174,444 research outputs found
Shareholder Lock-In Contracts: Share Price and Trading Volume Effects at the Lock-In Expiry
No full textThis paper unveils the diversity in lock-in agreements of firms listed on the Nouveau Marche stock exchange in France.We give the main economic reasons why shareholders adopt lock-in agreements that are more stringent than legally required.We relate the abnormal returns and the abnormal volume at the expiry dates of the different types of lock-in contracts to the degree of underpricing, venture-capitalist reputation and underwriter reputation.Abnormal returns and trading volume increase at the lock-in expiry; this is especially pronounced at the expiry dates of insider lock-in contracts as insiders are legally required to be locked-in.We do not find significant abnormal returns at the expiries of VC contracts, even though trading volume increases at their lock-in expiry.There is also no evidence of a positive (negative) relation between abnormal returns (abnormal volume) and more stringent lock-in contracts.Lock-in contracts and the degree of underpricing are complementary signalling devices.shareholders;venture capital;lock-in agreements;lock-up contracts;lock-in expiry;lock-up expiry;signaling;underwriter reputation;underpricing
LOCK CONGESTION AND ITS IMPACT ON GRAIN BARGE RATES ON THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI RIVER
No full textAn anticipated increase in lock delays on the upper Mississippi River has generated concern about its future navigational efficiency. The objective of this paper is to identify selected factors affecting lock delay on the River's busiest locks and to examine the impact of lock delay on grain barge rates. Results show that lock unavailability, traffic level, and delay at nearby locks affect lock delay. Further, barge rates are affected by lock delay, however, the impact is modest.Public Economics,
Lock-In Agreements in Venture Capital Backed UK IPOs
No full textThis paper examines the impact of venture-capital backing of UK companies issuing shares at flotation on the characteristics of the lock-in agreements entered into by the existing shareholders, and on the abnormal returns realised around the expiry of the directors' lock-in agreements.The study examines the lock-in agreements of a sample of 186 UK IPOs issued during 1992-98. 103 of these companies had venture-capital backing at the IPO.The sample is also broken down into firms classified by industrial sector: of 103 VC backed companies 48 are high-tech, and among the 83 firms without VC backing 33 are high-tech.We find that lock-in agreements in the UK show much more variety in terms of the contractual detail than US agreements.Lock-in periods are particularly long for venture-backed high-tech companies.By contrast, for firms not in the high-tech sector, venture-capital backing appears to reduce the directors' lock-in periods.This suggests that for UK IPOs venture-capital backing does not serve as a substitute for lock-in agreements.Examining the proportion of locked-in directors' shares, we find it to be significantly higher in VC-backed firms as compared to firms without VC backing in the sample of firms not classified as high tech.This suggests that for firms likely to face only moderate information asymmetries (i.e. those not in high-tech industries), venture-capital backing of the IPO is not used as a substitute for, but rather as a complement to, lock-in agreements.The higher proportion of locked-in directors' shares among VC-backed companies (not in the high-tech sector) may be because the underwriters of VC-backed IPOs expect heavy sales by the VCs in the period after the IPO and decide to lock in the directors' shares and in order to limit the downward pressure of the VC's disposals on stock prices.Alternatively, if VCs do not sell out completely in the IPO, as reported by Barry et al. 1990, they may seek to align the directors' interests with their own by locking the directors in.We also examine the share-price performance of IPOs with and without VC backing around the time of the expiry of the lock-in agreements, and find that the CAARs for the VC-backed stocks are lower for most of the short windows around the expiry date, both for the sample as a whole and separately for each industry sector.For the sample of 28 VC-backed stocks, the CAARs are statistically significantly less than zero at the 1% level for the narrow one-to three-day windows around the expiry date.For the VC-backed stocks, the CAARs range from -1.2% to -1.6% (and even to -2% for the 11-day window, but this result is not statistically significant), while the corresponding CAARs for the stocks without VC backing range only from -0.2% to -0.8.initial public offerings;lock-in;high-tech;venture capital;IPO
Prospective voluntary agreements to escape carbon lock-in
No full textThe paper looks for co-evolutionary policy responses to carbon lock-in - a persistent state that creates systemic market and policy barriers to carbon low technological alternatives. We address the coordination role for authorities rather than the corrective optimisation and analyse experiences from environmental voluntary agreements and foresight activities. The paper argues that combining the virtues of these tools into a new policy tool, named Prospective Voluntary Agreement (PVA), can help facilitate an escape from carbon lock-in and provide policy resources for addressing lock-in related issues.Lock-in , Carbon, Policy responses, Agreements
Capital Gains Taxes and Asset Prices: Capitalization or Lock-In?
No full textThis paper examines the impact on asset prices from a reduction in the long-term capital gains tax rate using an equilibrium approach that considers both demand and supply responses. We demonstrate that the equilibrium impact of capital gains taxes reflects both the capitalization effect (i.e., capital gains taxes decrease demand) and the lock-in effect (i.e., capital gains taxes decrease supply). Depending on time periods and stock characteristics, either effect may dominate. Using the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 as our event, we find evidence supporting a dominant capitalization effect in the week following news that sharply increased the probability of a reduction in the capital gains tax rate and a dominant lock-in effect in the week after the rate reduction became effective. Nondividend paying stocks (whose shareholders only face capital gains taxes) experience higher average returns during the week the capitalization effect dominates and stocks with large embedded capital gains and high tax sensitive investor ownership exhibit lower average returns during the week the lock-in effect dominates. We also find that the tax cut increases the trading volume during the week immediately before and after the tax cut becomes effective and in stocks with large embedded capital gains and high tax sensitive ownership during the dominant lock-in week.
Fatigue of steel lock gates
No full textThe Netherlands contains more than 400 hydraulic structures, of which 120 are locks. Inspections carried out since 2010 by Rijkswaterstaat revealed that a number of cracks per lock gate have been found. Based on experience and an evaluation of the photos made during the inspections it is assumed that the cracks occur due to fatigue. At this moment there is no good insight in the fatigue calculation of steel lock gates. The standard EUROCODE 3 used at the moment, has a part dedicated to fatigue strength, but describes that it is only applicable to structures in atmospheric conditions. As lock gates function in (sea) water conditions, it is questionable whether this standard can be used. Another aspect is that there is no guideline how to determine a load spectrum of forces on lock gates. The following topics are covered: a description of the forces on lock gates, a summation of the observations where cracks have been found, which part of the lock gates should be investigated and the standard that should be used and it’s limitations. Two calculations of fatigue damage based on a simplified model of the forces on lock gates are made. The first investigated case is the West lock of Sambeek and the second is the East lock of Terneuzen. For these lock gates the waterlevel spectrum is determined based on the waterlevel measurements of Rijkswaterstaat. From this spectrum a fatigue damage calculation is made. The results of the fatigue damage calculation based on the simplified schematisation of forces on lock gates did not match the fatigue cracks that have been found during the investigations. Some aspects causing this disparity might be that the schematisation of the lock gate is too simplified and the influence of waves is neglected. Another aspect that could influence the fatigue damage is the maintenance. A poor state of the wooden sealing at the back post, the coating layer and/or the cathodic protection system, could result in lower fatigue damage values. All these aspects have a negative influence on the S-N curve. The fatigue damage calculated with a simplified model cannot determine correct fatigue damage values. Therefore a FEM-model should be used to determine the stresses in the lock gate. The stresses in the lock gate itself should be monitored. A lock gate could be fitted with strain gauges to determine the real stresses in the lock gate. These real stresses could be compared with the result of the FEM-model and confirm the reliability of the FEM-model. Research on the influence of the salt and fresh water condition with or without cathodic protection should be done and rules included in the EUROCODE 3 on the influence of salt and fresh water.Hydraulic Engineering StructuresStructural EngineeringCivil Engineering and Geoscience
Interview with Trevor Lock, part 1.
No full text30 minutes and 43 seconds interview with Trevor Lock. Trevor Lock was born in Portsmouth in 1949 and moved to Leicester in 1975 to work as Information Development Officer at the National Youth Bureau (now the National Youth Agency). He talks about his life in Leicester including running a pub called G3 for 3 to 4 years, living in the first converted mill flats in Deuce House StGeorges and visiting the Helsinki Club where Garage and Happy Hardcore music was played, he also describes the interior of the club. He describes raves at Rack and Roll on a Saturday night that went through to 7am Sunday, the interior of the G Spot sex club, the different "estate tribes" using the pubs in Leicester and the unsafe atmosphere in the city centre in the evenings during the 1970's/80's
IE WP 23/04 Prospective Voluntary Agreements to Escape Carbon Lock-in
No full textThe paper looks for co-evolutionary policy responses to carbon lock-in – a persistent state that creates systemic market and policy barriers to carbon low technological alternatives. We address the coordination role for authorities rather than the corrective optimisation and analyse experiences from environmental voluntary agreements and foresight activities. The paper argues that combining the virtues of these tools into a new policy tool, named Prospective Voluntary Agreement (PVA), can help facilitate an escape from carbon lock-in and provide policy resources for addressing lock-in related issues. The merit of PVA lies with the enhancement of collaborative policy culture and inter-sectoral and interdisciplinary stakeholder learning that creates commitment to desired action for escaping lock-in.environmental voluntary agreement; foresight; increasing returns; lock-in; path-dependence
Learning or Lock-in: Optimal Technology Policies to Support Mitigation
No full textWe investigate conditions that aggravate market failures in energy innovations, and suggest optimal policy instruments to address them. Using an intertemporal general equilibrium model we show that “small” market imperfections may trigger a several decades lasting dominance of an incumbent energy technology over a dynamically more efficient competitor, given that the technologies are very good substitutes. Such a “lock-in” into an inferior technology causes significantly higher welfare losses than market failure alone, notably under ambitious mitigation targets. More than other innovative industries, energy markets are prone to these lock-ins because electricity from different technologies is an almost perfect substitute. To guide government intervention, we compare welfare-maximizing technology policies in addition to carbon pricing with regard to their efficiency, effectivity, and robustness. Technology quotas and feed-in-tariffs turn out to be only insignificantly less efficient than first-best subsidies and seem to be more robust against small perturbations.renewable energy subsidy, renewable portfolio standard, feed-in-tariffs, carbon pricing
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