Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Investor Relations Executives in the Top Management Team

We examine the role of investor relations (IR) executives in the top management team and find that firms incorporating the IR function in their top management team are more likely to beat analysts’ estimates and exhibit more downward earnings guidance. We also provide evidence that these firms manage analysts’ expectations rather than manage earnings and are more likely to have lower analyst forecast dispersion, a lower probability of informed trading, and fewer earning restatements, all of which suggest that IR executives tend to reduce information asymmetry. Consistent with this, we also find that firms with IR executives experience less capital constraints and lower litigation risk. For identification, we first provide results using a difference-in-difference framework that stock return volatility and idiosyncratic volatility are lower in firms with IR executives following the 2008 financial crisis relative to firms without IR executives. We also document a faster decrease in option market implied volatility following the exogenous shock of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in firms with IR executives in the top management team relative to firms without. Overall, the evidence is consistent with IR executives improving the alignment between management and investors.
Picking ‘Winners’ in China: Do Subsidies Matter for Indigenous Innovation and Firm Productivity?

Relying on firm-level data from China, this paper combines matching techniques with a structural framework to study the effects of public subsidies across multiple stages of innovation and the implications for productivity. The findings reveal that public subsidies reduce firms’ economic performance despite promoting indigenous innovation, at least in the higher technology industries. Policymakers may tolerate lower average efficiency if they expect that some of the state-backed firms will go on to become successful innovators, and in turn generate significantly large social welfare payoffs. However, the findings do not support such an expectation, thus bringing into question whether the social payoff from picking ‘winners’ justifies the cost.
Evolutionary Homoplasy among Species Flocks of Central Alpine Coregonus (Teleostei: Salmoniformes)

Abstract Evolution of phenotype and mode of speciation were examined for 19 Coregonus populations within and among eight lakes in the Central Alpine region of Europe. These populations reflect a mosaic of morphological, ecological, and life history traits, and thus represent numerous forms (qualitatively described according to relative body size and ecology). Each population had been previously evaluated for six microsatellite DNA loci, and herein for five meristic counts, four fin pigmentation characters, three body color variables, three measures relating to spawning ecology, an estimate of breeding tubercles, and average weight (= size). The two matrices (genotype vs. phenotype/ecology) were then tested for significance amongst themselves, and against evolutionary and geographic models. Microsatellite data associated significantly with a species flock model in which in situ diversification occurred from a common ancestor in each lake or cluster of neighboring lakes. However, phenotype/ecology associated significantly with a model invoking multiple invasions of lakes by pre-existing forms. The latter supports historic perspectives on the evolution of Central Alpine Coregonus and suggests forms within lakes have adapted to specific within-lake environmental niches that are replicated across lakes. This convergence of form and function has long clouded an understanding of coregonine biodiversity, and we suggest it represents a homoplasious condition (i.e., a similarity due not to genealogy but to iteration). This compendium of homoplasious and homologous characters is actually quite unique in nature, and the evolutionary diversification of Central Alpine Coregonus can now be evaluated according to the relative contribution of each character type.
Poverty, Armed Conflict and Human Rights: An Analysis of the Objective Causes of Violence in Colombia

This work analyses the influence of economic variables, poverty and armed conflict on violence in Colombia. For this purpose, a time series method is used to analyse economic and social data through which different long-term coefficients are estimated in order to determine the effects of these variables on violence in Colombia from 1950 to 2006. Socioeconomic characteristics, poverty and variables associated with armed conflict affect the dynamics of violence, and moreover, there are various political variables that have a notable influence upon the determinants of violence in Colombia. More precisely, variables associated with a lack of state presence in some regions and educational aspects are determinant factors that influence the incidence of violence in the country.
Determinants of Structural Changes of Food Exports from Developing Countries

Over the past three decades, there has been a rapid expansion of processed food exports in developing countries, replacing traditional agriculture exports such as coffee and tea. However, this development and its policy implications have received little attention in the literature. This paper aims to redress this oversight by providing an overview of key characteristics and growth patterns of processed food exports in developing countries. The determinants of structural changes toward processed food exports in developing countries are examined using panel data econometric analysis. The results suggests that trade policy openness, large domestic market, good macroeconomic management especially in terms of price stability, as well as adequate financial support and infrastructure are the key factors that influence the structural changes toward processed food products.
A Systems Approach to Malaria Control: Institutional Perspective

This study introduces a systems approach to malaria control from an institutional perspective. This approach allows us to characterize the system of complex linkages of health, environmental, agricultural, economic, political, and social organizations that share a common goal of improving living conditions of poor communities through reduced malaria. These linkages are expected to facilitate the generation, dissemination, and application of relevant information by the organizations in the so-called malaria control system. Implicitly assumed by the approach is the premise that the relevant information in the control of malaria is generated everywhere in the society and should therefore be made available to all relevant parties to lead to improvements in the living conditions of people through effective anti-malaria activities. The study further describes how to apply the approach, provides in light of the approach a critical assessment of an existing malaria control initiative for sub-Saharan Africa, and with an example from Ghana, indicates the advantages of the approach in the context of planning sustainable malaria control strategies.
Moral Chivalry: Gender and Harm Sensitivity Predict Costly Altruism

Moral perceptions of harm and fairness are instrumental in guiding how an individual navigates moral challenges. Classic research documents that the gender of a target can affect how people deploy these perceptions of harm and fairness. Across multiple studies, we explore the effect of an individual’s moral orientations (their considerations of harm and justice) and a target’s gender on altruistic behavior. Results reveal that a target’s gender can bias one’s readiness to engage in harmful actions and that a decider’s considerations of harm — but not fairness concerns — modulate costly altruism. Together, these data illustrate that moral choices are conditional on the social nature of the moral dyad: Even under the same moral constraints, a target’s gender and a decider’s gender can shift an individual’s choice to be more or less altruistic, suggesting that gender bias and harm considerations play a significant role in moral cognition.
The Impact of European Antitrust Policy: Evidence from the Stock Market

We evaluate the impact of European antitrust policy by analyzing the stock market response to investigation announcements, infringement decisions, and appeals. We examine a sample of 253 companies involved in 118 European antitrust cases over the period 1974-2004. We uncover significantly negative stock price responses of almost -5% around the dawn raid and 2% around the final decision, and a significantly positive response of up to 4% around a successful appeal. These numbers correspond to a total market value loss of €24 billion around the raid and the decision, of which roughly 75% cannot be explained by fines and legal costs. The stock market thus anticipates a significant decrease in future profitability as a result of European antitrust action. The magnitude of the stock market response depends on the fine, the duration of the infringement, and in particular the size of the firm and media attention. Small firms suffer more from an infringement decision than large firms. Greater newspaper coverage is associated with a more pronounced response, which suggests an important role for reputational effects.
Sterinanalyse als Mittel zum Nachweis von Vermischungen und Verfälschungen

Sterine sind Bestandteile aller pflanzlichen und tierischen Fette. Die Zusammensetzung der Sterinfraktion ist vielfach so charakteristisch, das sich dadurch Fette identifizieren und Vermischungen und Verfalschungen nachweisen lassen. Die Sterinanalyse erlangte besondere Bedeutung zur Untersuchung der Reinheit von Butterfett und Olivenol, aber auch fur andere, besonders teure Speisefette ist sie ein wertvolles Hilfsmittel zur Kontrolle von Identitat und Reinheit. Sterol Analysis as Means to Detection of Mixed and Adulterated Fats Sterols are components of all vegetable and animal fats. The identification of fats is often possible by sterol analysis, because their composition is mostly characteristic for a fat. Even adulteration and mixtures with other fats can be detected. For example sterol analysis is very important for investigation of purity and identity of butterfat, olive oils and other expensive food fats.
On the Impact of Fundamentals, Liquidity and Coordination on Market Stability

Complex interactions between fundamentals and liquidity during unstable periods in financial markets are succinctly modeled with coordination games. We propose a flexible framework to estimate such a model and use the efficient method of moments as estimation procedure. We illustrate the model by using exchange rates from the yen-dollar carry trade induced uncertainty in 1998, interest rate spreads and global market volatility. The model fits the data well, with evidence of low information disparities, the market is generally very deep, where global volatility is more important than fundamental uncertainty in the determination of liquidity. There is clear evidence of asymmetry between the buy and sell sides of the market.
The Valuation of Mergers and Acquisitions in the Stock Market Based on the Real Options Approach

The purpose of this study is to develop a valuation framework for mergers and acquisitions by explicitly incorporating the synergy effect of mergers. Based on the real options approach, we introduce the upper and lower bounds of terms for an acquirer that makes a merger profitable to both the acquirer and the target. We show the existence of an optimal timing and terms, depending on the profit flows at the time of the merger. In addition, we analytically and numerically explore when mergers are likely to take place.
When Does the Peer Information Environment Matter?

This paper examines whether and when the information environment of peer firms in an industry affects the cost of capital for other firms in the industry. We predict and find that the peer information environment is negatively associated with a firm's cost of capital when there is less publicly available firm-specific information and this negative association shrinks as the amount of firm-specific information increases. This paper provides evidence that information about peer-firms has externalities on the cost of capital for related firms and that these externalities are time-varying.
Bias in the Effective Bid-Ask Spread

Abstract The effective bid-ask spread measured relative to the spread midpoint overstates the true effective bid-ask spread in markets with discrete prices and elastic liquidity demand. The average bias is 13%–18% for S&P 500 stocks in general, depending on the estimator used as benchmark, and up to 97% for low-priced stocks. Cross-sectional bias variation across stocks, trading venues, and investor groups can influence research inference. The use of the midpoint also undermines liquidity timing and trading performance evaluations, and can lead non-sophisticated investors to overpay for liquidity. To overcome these problems, the paper proposes new estimators of the effective bid-ask spread.
How is Information (Under-) Valued? Evidence from Framed Field Experiments

Rational endogenous information acquisition plays a key role in many economic models. This assumption may be violated, however, if agents are overconfident about their knowledge. In a novel field experiment, businesspeople experts made guesses about the price and quality of actual websites. They then had the opportunity to purchase information to improve their guesses. I find that experts exhibit significant overconfidence and that overconfidence is associated with a lower demand for information. On average, experts significantly underpay for information. However, overconfidence is unlikely to provide a full explanation for suboptimal information investment. Even if the value of information is adjusted to account for subjects’ overconfidence or subjects’ tendency to sometimes misuse information, subjects still underpay for information.
Does Systematic Risk Matter for Investors in Capital Market of Pakistan?

Risk and returns relationship is not similar in emerging and developed stock markets. Moreover, due to reasons such as family ownership, lesser trading volume, and smaller capital market, investors in Pakistan are not sufficiently diversified. Therefore, it is argued that both idiosyncratic and market risks are relevant, and hence beta (measure of market risk) underestimates the risk premium. More specifically, we use measures of risk such as beta, systematic risk, unsystematic risk, and total risk as independent variables to investigate if unsystematic and total risk will explain variation in stock prices in stock market of Pakistan? Data of 194 nonfinancial firms listed on KSE (now PSX) for a period of time from January 5, 2004 to October 13, 2008 is analyzed. It is concluded that assets’ pricing decisions in Pakistan stock market are based on factors other than these measures of risks. To make right decisions, we suggest that investors in Pakistan must use alternate asset pricing models and shall not rely solely on CAPM.
Origin of clonal diversity in triploid parthenogenetic Trichoniscus pusillus pusillus (Isopoda, Crustacea) based upon allozyme and nucleotide sequence data

Variation in PGM (phosphoglucomutase) and MDH (malate dehydrogenase) allozymes and in mitochondrial and nuclear (ribosomal) DNA gives evidence of at least three independent origins of triploid Trichoniscus pusillus pusillus. Much of the genetic variation found may reflect variation within the parental diploid population(s), but it is argued that some of the variation in PGM allozymes have accumulated within the parthenogenetic lines. Based upon the variation at this locus, 15 genetically distinct clones are distinguished.
Ace vs. Cbit: Which is Better for Investment and Welfare?

This paper analyses the switch to an ACE or to a CBIT type of tax system starting from the present German tax system. We show that in case an ACE type of reform is financed by an increase in the VAT and not in the profit tax, it might be preferred to a CBIT even in the context of an open economy. Moreover, the required exogenous increase in the profit tax rate cannot ensure revenue neutrality on its own due to the negative general equilibrium effects it triggers on the whole economy. For a CBIT, the exogenous reduction in the tax rates on corporate and non-corporate profits leads to better results than when we allow for an endogenous change in the VAT. The best results arise when the CBIT is accompanied by a provision for immediate write-off and a lower profit tax or when the ACE with no additional capital gains taxation on the household side is financed by an increase in the VAT.
Effect of fixation on particle retention by microflagellates: underestimation of grazing rates

The uptake of fluorescent particles by protists and filter-feeding metazoa is being used increasingly by microbial ecologists to study feeding behavior and measure grazing rates. Recent studies of microflagellate uptake of these inert particles have yielded inconsistent results. In particular. grazing rates determined from fluorescent particle uptake are often less than rates measured using other techniques. These low uptake rates have been attributed to osmotrophy, food quality or size selection, rapid egestion of inert particles, and the slower feeding by free-living, as opposed to attached, protists. We have found that a variety of flagellates egest food vacuole contents upon fixation with several commonly used agents including glutaraldehyde and formaldehyde. During time course experiments, the observed microsphere uptake rate for a small chrysomonad flagellate using 1 % glutaraldehyde was only 6 % of the rate obtained by using the fixation method of van der Veer (1982) (2 '10 acrolein, 2 % glutaraldehyde and 1 % tannic acid), modified for epifluorescence microscopy. Uptake rates of several mixed flagellate populations also were 2.4 to 3.1 times higher using the modified van der Veer method than with 1 % glutaraldehyde. The average number of ingested microspheres cell-' using this method was simllar to that observed in live cells immobilized with NiS04. Glutaraldehyde also caused the egestion of Synechococcus sp. cells and fluorescently labelled bacteria from the chrysomonad flagellate. We conclude that previous studies using common aldehyde fixation wlth particle uptake for measunng rates of microflagellate bacterivory have significantly underestimated actual rates of consumpt~on, and that these s tudes must be re-evaluated, and perhaps repeated, using effective fixation methods.
Armington Elasticities Estimates for Uruguayan Manufacturing Sectors

The high degree of openness of the Uruguayan economy and the fact that the country is characterised by being constantly subject to shocks, strongly suggest the use of simulation tools that allow for predicting its future evolution under different scenarios. Currently, Computable General Equilibrium Models (CGEMs) applied to trade are one of the most potentially powerful available instruments for doing such analyses. Although there already exists some research performing this methodology for Uruguay, accumulation in the area is still scarce. As it is well known, operational CGEMs critically rely on the availability of many parameters, especially related to elasticities, among which Armington elasticities of substitution are crucial when the models are applied to trade. In the case of Uruguay, these parameters have been imposed in order to have coherent simulations and/or using available estimates for other economies. Hence, in order to obtain more robust results, it is of upmost interest to specify and estimate Armington models that would provide estimates of the elasticities using Uruguayan data. The work here summarized intends to start filling in this gap. We performed the task at a 4 digit level of disaggregation (ISIC, Rev.2) for 32 manufacturing sectors along 1989 to 2001, using monthly and quarterly data. We specify our models following Armington’s original proposal. In doing so, we took special care in methodological issues that might hinder the robustness of results. Finally, it is worth mentioning that, in many cases, the value obtained as the upper bound of the estimated intervals is very similar to the magnitude needed for CGEMs simulations to be sensible, as reported in the literature and, particularly, when compared with those stemming from GTAP.
COVID-19 and Oil Prices: Effects on the Colombian Peso Exchange Rate

The present study aims to analyze the effect of COVID-19 (2019-nCoV) on the Colombian peso market exchange rate between February 16, and March 14, 2020. This period was selected because therein, the pandemic expanded toward South America and the first case was diagnosed in Colombia. Also, during the same period, a shock was observed in the market representative exchange rate. To verify this effect, a Vector Autoregressive Model (VAR), without arbitrary restrictions, was developed. This was done, given that there is insufficient evidence to presume a causal relationship between the Colombian exchange rate and 2019-nCoV, and between 2019-nCoV and oil prices. Among the principal results is that the Colombian peso depreciation process against the dollar, during said period, is explained by a mixed effect between COVID-19 and oil prices, with greater ease of explanation of the variation of COVID-19 than oil prices. This highlights the short-term effect of the pandemic media coverage on the Colombian economy.
Snook and Tarpon Snook Culture and Preliminary Evaluation for Commercial Farming

Abstract Western Atlantic centropomids, especially snook (Centropomus undecimalis), have potential for culture as food fish in fresh- or saltwater ponds, pens, or raceways. In this study, snook and tarpon snook (C. pectinatus) were reared to market size. Salt water was required for rearing early larvae, but juveniles grew fastest in fresh water at 27-28°C. A suitable feeding program included: rotifers (Brachionus plicatilis) and Artemia sp. nauplii, followed by dry starter and grower feeds. Feed conversion values (dry weight of feed eaten/wet weight gained by fish) for experimental dry feeds fed to snook weighing 16-725 g were in the range 0.7-1.1. Feed conversion was directly related to carbohydrate content and inversely related to protein content. Shook will begin to eat dry feed within 35 d after hatching and, at temperatures of 26-30°C, can be reared to a mean weight of 450 g in 1 year or less with a feed cost of less than $0.30/ fish. The slower-growing and thinner tarpon snook is a less likely candi.
Zooplankton composition in Lake Varano (Adriatic Sea coast, Italy)

Abstract The zooplankton composition of Lake Varano has been studied from June 2007 to May 2008 considering three sampling stations (western, central, eastern). A total of 55 zooplankton categories were recognised, with medusae Aurelia aurita as the main macroscopic species; 43 of them occurred in less than 50% of the 71 samples collected, highlighting the seasonal aspect of the community. The remaining 12 categories, present in more than 50% of samples, were numerically dominated by the copepod ‘Non Indigenous Species’ Acartia tonsa (reported here for the first time in the lake), which occurred throughout the year. Maximal abundance of zooplankton was recorded in the eastern sampling station, while the lowest values were recorded in the central one. The statistical analysis of data allowed us to establish a not sharp separation of the three sampling stations, apart from isolated dates. The present zooplankton assemblage showed that about 40% of its components differed from those recorded in a study of 18 years before. This last comparison is not easily referable to the ongoing climate warming (the dominant species are of cold temperate origin) and analysis of uninterrupted time series could be useful to understand the underlying reasons.