconomic data. Nous démontrons que l'utilisation de données qui sont disponibles en temps réel pour établir la sensibilité des prix d'actifs aux nouvelles économiques mène à des résultats empiriques différents de ceux obtenus lorsque la disponibilité des données et les considérations temporelles ne sont pas prises en compte. Pour ce faire, nous nous concentrons sur un exemple en particulier, c'est-à-dire Chen, Roll et Ross (1986), et nous regardons si les innovations aux variables économiques peuvent être perçues comme étant des risques qui sont récompensés dans les marchés des actifs. Nos résultats entérinent la présomption que l'incertitude des données est suffisamment prévalente pour assurer une utilisation prudente des données en temps réel lors de l'établissement de mesures de nouvelles en temps réel, et en général lorsqu'on entreprend des enquêtes financières empiriques impliquant des données macroéconomiques.Market efficiency, expectations, news, data revision process, Efficacité des marchés, attentes, nouvelles, processus de révision des données