Daily Cross-Border Equity Flows: Pushed or Pulled?

In a model that is consistent with the existence of a home bias and with foreign investors that are less informed than domestic investors, we show that unexpectedly high worldwide returns lead to net equity inflows into small countries. In addition, a small country experiences net equity inflows when its stocks earn unexpectedly high returns. We investigate these predictions using daily data on net equity flows for nine emerging market countries and find that equity flows are positively related to host country stock returns as well as market performance abroad. Both our theoretical model and our empirical analysis show that global stock return performance is an important factor in understanding equity flows.

Stock Market Trading and Market Conditions

This paper investigates the dynamic relation between market-wide trading activity and returns in 46 markets. Many stock markets exhibit a strong positive relation between turnover and past returns. These findings stand up in the face of various controls for volatility, alternative definitions for turnover, and differing sample periods, and are present at both the weekly and daily frequency. However, the magnitude of this relation varies widely across markets. Several competing explanations are examined by linking cross-country variables to the magnitude of the relation. The relation between returns and turnover is stronger in countries with restrictions on short sales and where stocks are highly cross-correlated; it is also stronger among individual investors than among foreign or institutional investors. In developed economies, turnover follows past returns more strongly in the 1980s than in the 1990s. The evidence is consistent with models of costly stock market participation in which investors infer that their participation is more advantageous following higher stock returns.

SELECTING FUNCTIONAL FORM IN PRODUCTION FUNCTION ANALYSIS

Functional form selection is a sometimes neglected aspect of applied research in production analysis. To provide an improved and uniform basis for form selection, a number of traditional and popular functional forms are catalogued with respect to intrinsic properties. Guidelines for the conduct of form selection are also discussed.Production Economics, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

SCHEDULING INPUTS WITH PRODUCTION FUNCTIONS: OPTIMAL NITROGEN PROGRAMS FOR RICE

The problem of scheduling input applications can be examined by extending conventional production function analysis. Using appropriately designed agricultural experiments, it is possible to estimate production function parameters with alternative specifications for input timing (and amount). A study of nitrogen applications to rice is employed to illustrate scheduling via production functions. Alternative specifications and functional forms are simultaneously examined to determine the sensitivity of economic results to these factors. Sensitivity is found to be high, and this finding is hypothesized to be critical for other approaches to input scheduling as well.Crop Production/Industries,

APPLICATION OF A BIO-ECONOMIC-ENGINEERING MODEL FOR SHRIMP MARICULTURE SYSTEMS

Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

A gateway to understanding confined ions

A new electrolyte gating technique probes the dynamics of the electrical double layer at the electrode–electrolyte interface. The experiments reveal an ion nanoconfinement effect that may help to explain supercapacitor charging mechanisms

C-5A Galaxy Systems Engineering Case Study

The C-5 Systems Engineering Case Study captures the untold story of the application of systems engineering during the concept exploration, development, and production of the USAF C-5A and C-5B aircraft. The case study examines and dissects the systems engineering process as applied by the Air Force C-5 System Program Office and the prime contractor, Lockheed, Georgia, from the program s genesis in 1957 to the last delivery of the C-5A and the beginning of the C-5B program in 1973. Numerous interviews were conducted with the principals who managed and directed the program and a story of the systems engineering process was developed. The case study traces the program s systems engineering process in translating a vision into 125 cargo transport aircraft that have served our nation proudly for the last 35 years