demand curves for stocks do slope down new evidence from an index weights adjustment weights in the toronto stock exchange 300 index are determined by the market values of the included stocks public floats in november 1996 the exchange implemented a previously announced revision of its definition of the public float this revision which increased the floats and the index weights of 31 stocks conveyed no information and had no effect on the legal duties of shareholders affected stocks experienced statistically significant excess returns of 2 3 percent during the event week and no price reversal occurred as trading volume returned to normal levels these findings support downward sloping demand curves for stocks an obvious event with which to examine the slope of demand curves for stocks is one that changes supply in the absence of new information a shift in supply should not affect stock prices if demand curves for stocks are flat scholes 1972 using a sample of secondary equity distributions asks whether stocks are unique works of art or merely abstract claims to residual cash flows with many close substitutes as is assumed in much of finance theory scholes finds that the negative price impact of secondary offerings depends on the seller s identity implying the revelation of unfavorable informationand rules out a pure supply effect mikkelson and partch 1985 also using a sample of registered and unregistered secondary offerings find weak evidence of downward sloping demand curves but are unable to cleanly distinguish this explanation from the alternative explanation based on unfavorable information a different class of events additions to widely followed stock market indexes ostensibly provides a setting where information effects should not be present shleifer 1986 documents a permanent price increase for stocks

the transactions demand for money in a two currency economy abstract in this paper the model of the transactions demand for money of baumol 1952 is extended to an economy where transactions are conducted in two currencies the currency substitution hypothesis that the domestic demand for domestic money depends on the expected rate of depreciation as well as the domestic rate of interest and level of income is derived from the model in addition several new insights into the implications of currency substitution are provided

cross country variation in household access to financial services abstract this paper presents estimates for more than 160 countries of the fraction of the adult population using formal financial intermediaries the estimates are constructed by combining information on account numbers at banks and microfinance institutions together with banking depth and gdp data with estimates from household surveys for a smaller set of countries an illustrative application of the data compares them with information on poverty there is a correlation but it is not clearly causal

dollarization and currency exchange abstract we use a dual currency money search model to study dollarization agents hold portfolios consisting of two currencies one of which is risky we use numerical methods to solve for the steady state distributions of currency portfolios transaction patterns and value functions as risk increases agents increasingly use the safe currency as a medium of exchange dollarization occurs furthermore the safe currency trades for multiple units of the risky currency this type of currency exchange and the corresponding nominal exchange rate are often observed in black market or unofficial currency exchange markets in developing countries due to decentralized trading a distribution of exchange rates arises whose mean and variance change in predictable ways when currency risk increases

payments data do consumers want banks to keep them in a safe or turn them into gold abstractfor policymakers seeking to protect financial stability and financial institutions it is key to know consumers attitudes towards payments data usage this article provides detailed insigh

university spin out companies and venture capital abstract the creation of university spin out companies that create wealth is a major policy objective of governments and universities finance is a catalyst of this wealth creation yet access to venture capital is a major impediment faced by these companies in this article we adopt a finance pecking order perspective to examine the problems faced by those university spin out companies seeking to access venture capital we triangulate evidence from spin out companies university technology transfer offices and venture capital firms in the uk and continental europe to identify the problems and to suggest policy developments for these parties as well as government we compare perceptions of high tech venture capital firms that invest in spin outs with those that do not and also consider vcs views on spin outs versus other high tech firms our evidence identifies a mismatch between the demand and supply side of the market in line with the pecking order theory venture capitalists prefer to invest after the seed stage however in contrast to the pecking order theory ttos see venture capital as more important than internal funds early on we develop policy implications for universities technology transfer offices academic entrepreneurs venture capital firms and government and suggest areas for further research

reaching out access to and use of banking services across countries the authors 1 present new indicators of banking sector penetration across 99 countries based on a survey of bank regulatory authorities 2 show that these indicators predict household and firm use of banking services 3 explore the association between the outreach indicators and measures of financial institutional and infrastructure development across countries and 4 relate these banking outreach indicators to measures of firms financing constraints in particular they find that greater outreach is correlated with standard measures of financial development as well as with economic activity controlling for these factors the authors find that better communication and transport infrastructure and better governance are also associated with greater outreach government ownership of financial institutions translates into lower access while more concentrated banking systems are associated with greater outreach finally firms in countries with higher branch and atm penetration and higher use of loan services report lower financing obstacles thus linking banking sector outreach to the alleviation of firms financing constraints

planning and financial literacy how do women fare many older us households have done little or no planning for retirement and there is a substantial population that seems to undersave for retirement of particular concern is the relative position of older women who are more vulnerable to old age poverty due to their longer longevity this paper uses data from a special module we devised on planning and financial literacy in the 2004 health and retirement study it shows that women display much lower levels of financial literacy than the older population as a whole in addition women who are less financially literate are also less likely to plan for retirement and be successful planners these findings have important implications for policy and for programs aimed at fostering financial security at older ages

big fish in small ponds the trading behavior and price impact of foreign investors in asian emerging equity markets this paper analyzes a new dataset for the aggregate daily trading of all foreign investors in six asian emerging equity markets and provides two new findings first foreigners flows into several markets show positive feedback trading with respect to global as well as domestic equity returns the nature of this trading suggests it is due to behavioral factors or foreigners extracting information from recent returns rather than portfolio rebalancing effects second the price impacts associated with foreigners trading are much larger than earlier estimates the results suggest that foreign investors and external conditions have a larger impact on emerging markets than implied by previous work

the role of social capital in financial development to identify the effect of social capital on financial development we exploit social capital differences within italy in high social capital areas households are more likely to use checks invest less in cash and more in stock have higher access to institutional credit and make less use of informal credit the effect of social capital is stronger where legal enforcement is weaker and among less educated people these results are not driven by omitted environmental variables since we show that the behavior of movers is still affected by the level of social capital of the province where they were born

why do people save in cash distrust memories of banking crises weak institutions and dollarization abstract the paper analyzes why households hold sizeable shares of their assets in cash at home rather than at banks a phenomenon that is widespread in many economies but for which information is scarce using survey data from ten central eastern and southeastern european countries i document the relevance of this behavior and show that cash preferences cannot be fully explained by whether people are banked or unbanked the analysis reveals that a lack of trust in banks memories of past banking crises and weak tax enforcement are important factors moreover cash preferences are stronger in dollarized economies where a safe foreign currency serves as a store of value

the growth and geographical anatomy of venture capitalism in the united kingdom martin r l 1989 the growth and geographical anatomy of venture capitalism in the united kingdom reg studies 23 389 403 the 1980s have seen the emergence and rapid growth of venture capitalism in the uk this paper examines this growth both in terms of the spatial organization of the venture capital industry and the regional distribution of venture capital investment the picture that emerges is of an industry which is over centralized in the london area and which in the course of its recent development has tended to concentrate investment in the already more prosperous southeastern and adjacent parts of the country while local venture capital markets are beginning to become established in northern britain it will be some time before the existing regional imbalance is likely to be redressed martin r l 1989 la croissance et la distribution geographique du capital risque au royaume uni reg studies 23 389 403 les annees 1980 ont temoigne de la naissance et de l essor du capital risque au

do domestic investors have an information advantage evidence from indonesia using transaction data from the jakarta stock exchange i find three pieces of evidence which indicate that domestic investors have an information advantage over foreign investors first foreign investors systematically buy at higher and sell at lower intra day prices than domestic investors second foreign investors tend to sell prior to large positive returns finally the permanent impact of foreign purchases is smaller than that of domestic purchases over time prices at which foreign investors trade have worsened while foreign selling prior to positive returns has disappeared

the empire is dead long live the empire long run persistence of trust and corruption in the bureaucracy we hypothesise that the habsburg empire with its well respected administration increased citizens trust in local public services in several eastern european countries communities on both sides of the long gone habsburg border have shared common formal institutions for a century now we use a border specification and a two dimensional geographic regression discontinuity design to identify from individuals living within a restricted band around the former border we find that historical habsburg affiliation increases current trust and reduces corruption in courts and police falsification tests of spuriously moved borders geographic and pre existing differences and interpersonal trust corroborate a genuine habsburg effect

extensive margins and the demand for money at low interest rates we argue that the relevant monetary decision for the majority of u s households is not the fraction of assets to be held in interest bearing form but whether to hold any such assets at all we call this the decision to adopt the financial technology we show that the key variable governing the adoption decision is the product of the interest rate times the total amount of assets this implies that the interest elasticity of household money demand at low interest rates can be estimated from the variation in asset holdings in a cross section of households rather than historical interest rate variations we do so with the 1989 survey of consumer finances we find that a the elasticity of money demand is very small when the interest rate is small b the probability that a household holds any amount of interest bearing assets is positively related to the level of financial assets and c the cost of adopting financial technologies is negatively related to participation in a pension program at intere

venture capital high technology and regional development florida r l and kenney m 1988 venture capital high technology and regional development reg studies 22 33 48 this paper explores the role of venture capital in technological innovation and regional development both aggregate data and a unique firm level data base are employed to determine the location of major centres of venture capital flows of venture capital investments and patterns of investment syndication or coinvestment among venture capital firms three major centres of venture capital are identified california san francisco silicon valley new york and new england massachusetts connecticut as well as three minor venture capital centres illinois chicago texas and minnesota venture capital firms are found to cluster in areas with high concentrations of financial institutions and those with high concentrations of technology intensive enterprises venture capital firms which are based in financial centres are typically export oriented while those in technology centres tend t

venture finance small firms and public policy in the uk abstract during the tenure of the current conservative administration public policy in britain has very much favoured the smaller firm this policy emphasis appears to be based on a belief in the superior job creating potential and innovatory capacity of smaller firms over their larger counterparts evidence presented in the paper shows that small firms have indeed made an important contribution to innovation in the uk and that their share of significant british innovations has increased significantly since the mid 1970s an important aspect of small firm policy in the uk has been the introduction of several schemes designed to increase the flow of capital into the small firm sector with special emphasis being placed on venture capital the first of these schemes the loan guarantee scheme has directed capital from the banks into over 14 000 small firms the second scheme the business expansion scheme has increased significantly the overall flow of venture capital and has biased investments towards start up and early stage financing these two schemes together with the establishment of an unlisted securities market have provided some impetus to the development of private sector venture capital in britain which is growing apace essentially the public sector schemes have underwritten the costs of entry to the venture capital market of both individual and institutional investors in other words they have had an important catalytic effect in stimulating the growth of private sector venture capital industry which is now the largest in europe

the euroization of bank deposits in eastern europe in central eastern and southeastern europe a substantial share of bank deposits are denominated in foreign currency deposit euroization poses key challenges for monetary policy and financial sector supervision on the one hand it limits the effectiveness of monetary policy interventions on the other hand it increases financial sector fragility by exposing banks to currency risk or currency induced credit risk policymakers disagree on whether countries in the region should tackle deposit euroization with dedollarization policies or should rather strive to adopt the euro as their legal tender assessing the potential effectiveness of dedollarization policies requires a clear understanding of which households hold foreign currency deposits and why they do so on the basis of survey data covering 16 375 households in ten countries in 2011 and 2012 we provide a comprehensive household level analysis of deposit euroization in central eastern and southeastern europe we examine how households preferences for and holding of foreign currency deposits are related to individual expectations about monetary conditions and network effects we also examine to what extent monetary expectations and deposit euroization are the legacy of past financial crises or the outflow of current policies and institutions in the region our findings suggest that deposit euroization in central eastern and southeastern europe can be partly tackled by prudent monetary and economic decisions by today s policymakers the preferences of households for euro deposits are partly driven by their distrust in the stability of their domestic currency which in turn is related to their assessment of current policies and institutions however our findings also suggest that a stable monetary policy may not be sufficient to deal with the hysteresis of deposit euroization across the region first we confirm that the holding of foreign currency deposits has become a habit in the region second we find that deposit euroization is still strongly influenced by households experiences of financial crises in the 1990s our findings question the effectiveness of supply side interventions e g bank regulation or demand side interventions e g local currency capital market development in de euroizing household savings first we show that deposit euroization is largely demand driven second we show that households already have access to a broad range of savings products in local currency

identification of endogenous social effects the reflection problem this paper examines the reflection problem that arises when a researcher observing the distribution of behaviour in a population tries to infer whether the average behaviour in some group influences the behaviour of the individuals that comprise the group it is found that inference is not possible unless the researcher has prior information specifying the compisition of reference groups if this information is available the prospects for inference depend critically on the population relationship between the variables defining reference groups and those directly affecting outcomes inference is difficult to implossible if these variables are functionally dependent or are statistically independent the prospects are better if the variables defining reference groups and those directly affecting outcomes are moderately related in the population

do demand curves for stocks slope down since september 1976 stocks newly included into the standard and poor s 500 index have earned a significant positive abnormal return at the announcement of the inclusion this return does not disappear for at least ten days after the inclusion the returns are positively related to measures of buying by index funds consistent with the hypothesis that demand curves for stocks slope down the returns are not related to s p s bond ratings which is inconsistent with a plausible version of the hypothesis that inclusion is a certification of the quality of the stock

venture capital and high technology entrepreneurship abstract venture capital clearly plays an important role in high technology entrepreneurship the purpose of this article is to explain the differences among various venture capital complexes focusing on where venture capital is important to innovation and entrepreneurship and conversely where it is not we do so through an empirical and historical examination of the seven most important venture capital complexes california san francisco silicon valley massachusetts boston new york illinois chicago texas connecticut and minnesota minneapolis we establish a three part tripartite typology for explaining the differences between these venture capital complexes 1 technology oriented complexes are located close to concentrations of high technology intensive businesses invest most of their funds locally and are net attractors of capital 2 finance oriented complexes are located around financial institutions and export their capital and 3 hybrid complexes mix characteristics of both technology and finance oriented venturing our findings have a series of important practical implications although venture capital is not absolutely necessary to facilitate high technology entepreneurship well developed venture capital networks provide tremendous incentives for entrepreneurship by lowering the difficulties of entering an industry venture capitalists use both their experience and their contacts to reduce many of the information and opportunity costs associated with new business formation the importance of contact networks and information to both deal flow and investment monitoring goes a low way toward explaining why venture capitalists cluster tightly together the availability of venture capital also attracts entrepreneurs and high quality personnel to a region creating a virtuous circle of new enterprise formation innovation and economic development private nonprofit and subsidized public efforts aimed at providing venture capital and stimulating high technology entrepreneurship must confront the fact that venture capital alone will not magically generate entrepreneurship and economic development it is important that such efforts recognize the nonfinancial side of venture investing and attract experienced personnel who can tap into established entrepreneurial networks and secure coinvestors more significantly establishing public venture funding in an area lacking the requisite entrepreneurial climate or technology infrastructure may create a catch 22 situation where locally oriented funds invest in bad deals or where venture capital is simply exported to established high technology regions

currency substitution and the precautionary demand for money abstract although the implications of currency substitution have received considerable attention recently the microeconomic foundations of this phenomenon seem largely to have been taken for granted the present paper considers the precautionary motive for holding cash balances as one possible motivation for the currency substitution hypothesis a three asset model is presented in which transaction costs are explicit and an agent is faced with uncertain cash requirements in two different currencies the role played by the expected rate of depreciation in the optimal portfolio allocation is found to conform with prior beliefs