In a world of heterogeneous investors, a competitive financial market has two major functions. First, it is the mechanism by which ownership of the existing supply of risky assets is distributed among investors. This is the role which is analyzed in detail by the standard Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and its many extensions. The second important market function is to aggregate the diverse information held by different investors into a single price. Most versions of the CAPM eliminate the information aggregation function by assuming that investors hold homogeneous beliefs with respect to the probability distribution of asset returns. Exceptions which deal with some aspects of the problem are Lintner [7], Grossman [4], Grossman and Stiglitz [5], and Figlewski [1, 3 ].

This paper has developed a model of bank margins or spreads in which the bank is viewed as a risk-averse dealer. It was demonstrated that an interest spread or margin would always exist, and that this was the result of transactions uncertainty faced by the bank. Moreover, it was shown that this pure spread depended on four factors: the degree of managerial risk aversion; the size of transactions undertaken by the bank; bank market structure; and the variance of interest rates. The model implied that liability and asset structures had to be analyzed together since they were directly interrelated through transactions uncertainty. It was shown that because of this transactions uncertainty, hedging behavior was perfectly rational within an expected utility maximizing framework. Extending the model from a structure with one kind of loan and deposit to loans and deposits with many maturities should lead to further interesting insights into margin determination especially as “portfolio” effects may become apparent.

The adequacy of the capital asset pricing models (CAPM) of Sharpe [27], Lintner [17], and Black [4] as empirical representations of capital market equilibrium is now seriously challenged (for example, see Ball [1], Banz [2], Basu [3], Cheng and Graver [8], Gibbons [15], Marsh [18], Reinganum [22], and Thompson [20]). Yet, the influence of earlier empirical studies (such as Black, Jensen, and Scholes [5] and Fama and MacBeth [11]) still remains; the current consensus seems to be that a security's beta is still an important economic determinant of equilibrium pricing even though it may not be the sole determinant. In light of the recent empirical evidence, however, the claim that a security's beta is an important determinant of equilibrium pricing should be reexamined.

This paper is concerned with two decisions facing firms with defined benefit, trusteed pension plans: the amount of funds to contribute to the pension fund in any given period; and the selection of a particular mix of assets for that fund. The pension decision area is of importance for many firms today due to the recent rapid growth in pension costs in absolute terms and as a percent of firm profits. Unfunded liabilities (pension benefits payable net of pension assets) have become a sizable component of the capital structure of many firms. Pension funds (assets) also have grown rapidly due to liberalizationof pension benefits, inflation, the higher funding requirements of the pension reform law (ERISA), and the overall aging of the labor force.

This paper generalizes the past signaling literature from one variable to many. Multivariate models have been studied in the general rational expectations literature (e.g., Allen [1], Kraus and Sick [3]), but this appears to be the first multivariate signaling application. (Here, I distinguish signaling from rational expectations literature by the fact that agents may attempt to promulgate, suppress, or add noise to signals.) Talmor studies signaling models which are fully revealing (i.e., for which, in equilibrium, the values of the signaled parameters are correct).

The purpose of this study is to examine the reaction of the Israeli stock market to a major economic reform that took place in Israel on October 28, 1977. On that Friday afternoon, after the closing of all businesses, TV and radio programs were interrupted fora major address by the Treasury Minister. The thrusts of the reform were the liberalization of foreign currency control, the unification of the exchange rates, and the floatingof the Israeli pound.

Historians of modern, multinational, diversified industrial economies have learned that to deduce rigid, authoritarian control of subsidiaries, especially those in foreign countries, from the fact of over-all corporate ownership from afar, often leads to very inaccurate conclusions. The case of Canadian Industries, Ltd., a diversified Canadian chemical company jointly owned by the American and British giants, Du Pont and Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd., reveals that a remarkable degree of independence was retained by the Canadian subsidiary even in such globally important policy matters as diversification, entry into new geographic areas, transfer of technology, and inter-company pricing of materials. Transnational ownership of industrial facilities, in short, produced advantages that were shared by both headquarters and local enterprises, leaving most of the anti-multinational movement to be explained as simpleminded nationalism.

Early textile enterprises faced no trends with greater reluctance than the integration of operations within a single factory and, considerably later, the assignment of formerly family-dominated, entrepreneurial functions to hired factory agents. Samuel Slater, the classic pioneer of factory production of textile yarns, was slow to accept these trends, and only the obvious inability of either him or his family to cope with a rapidly growing and changing industry in the 1820s and 1830s forced him to integrate spinning, weaving, and finishing operations and to turn over broad responsiblity in individual factories to what is perhaps the earliest example of the professional manager.