is bitcoin really untethered this paper investigates whether tether a digital currency pegged to the u s dollar influenced bitcoin and other cryptocurrency prices during the 2017 boom using algorithms to analyze blockchain data we find that purchases with tether are timed following market downturns and result in sizable increases in bitcoin prices the flow is attributable to one entity clusters below round prices induces asymmetric autocorrelations in bitcoin and suggests insufficient tether reserves before month ends rather than demand from cash investors these patterns are most consistent with the supply based hypothesis of unbacked digital money inflating cryptocurrency prices

the translation of corporate governance changes across national cultures the case of germany contrasting systems of corporate governance persist internationally but are subject to regulatory and firm level institutional change such changes may be viewed as organisational innovations often imported from the usa in the face of different national cultures this paper analyses the implications of national culture for the translation of innovations and provides case study illustrations of regulatory and firm level governance changes experienced in germany these illustrations demonstrate that the diffusion of both kinds of change has been subject to substantial translation that is consistent with german national culture

corporate social responsibility and socially responsible investing a global perspective this research examines the relationship between corporate social responsibility csr and company stock valuation across three regions of the world after a brief introduction the article gives an overview of the evolving definition of csr as well as a discussion of the ways in which this construct has been operationalized presentation of the potential impact of corporate social performance on firm financial performance follows including investor characteristics the rationale behind their choices and their influence on the marketplace for securities worldwide the unique method used to select socially responsible investments is then provided that also includes a description of the quantitative techniques employed in the analyses results are offered subsequently and the close describes implications for global enterprises as socially responsible investments

is ecommerce boundary less effects of individualism collectivism and uncertainty avoidance on internet shopping from publicly available data we identified two national culture dimensions individualism collectivism and uncertainty avoidance and their interaction that influences internet shopping rates across a wide spectrum of countries together these factors accounted for 14 of the explained variance on top of the combined variance of 63 explained by national income level educational level economic growth rate unemployment rate and crime rate in predicting internet shopping rates for countries lower in uncertainty avoidance individualist cultures show higher internet shopping rates than do collectivist cultures implications for national and internet firm level web design strategies are discussed

the impact of tether grants on bitcoin abstract in recent years tether issuances or grants have increased significantly which correlated broadly with a significant rise in bitcoin valuation this paper examines the impact of cryptocurrency issuances on subsequent cryptocurrency returns it is argued that as tether is the undisputed stable coin the minting of new tether acts similarly to monetary expansion in cryptocurrency markets inflating the prices of bitcoin we construct a var model and show contrary to investor expectations tether issuances do not impact subsequent bitcoin returns however they do impact traded volumes we also document an increase in tether trading following a subsequent decrease in bitcoin returns

evaluation of the subjective probabilities of survival in the health and retirement study in the health and retirement study respondents were asked about the chances they would live to 75 or to 85 we analyze these responses to determine if they behave like probabilities of survival if their averages are close to average probabilities in the population and if they have correlations with other variables that are similar to correlations with actual mortality outcomes we find that generally they do behave like probabilities and that they do aggregate to population probabilities most remarkable however is that they covary with other variables in the same way actual outcomes vary with the variables for example respondents with higher socioeconomic status give higher probabilities of survival whereas respondents who smoke give lower probabilities we conclude that these measures of subjective probabilities have great potential use in models of intertemporal decision making under uncertainty

penny wise dollar foolish buy sell imbalances on and around round numbers this paper provides evidence that stock traders focus on round numbers as cognitive reference points for value using a random sample of more than 100 million stock transactions we find excess buying selling by liquidity demanders at all price points one penny below above round numbers further the size of the buy sell imbalance is monotonic in the roundness of the adjacent round number i e largest adjacent to integers second largest adjacent to half dollars etc conditioning on the price path we find much stronger excess buying selling by liquidity demanders when the ask falls bid rises to reach the integer than when it crosses the integer we discuss and test three explanations for these results finally 24 hour returns also vary by price point and buy sell imbalances are a major determinant of that variation across price points buying selling by liquidity demanders below above round numbers yield losses approaching 1 billion per year this paper was accepted by brad barber teck ho and terrance odean special issue editors

did community rating induce an adverse selection death spiral evidence from new york pennsylvania and connecticut using data from the 1987 to 1996 march current population surveys we find no evidence for the dire predictions of some that the imposition of pure community rating leads to a market wide reduction in insurance coverage by setting off an adverse selection death spiral specifically the percentage of individuals in small groups covered by health insurance did not fall in new york which enacted community rating legislation in 1993 relative to either pennsylvania which enacted no insurance reform or connecticut which enacted moderate insurance reforms without imposing community rating consistent with the predictions of the simple rothschild and stiglitz 1976 framework however we find that the new yorkreforms appear to have had a significant impact on the structure of the new yorkinsurance mark et specifically new yorkexperienced a dramatic shift away from indemnity insurance toward hmos while this shift tookplace during a period of nationwide increases in the percentage with managed care the increase in hmo penetration in new york s small group and individual markets was significantly greater than in pennsylvania or connecticut

adverse selection in health insurance markets evidence from state small group health insurance reforms abstract the past decade witnessed major changes in state laws governing the sale of health insurance to small employers states took measures to restrict insurers ability to distinguish between high and low risk customers because of concern about the low rate of coverage among workers in small firms the high prices in the small group market and the absence of federal health reform using both individual level and employer level data i test predictions about the effect of reforms on the employer provided health insurance market i estimate these effects for small firms and their workers using large firms and their workers in the same states as well as large and small firms and their workers in non reform states as comparison groups i find the reforms decreased the rate of employer coverage on average for workers in small firms by less than two percentage points within small firms low expenditure individuals experienced a larger decline in the rate of coverage through their employer while the coverage rate of high expenditure individuals rose slightly in some specifications there is also evidence that comprehensive reforms increased premiums slightly for small employers and that most of this increase was passed on to workers through higher employee contributions

cronyism a cross cultural analysis the devastating economic effects of the asian financial crisis and us corporate scandals have underscored the need to strengthen corporate governance provisions although cronyism has been suggested as a leading cause of the two crises it has received little attention from scholars in this paper we analyze the concept of cronyism and argue that it comes in various guises arising from different motivational bases and power dependence relations we distinguish cronyism from related constructs and posit that it is a form of corruption with different dynamics from other forms we advance propositions on its likelihood of occurrence across cultures and develop a typology of cronyist exchanges

multiple dimensions of private information evidence from the long term care insurance market we demonstrate the existence of multiple dimensions of private information in the long term care insurance market two types of people purchase insurance individuals with private information that they are high risk and individuals with private information that they have strong taste for insurance ex post the former are higher risk than insurance companies expect while the latter are lower risk in aggregate those with more insurance are not higher risk our results demonstrate that insurance markets may suffer from asymmetric information even absent a positive correlation between insurance coverage and risk occurrence the results also suggest a general test for asymmetric information

advantageous selection in insurance markets this article reverses the standard conclusion that asymmetric information plus competition results in insufficient insurance provision risk tolerant individuals take few precautions and are disinclined to insure but they are drawn into a pooling equilibrium by the low premiums created by the presence of safer more risk averse types taxing insurance drives out the reckless clients allowing a strict pareto gain this result depends on administrative costs in processing claims and issuing policies as does the novel finding of a pure strategy partial pooling subgame perfect nash equilibrium in the insurance market copyright 2001 by the rand corporation

asymmetric information in insurance general testable implications several recent articles on empirical contract theory and insurance have tested for a positive correlation between coverage and ex post risk as predicted by standard models of pure adverse selection or pure moral hazard we show here that the positive correlationproperty can be extended to general setups competitive insurance markets and cases where risk aversion is public we test our results on a french dataset our tests confirm that the estimated correlation is positive they also suggest the presence of market power

manipulation in the vix at the settlement time of the vix volatility index volume spikes on sp editorial decision june 19 2017 by editor robin greenwood

mapping india s regional subcultures implications for international management as india continues to emerge as a global economic player scholars and practitioners increasingly need to understand the cultural heterogeneity within this large and populous nation based on lenartowicz and roth s framework of culture assessment we have identified nine distinct subcultural regions of india and used explanations grounded in functional and neo institutional theories to account for the origin and maintenance of cultural distinctiveness of these regions further we developed seven cultural value dimensions for the indian society and used these to hypothesize and empirically test the existence of cultural differences within india results supported our hypothesized arguments this study advances our knowledge of how global functional and institutional forces have combined with national forces to shape india s overall culture and how more local forces have shaped its regions methodologically it identifies and develops measures that specifically reflect the values of individuals living in india and uses these to assess intra national cultural differences within this nation further it suggests how use of multiple methods can enable us to understand the simultaneous presence of somewhat contradictory values within a society the study also provides applications of the proposed cultural value dimensions and advises implications of regional subcultures for various social and organizational phenomena

endogenous information adverse selection and prevention implications for genetic testing policy we examine public policy toward the use of genetic information by insurers individuals engage in unobservable primary prevention and have access to different prevention technologies thus insurance markets are affected by moral hazard and adverse selection individuals can choose to take a genetic test to acquire information about their prevention technology information has positive decision making value that is individuals may adjust their behavior based on the result of the test however testing also exposes individuals to uncertainty over the available insurance contract so called classification risk which lowers the value of information in our analysis we distinguish between four different policy regimes determine the value of information under each regime and associated equilibrium outcomes on the insurance market we show that the policy regimes can be pareto ranked with a duty to disclose being the preferred regime and an information ban the least preferred one

the effect of cultural differences on behavioral responses to low job satisfaction this article reports the results of a field study that evaluated behavioral responses to low job satisfaction of participants in hong kong and new zealand culture measured by vertical and horizontal individualism and collectivism had both main and moderating effects on responses first cultural groups responded differently to low job satisfaction with exit voice loyalty or neglect second culture moderated the effect of quality of job alternatives and job satisfaction on exit and loyalty and moderated the effect of quality of job alternatives on voice

collectivist orientation and the psychological contract mediating effects of creditor exchange ideology as organizations globalize culturally based variation in the ways employees conceptualize their relationships with their employers increases in importance in the competition for talent organizations must understand employee preferences and expectations regarding their treatment by the firm recently culture s influence on the psychological contract individual perceptions of employer obligations has been noted with regard to the extent that employees perceive their psychological contracts as relational or transactional we provide results from a survey conducted in a multinational corporation mnc indicating that the cultural value of collectivist orientation likely has its effect on the psychological contract through beliefs about the nature of social exchange data were consistent with creditor exchange ideology appropriateness of giving more than has been received mediating the relationship between collectivist orientation and perceptions of a relational psychological contract by examining this relationship empirically we go beyond the demonstration of cultural effects to describe an intermediate mechanism through which culture operates exchange norms are likely to play a mediating role in a variety of cross cultural relationships and may be used by managers as a lever to improve relationships with employees as opposed to engaging in attempts to change individual cultural orientation

leader openness nationality dissimilarity and voice in multinational management teams we argue that leader directed voice i e communicating critical suggestions for change to the leader is a relational phenomenon and that it is affected by an inherent feature of multinational teams members dis similarities in nationality we tested our hypotheses in a sample of middle managers who were working in multinational teams the results of this study show that leaders of multinational teams are more likely to profit from the local know how of employees from underrepresented nationalities when they are open to their ideas and when they have the same nationality the study also shows that the effects of being open to employees ideas and sharing the same nationality are mediated by affective commitment and psychological safety respectively we discuss how even though the current relational demography perspective with its dichotomous understanding of dis similarity is not suited to capture the dynamics of cultural differences it does set the stage for future studies to examine the cultural dynamics behind an individual s experience of being different from other team members in multinational teams we also discuss the practical implications of these findings for multinational companies

community rating and the market for private non group health insurance abstract prior research on adverse selection in health insurance markets has found only mixed evidence for adverse selection in group settings we examine the impact of state community rating regulations enacted in the 1990s which greatly limited insurers ability to risk rate premiums to determine if adverse selection is more evident in non group insurance markets using data from large national surveys we find evidence of a shift to a less healthy pool of non group enrollees as a consequence of community rating community rating made healthy people 20 to 60 less likely to be insured by non group health insurance in addition we found evidence that young and healthy people were 20 to 30 more likely to be uninsured as a result of community rating we also find evidence that individuals in poor health were 35 to 50 more likely to be insured in the non group market but only limited evidence suggesting that persons in poor health were less likely to be uninsured our results are further supported by findings suggesting that non group enrollees were sicker as a result of the community rating laws lastly we find evidence suggesting that hmo penetration in the non group market increased disproportionately in states that implemented community rating relative to states that did not

the effect of self employed health insurance subsidies on self employment abstract this paper estimates the effect of an increase in the deductibility of health insurance premiums for self employed individuals on the probability of being self employed using a panel of tax returns from 1999 to 2004 we estimate fixed effects instrumental variable regressions for the probability of being self employed entering into self employment and exiting from self employment our results suggest that this policy increased the probability of being self employed by 1 5 percentage points and increased the probability that a taxpayer would be primarily or exclusively self employed by 1 1 and 0 35 percentage points respectively these effects explain about a third to a half of the total increase in self employment by these definitions over the sample period we also find that the probability of entering self employment increased by 0 8 percentage points and find suggestive evidence that the probability of exit decreased by 2 8 percentage points

price and volume effects associated with changes in the s p 500 list new evidence for the existence of price pressures attempts to identify price pressures caused by large transactions may be inconclusive if the transactions convey new information to the market this problem is addressed in an examination of prices and volume surrounding changes in the composition of the s p 500 since these changes cause some investors to adjust their holdings of the affected securities and since it is unlikely that the changes convey information about the future prospects of these securities they provide an excellent opportunity to study price pressures the results are consistent with the price pressure hypothesis immediately after an addition is announced prices increase by more than 3 percent this increase is nearly fully reversed after 2 weeks the efficient market hypothesis emh predicts that security prices reflect all publicly available information therefore one corollary of the emh is that you can sell or buy large blocks of stock at close to the market price as long as you can convince other investors that you have no private information 1 this statement assumes that securities are near perfect substitutes for each other if so the excess demand for a single security will be very elastic and the sale or purchase of a large number of shares will have no impact on price in contrast to the emh scholes 8 kraus and stoll 5 hess and frost 4 and others propose two hypotheses which predict that a large stock sale purchase will cause the price to decrease increase even if no new information is associated with the transaction the imperfect substitutes hypothesis ish also known as the distribution effect hypothesis assumes that securities are not close substitutes for each other and hence that long term demand is less than perfectly elastic under this hypothesis equilibrium prices change when demand curves shift to eliminate excess demand price reversals are not expected because the new price reflects a new equilibrium distribution of security holders the price pressure hypothesis pph assumes that investors who accommodate demand shifts must be compensated for the transaction costs and portfolio risks that they bear when they agree to immediately buy or sell securities which they otherwise would not trade these passive suppliers of liquidity are attracted by immediate price drops rises associated with large sales purchases they are compensated for their liquidity service when prices rise drop to their fullinformation levels the pph like the emh assumes that long run demand is

price manipulation in the bitcoin ecosystem abstract to its proponents the cryptocurrency bitcoin offers the potential to disrupt payment systems and traditional currencies it has also been subject to security breaches and wild price fluctuations this paper identifies and analyzes the impact of suspicious trading activity on the mt gox bitcoin currency exchange in which approximately 600 000 bitcoins btc valued at 188 million were fraudulently acquired during both periods the usd btc exchange rate rose by an average of four percent on days when suspicious trades took place compared to a slight decline on days without suspicious activity based on rigorous analysis with extensive robustness checks the paper demonstrates that the suspicious trading activity likely caused the unprecedented spike in the usd btc exchange rate in late 2013 when the rate jumped from around 150 to more than 1 000 in two months

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

presidential address asset price dynamics with slow moving capital i describe asset price dynamics caused by the slow movement of investment capital to trading opportunities the pattern of price responses to supply or demand shocks typically involves a sharp reaction to the shock and a subsequent and more extended reversal the amplitude of the immediate price impact and the pattern of the subsequent recovery can reflect institutional impediments to immediate trade such as search costs for trading counterparties or time to raise capital by intermediaries i discuss special impediments to capital formation during the recent financial crisis that caused asset price distortions which subsided afterward after presenting examples of price reactions to supply shocks in normal market settings i offer a simple illustrative model of price dynamics associated with slow moving capital due to the presence of inattentive investors i address the implications for asset price dynamics of the apparent slow movement of investment capital to trading opportunities the arrival of new capital to an investment opportunity can be delayed by fractions of a second in some markets for example an electronic limit order book market for equities or by months in other markets such as that for catastrophe risk insurance accordingly prices respond to supply or demand shocks with a sharp reaction because of the relatively small subset of capital and thus risk bearing capacity that is immediately available to absorb a shock on short notice such a price impact is substantially reversed over time as additional capital becomes available the amplitude of the immediate price impact and the pattern of the subsequent recovery can reflect many sorts of attention costs to trade as well as institutional impediments to capital movement such as search costs for trading

empowerment effects across cultures three studies examined cross cultural variations in empowerment effects study 1 investigated whether hofstede s power distance scores moderated the effect of job autonomy on job satisfaction using world values survey data on 33 nations study 2 surveyed frontline hotel employees from canada and prc to investigate the moderating role of power distance at the individual level in study 3 hotel management students from canada and prc were asked to play the role of a frontline employee who had to handle a special customer request in a scenario experiment these studies show consistently that the cultural value of power distance moderates the effect of empowerment on job satisfaction moreover willingness to accept and exercise the discretionary power allowed by management and desire to satisfy customer needs and wants are two employee conditions that are essential for the successful implementation of the empowerment approach

does health reform affect self employment evidence from massachusetts this paper evaluates whether the implementation of the 2006 massachusetts health reform law affected the decision of taxpayers to be self employed using both difference in differences and synthetic control methods on a panel of tax returns that spans 1999 2010 though tenuous our results suggest that the reform led to a decline in the rate of taxpayers earning a majority of income from self employment in addition it appears to have had a positive impact on earning some self employment income among joint filers and earning the majority of income from self employment among older taxpayers but these were offset by negative impacts on single filers and taxpayers age 35 49

how has small group market reform affected employee health insurance coverage abstract in the early 1990s over 40 states passed legislation designed to limit a number of exclusionary practices by insurers in the small group market in order to improve the availability and affordability of health insurance to employees in small firms in this paper we address the effects of reform on the likelihood that workers are offered insurance have employment based coverage or are policyholders of an employment based plan we use differences in differences dd and differences in differences in differences ddd estimators to evaluate the differential effects of alternative reform measures on high and low risk workers we generally find little effect of reform on offer rates and find that in states with the most stringent reform employment based coverage and policyholder rates increased for high risk workers relative to low risk workers our results also indicate that the effects of reform varied significantly by the extent to which states adopted guaranteed issue