1,721,718 research outputs found
The relevance of security analyst opinions for investment decisions
No full textSecurity analysts analyze information regarding publicly traded companies after which they publish their opinion regarding these companies’ stocks. In this dissertation the published opinions of two different types of analysts are analyzed. Technical analysts derive a recommendation to buy, hold, or sell a stock from past price and volume data. Fundamental analysts analyze firm fundamentals such as corporate earnings and growth prospects. They subsequently publish a recommendation and a target price which captures the analyst’s expectations regarding the future stock price. The extent to which the stock market responds to the announcement of analyst recommendations provides information about the degree of market efficiency. This dissertation shows that technical analyst recommendations published on both stocks and the market index in the Netherlands are strongly related to short-term historical price trends. However, on average no abnormal returns are observed after the publication of this type of recommendations. It could therefore not be established that technical analyst recommendations are relevant for investment decisions. Hence, the notion of weak-form market efficiency could not be rejected. In contrast, the stock market is not fully semi-strong efficient, as analyst opinions exhibit relevance for investment decisions: recommendations regarding South African stocks are related to future stock price performance, and target price implied returns are positively associated with realized takeover premiums in the United States (US). Furthermore, US merger bids below the average target price are more likely to be rejected. With regard to takeover bids, general determinants of cross-border takeover activity are also studied in this dissertation. It is found that especially valuation played an important role: acquirers (targets) tend to originate from countries with relatively high (low) market-to-book values
Horizontal integration in markets for complementary components and vertical product differentiation: A case-based analysis in the semiconductor industry
No full textObservations of recent mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the semiconductor and computer industry indicate that activities concentrate on the technology leaders in this market. The author examines the influence of players’ heterogeneous product technologies on their involvement in M&A. He provides a rationale for the influence with the help of a case study and a two-stage non cooperative game. The case is about an acquisition wave between suppliers in two semiconductor component markets. Exemplary for the whole industry, acquisition activities concentrated on the technology leader in one of the component markets. Technological heterogeneity is represented within a vertically differentiated product space in the model
Towards a theoretical foundation for a multidisciplinary economics
No full textThis article analyses the primary motives that set people in motion, namely the economic, the social and the psychic motive. By integrating the three basic analyses, we formulate an integrated paradigm and analysis that can flinction as a theoretical basis for a multidisciplinary economics. Orthodox economics analyses the force that results from the confrontation between humans and their natural environment. In such a situation humans are driven to maximise the utilities they derive from consuming scarce goods. Orthodox sociology analyses the force that results from the confrontation between (different groups of) humans. In such a situation humans are driven to maximise the status they derive from their position in the social structure, under the constraint of the norms that are set by the prevailing culture. Orthodox psychology analyses the force that results from the confrontation between the ‘I’ of a person and his ‘self. We distinguish between an actual and a true self The ‘I’ is a rational decision making centre that is assumed to minimise the difference between the actual self and the true self, thereby maximising the respect of the true self for the actual self (self-respect). The drive to maximize self-respect is contrianed by the limited power of the will. This article integrates the three orthodox approaches into one analytical process on the micro level and one on the macro level. Individuals operate in a cultural context, which is determined on the macro level, but have some discretionary room to take their own decisions
Knelpunten in de personeelsvoorziening. Strategieen van werkgevers
No full textOndanks de huidige economische teruggang is de verwachting dat de arbeidsmarkt in de nabije toekomstgekenmerkt zal worden door (structurele) schaarste. Als werkgevers geconfronteerd worden met personeelstekorten, kunnen zij twee categorieën maatregelen nemen: gericht op vergroting van het arbeidsaanbod of gericht op reductie van de vraag naar arbeidskrachten. Op basis van gegevens van 1.054 organisaties wordt beschreven welke maatregelen Nederlandse werkgevers in de publieke en private sector namenin 2002, toen sprake was van schaarste op de arbeidsmarkt. Binnen deze maatregelen blijken vier strategieën te kunnen worden onderscheiden: ( l) aanboren van nieuwe doelgroepen, (2) vergroten van het arbeidsaanbod van zittend personeel, (3) uitbesteden van werk en samenwerken en (4) structurele aanpassingen. Geen van de strategieën blijkt uitsluitend te bestaan uit vraagreducerende dan wel aanbodvergro-tende maatregelen. Elke strategie is een mix van beid
Learning About Learning in Dynamic Economic Models
No full textThis chapter of the Handbook of Computational Economics is mostly about research on active learning and is confined to discussion of learning in dynamic models in which the systems equations are linear, the criterion function is quadratic and the additive noise terms are Gaussian. Though there is much work on learning in more general systems, it is useful here to focus on models with these specifications since more general systems can be approximated in this way and since much of the early work on learning has been done with these quadraticlinear-gaussian systems. We begin with what has been learned about learning in dynamic economic models in the last few decades. Then we progress to a discussion of what we hope to learn in the future from a new project that is just getting underway. However before doing either of these it is useful to provide a short description of the mathematical framework that will be used in the chapter
Financial Literacy, Retirement Planning, and Household Portfolio Behavior: Four Empirical Contributions
No full textThis thesis provides empirical evidence on financial skills and the relation with household financial decision-making based upon specially designed questions for the DNB Household Survey (DHS). The majority of the respondents has some grasp of concepts such as interest compounding, inflation, and the time value of money. However, very few go beyond these basic concepts; many households do not know the difference between bonds and stocks, the relationship between bond prices and interest rates, and the basics of risk diversification. The empirical estimates reveal that financial sophistication has a statistically and economically significant impact on private wealth holdings. This is important for public policy, especially in view of the widespread fear that many households do not save enough for retirement. Indeed, we also show that financial sophistication fosters planning for retirement. At the same time, we find that financial knowledge increases the likelihood of entering the stock market, thereby improving opportunities to diversify and taking advantage of the equity premium, which might contribute to better portfolio management and higher wealth as well. This finding contributes to the literature which tries to understand the puzzle of limited stock market participation by focusing on participation costs, as higher levels of financial sophistication lower the costs of collecting and processing information and reduce the relevance of barriers to participation. The same mechanism lowers thresholds to engage in retirement planning activities. Given the important role of financial literacy in decision-making, we can ask ourselves whether we can make decision tasks simpler, e.g. by offering helpful default options (i.e. the choice that follows when no specific action is taken). We investigate the impact of financial literacy and other personal traits on the attractiveness of default options in many situations including e.g. voting participation, having a will, and organ donation, but with a special focus on retirement savings decisions in the Netherlands as well as in the US (based upon data from the RAND American Life Panel). Our results show that default options indeed matter for individual decision-making and that procrastination and financial illiteracy are important determinants of default choices. As financial literacy is limited, one could wonder how households assess the international trend towards more individual responsibility for e.g. retirement. We find that the majority of Dutch employees opposes to changes that provide them with more individual responsibility for their pension provisions. The unwillingness to take investor autonomy might partly be related to a resistance towards changing the status quo, which is that employees in the Netherlands have no direct say in the investment policy of pension funds. Nevertheless, the willingness of employees to take control over their own pension savings correlates in an intuitive way to their risk tolerance, which is especially low in the pension domain, and their self-assessed level of financial literacy. Indeed, Dutch employees recognize their limitations as regards financial decision-making, and an experiment on choices in a hypothetical defined contribution retirement plan corroborates this self-assessed lack of financial skills
How Should Europe’s ICT Ambitions look like? An Interpretative Review of the Facts
No full textIn this Discussion Paper we analyse how Europe’s ICT ambition can be translated into a policy agenda. To achieve this, we provide a quantitative overview of the importance of ICT and the relative position of Europe versus the US. Next we provide a discussion of potential explanations for the differences in ICT use and production. We find that Europe’s position with respect to ICT use and production is not only worse compared to that of the US. In some areas Europe is ahead of the US, whereas in others Europe lags on an aggregate level. Our main conclusion is that Europe should not aim at creating an ICT-production cluster but it should aim at removing barriers to ICT use. The reasons are as follows. It is not a sensible strategy to specialise in industries where one has a comparative disadvantage. Moreover, the largest benefit from ICT is in its use not in its production
Strategic Policy Competition with Public Infrastructure
No full textGovernments try to attract firms and jobs by investing in international infrastructure. We analyse this type of strategic policy competition in a three-country model of monopolistic competition. What governments compete for, is to obtain a so called ‘hub’ position. A hub is a relatively well connected location in a transport network. A hub might thus be an attractive location for firms. However, for a small or backward country the hub position, due to infrastructure investment, is overwhelmed by the disadvantage of a small home-market. As investment to become a hub triggers an investment response from other countries, a backward country is unlikely to keep its relatively attractive position. An attractive location is only sustainable if investment applies to point infrastructure and builds upon a natural advantage (e.g. an harbour). The game of action and reaction delivers socially undesirably high levels of infrastructure investment if transport costs are already low and firm mobility is high
Tolerance, aesthetics, amenities or jobs? Dutch city attraction to the creative class
No full textRichard Florida stated that it is not (only) job opportunities or urban amenities which attract creative high-educated people to cities but, rather, tolerance and aesthetics. We have tested this hypothesis in a cross section of Dutch cities. Our conclusion is that the tolerance/creative class nexus empirically fails to materialize for the Netherlands. However, the aesthetic assets of cities do provide a strong explanation for both share and growth of the creative class in Dutch cities. Beside that, job opportunities and urban amenities are still the most important factors influencing the choice for a place of residence
Skills and Creativity in a Cross-section of Dutch Cities
No full textIn this paper we examine Richard Florida’s Creative Capital theory in comparison with Human Capital theory, using a cross section of Dutch cities as our sample. Employment growth in Dutch cities can be predicted both from local education levels and from the presence of a large creative class, but especially from the latter. We conclude that in theory creativity is not very different from human capital. Nevertheless Florida’s creative class is a better standard to measure human capital then education is
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