Trader Anonymity, Price Formation and Liquidity

We analyze price formation and liquidity in a non-anonymous specialist market. Our main hypothesis is that the non-anonymity allows the specialist to assess the probability that a trader trades on the basis of private information. He uses this knowledge to price discriminate. This can be achieved by quoting a large spread and granting price improvement to traders deemed uninformed. Our empirical results confirm this view. We document that price improvement reflects lower adverse selection costs but does not lead to a reduction in the specialist's profit. We further show that the quote adjustment following transactions at the quoted prices is more pronounced than the quote adjustment after transactions at prices inside the spread. The results thus support the notion that a non-anonymous environment allows the identification of informed traders and may thus alleviate the adverse selection problem.Anonymity; specialist; bid-ask spread

Work in Mennonite Theological Perspective

https://historicalpapers.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/historicalpapers/article/view/3926

From faith to food: using oral history to study corporate mythology in Canadian manufacturing firms

The study of corporate mythology, particularly through oral history, has received increasing attention from business historians. The role of corporate mythology is examined at two Canadian manufacturing companies: Loewen (a wooden window manufacturer in Steinbach, Manitoba) and WT Hawkins (makers of Cheezies, a cheese-flavoured snack made from extruded corn). Oral histories and Roland Barthes’ writings on mythology are used to study an advertising campaign at Loewen, while corporate records and oral histories are used to explore Hawkins’ corporate mythology. The author concludes that corporate mythology succeeded at Hawkins but failed at Loewen: Hawkins built a following for a single product made using outdated equipment, while Loewen reduced its workforce and was sold to a foreign holding company.https://www.jstor.org/stable/2434296

Aseneth’s Eight-Day Transformation as Scriptural Justification for Conversion

The author of Joseph and Aseneth writes a lengthy narrative about Aseneth’s conversion, thereby providing a justification for Joseph’s marriage to an Egyptian woman. The author explicitly connects her seven-day period of withdrawal to creation, thus portraying her conversion as a divinely wrought new creation. In addition, her eight-day conversion process imitates two similar processes from Jewish scripture. First, Aseneth’s transformation parallels the circumcision of the newborn male eight days after his birth. Second, on the eighth day Aseneth partakes of an angelic existence, conversing with an angel, eating the food of angels, and being dressed in angelic garb. This elevation in her status parallels the consecration of the priestly class in Lev 8, which goes through a period of seven days before it can serve as priests on the eighth day. This process thus stresses the distance between non-Jew and Jew, while at the same time providing a scriptural rationale for how Aseneth overcame it

The Many for One or One for the Many: Reading Mark 10:45 in the Roman Empire

Though the “many for one” political ideology was widespread in the first century CE, Mark 10:45 rejects this ideology. Instead, this type of rule is contrasted with Jesus’s own rule as a servant king, sacrificing himself (the one) for his followers (the many)